Steve Wiegand

Article / Updated 10-20-2023

When you look at the problems the British had and then look at the dilemmas the Americans faced, it’s no wonder the American Revolutionary War took eight years. In the early years at least, probably as few as a third of Americans supported the revolution. About 20 percent, called loyalists or Tories after the ruling political party in Britain, were loyal to the crown, and the rest didn’t care much one way or another. Because they weren’t professional soldiers, many of those who fought in the American army had peculiar notions of soldiering. They often elected their officers, and when the officers gave orders they didn’t like, they just elected new ones. The soldiers signed up for a year or two, and when their time was up, they simply went home, no matter how the war — or even the battle — was going. At one point, the colonial army under George Washington was down to 3,000 soldiers. They also weren’t big on sticking around when faced with a British bayonet charge. Many, if not most, battles ended with the Americans running away, so often that Washington once observed in exasperation that “they run from their own shadows.” Regional jealousies often surfaced when soldiers from one colony were given orders by officers from another colony, and there was at least one mutiny that had to be put down by other American units. The American soldiers were ill-fed, ill-housed, and so poorly clothed that in some battles, colonial soldiers fought nearly naked. About 10,000 soldiers spent a bitter winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, literally barefoot in the snow, and about 2,800 of them died. “The long and great sufferings of this army are unexampled in history,” wrote the army’s commander, George Washington. They were also paid in currency called continentals, which became so worthless the phrase “not worth a continental” became a common American saying for decades after the Revolution. Because the money was so worthless, unpatriotic American merchants often sold their goods to the British army instead, even when American troops wore rags and starved. Others cornered the markets on goods such as food and clothing, stockpiling them until the prices rose higher and higher. As a result, desperate army leaders were forced to confiscate goods from private citizens to survive. About the best thing the Americans had going for them was a cause, because men who are fighting for something often fight better. Indeed, as the war wore on, the American soldier became more competent. By the end of 1777, a British officer wrote home that “though it was once the tone of this [British] army to treat them in a most contemptible light, they are now become a formidable enemy.” The fact that there were 13 colonies was also an advantage because it meant there was no single nerve center for which the British could aim. They conquered New York, they took Philadelphia, and still the colonies fought on. America also had rapid growth in its favor. “Britain, at the expense of 3 million [pounds] has killed 150 Yankees in this campaign, which is 20,000 pounds a head,” observed Ben Franklin early during the fighting. “During the same time, 60,000 children have been born in America.” But maybe most important, the Americans were lucky enough to choose an extraordinary leader and smart enough to stick with him. Not only that, he looks good on the dollar bill.

Article / Updated 10-20-2023

The first thing the British had going for them when it came to fighting the Americans was a whole bunch of fighters. The British army consisted of about 50,000 men. They “rented” another 30,000 mercenary German soldiers. In addition, they had the best navy in the world. And the people the Brits were fighting, the colonists, had no regular army, no navy at all, and few real resources to assemble them. But, as America itself was to find out about two centuries later in Vietnam, having the best army and navy doesn’t always mean that much. For one thing, the British people were by no means united in a desire to rein in the colonies. When war broke out, several leading British military leaders refused to take part. Some British leaders also recognized the difficulty of winning a war by fighting on the enemy’s turf thousands of miles from Britain, especially when the enemy was fighting for a cause. “You may spread fire, sword, and desolation, but that will not be government,” warned the Duke of Richmond. “No people can ever be made to submit to a form of government they say they will not receive.” Three factors contributed to Britain’s ultimate downfall: The British political leaders who did support the war were generally inept. Lord North, the prime minister, was a decent bureaucrat but no leader, and he basically did what King George III wanted. And some of the British generals were nincompoops. One of them, leaving for duty in early 1777, boastfully bet a fair sum of money that he would be back in England “victorious from America by Christmas Day, 1777.” By Christmas Day, he had surrendered his entire army. Britain couldn’t commit all its military resources to putting down the rebellion. Because of unrest in Ireland and the potential for trouble with the French, who were still smarting from their defeats by the British in the New World, Britain had to keep many of its forces in Europe. Because the Brits didn’t take their opponents seriously, they had no real plan for winning the war. That meant they fooled around long enough to give the Americans hope. And that gave the French a reason to believe the colonials just might win, so they provided the Americans with what proved to be indispensable arms, money, ships, and troops.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 10-19-2023

This Cheat Sheet provides key dates that outline some of the most important events in U.S. history, which is as complex and fascinating as the people who populate the country.

Article / Updated 08-04-2023

During the mid-1760s, America and Britain had managed to confine their differences to rhetorical battles and bloodless economic boycotts. But the conflict took a decided turn after the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773. In early September 1774, an extraordinary collection of American colonists gathered in Philadelphia. There were 56 of them, from all the colonies except Georgia (whose inhabitants were facing a war with Creek Indians, needed the support of British troops, and therefore didn’t want to irritate government officials in London). All of the 56 were males. About half of them were lawyers. Some, like John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, were among the wealthiest men in America. Others, like Sam Adams of Massachusetts, were so financially strapped friends had to chip in and buy him a decent set of clothes for the convention. There were well-known figures, such as George Washington, John Adams, and Patrick Henry, and men largely unknown outside their colonies. One (Benjamin Harrison of Virginia) would be the father and great-grandfather of future U.S. presidents. Another (Stephen Crane of New Jersey) would be bayoneted to death by German mercenary soldiers during the Revolutionary War. A third (Edward Rutledge of North Carolina) would be, at the age of 26, the youngest man to sign the Declaration of Independence. These men were delegates to what became known as the First Continental Congress. They had been sent by colonial assemblies to, in the words of the Massachusetts assembly, “a meeting of Committees from the several Colonies on this Continent … to consult upon the present state of the Colonies, and the miseries, to which they are, and must be reduced, by the operation of certain Acts of Parliament respecting America… .” Getting down to business The first order of business was to make it clear to British authorities that they were not immediately planning a revolution. Delegates wrote to General Gage in Boston to assure him they were trying to find “the most peaceable means for restoring American liberty.” After narrowly rejecting a conciliation plan proposed by Joseph Galloway that called for creation of an American parliament that would work with the British version, delegates drew up a Declaration of Rights and Grievances addressed directly to King George III. This was basically a laundry list of all the complaints America had made since passage of the Stamp Act nine years before. They asked the king to drop the Coercive Acts. Several delegates wrote essays suggesting the colonies deal only with the king and completely ignore Parliament. More ominously, they agreed to a mutual defense pact — if one colony should be subjected to violence by British troops, the others would come to its aid. They also endorsed a series of resolutions from Massachusetts (delivered to the convention via a Paul Revere horseback ride), known as the Suffolk Resolves. These called for completely ignoring the provisions of the Coercive Acts, establishing armed militias in each town, and requiring citizens to “use their utmost diligence to acquaint themselves with the art of war as soon as possible.” A serious boycott Finally, the congress approved a total boycott of British goods, in a united resolution called The Association. This boycott went far beyond previous boycotts. Under it, nothing from British sources — up to and including slaves — would be imported as of Dec. 1, 1774. Furthermore, no American goods would be exported to Britain — although after protests from their delegates, rice from South Carolina and tobacco from Virginia were exempted. The export ban was delayed until the following year so “as not to injure our fellow-subjects in Great Britain, Ireland and the West Indies.” Finally, British goods already in the colonies would not be bought, sold or consumed. “We do for ourselves, and the inhabitants of the several colonies, whom we represent, firmly agree … to abide by the agreements,” the resolution concluded. On Oct. 26, they went home, with the understanding they would reconvene in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, if necessary. It was. 'Let it begin here' It was Britain’s serve in the ping-pong political battle straddling the Atlantic. Hoping to preserve peace, William Pitt, now Earl of Chatham, proposed a sweeping rollback of almost every act that had angered the Americans. But mindful of a still-furious king, the House of Lords resoundingly rejected it. British Prime Minister Lord Frederick North (who served from 1770 to 1782) then offered a half-a-loaf Conciliatory Resolution, which said that if a colony would contribute to its own defense and pay for civil and judicial administrations within its borders, it would be exempt from paying taxes — except those necessary for the regulation of commerce. The proposal, approved by Parliament in February 1775, did not reach the colonies for several months, after the fighting had begun. It was summarily rejected when it got there anyway. Prodded by King George, North also pushed Parliament into declaring Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion and authorized more troops to be sent to the colonies. The so-called Restraining Acts limited trade between all of the British Empire and the colonies and prohibited New England fishermen from working in the cod-rich seas off Newfoundland. Parliamentary members sympathetic to the Americans warned that Britain might be biting off more than it could chew. “You cannot furnish armies, or treasure, competent to the mighty purpose of subduing America,” said Edmund Burke. “But whether France and Spain will be tame, inactive spectators of your efforts and distractions is well worthy of the consideration of your lordships.” Burke’s warning was echoed by General Gage, the Massachusetts governor who was also in command of His Majesty’s army in America. “If you think ten thousand men are enough,” he wrote Lord North, “send twenty; if a million (pounds) is thought to be enough, give two. You will save blood and treasure in the end.” Squirreling away supplies Meanwhile, in the colonies, efforts were being made to enforce the economic boycott — and prepare for war. To accomplish the first of these tasks, committees were appointed in every county to oversee adherence to the boycott, as well as discourage colonists from taking government jobs, particularly in Massachusetts. Names of those who were suspected of violations were publicized, and the offenders faced social ostracism, and sometimes worse. While the occasional tarring and feathering did take place, the threat of physical violence was usually implied more than employed. Shunning by one’s neighbors was usually enough. One Massachusetts man who had been appointed a councilor to the governor walked into a church service one Sunday, only to see all his fellow congregants walk out. He thereupon declined the appointment. While enforcing the boycott, the Sons of Liberty group and militia, known as Minute Men because they were to respond quickly to any call to arms, staged surprise raids on British supply depots and made off with arms and ammunition. They took care not to shoot, daring the British troops to fire first. The tactic followed the advice of Sam Adams: “Put your enemy in the wrong and keep him so. It is a wise maxim in politics as well as in war.” Riding with Revere The colonists also kept a constant eye on the movements of British troops. One of their most effective spies was the son of a French immigrant who had established himself as a master silversmith in Boston. Paul Revere also made false teeth and surgical instruments — and was good on a horse. In mid-April 1775, General Gage received orders from London to arrest the colonial dissident leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock and seize any arms collected by the colonists. Gage was also directed to use force, if necessary. So, on the evening of April 18, Gage ordered a force of 700 men to march from Boston to the village of Concord, about 20 miles away, arrest Adams and Hancock if they found them, and destroy a cache of arms suspected to be there. Revere, however, got wind of the plan, and set out to warn the countryside that the British were coming. It was a harrowing trek. After crossing the Charles River at night in a small boat, he outrode British pursuers and made it to the small town of Lexington, about seven miles from Concord. There he warned Adams and Hancock. With two other men, Thomas Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott, he then set out for Concord. The trio ran into a mounted British patrol. Prescott escaped by leaping his horse over a stone wall and made it to Concord, where the militia was able to hide most of the guns and ammunition. Revere and Dawes were briefly detained, but were somewhat inexplicably released after the troops took Revere’s horse. (Of the three riders, Revere is the one everyone remembers mainly because of a wildly popular 1861 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.) The 'shot heard round the world' At the village of Lexington, the British force was confronted by a group of about 75 militia under the command of John Parker. A farmer and veteran of the French and Indian War, Parker initially ignored the British officer’s command that the Americans put down their arms. Instead, according to the later account of a man under his command, Parker replied, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” Outnumbered 10 to 1, Parker was in the process of changing his mind when a shot was fired — by which side is unknown — and a volley of gunfire followed. Eight of the colonists were killed and ten wounded. The British troops then moved on to Concord, where they destroyed several cannons that had been too big to hide. By that time, however, hundreds of militia had arrived, and as the British troops began moving back toward Boston, they fired on the Americans, who returned fire. What had been an orderly withdrawal by the British now became a somewhat disorderly retreat. “We retired for 15 miles under incessant fire,” a British officer recounted, “which like a moving circle surrounded us wherever we went.” Shooting from behind rocks and inside houses, the American militia killed or wounded more than 250 of the king’s soldiers, while suffering about 90 casualties themselves. The battle was immortalized in an 1836 poem written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, called “Concord Hymn:" “By the rude bridge that arched the flood, / Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, / Here once the embattled farmers stood, / And fired the shot heard ’round the world.” Stirring poetics aside, the long war of words between Mother Britain and her American children was over. The war of blood and death had begun.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 06-09-2023

One of the remarkable aspects of the American Revolution is the staying power of the basic structure of government the founding fathers laid down. That doesn’t mean, however, that the structure was either simple or perfect. To help you understand a bit more about the complexities — and flaws — in the governmental building blocks they used, here are “backgrounders” on three of those blocks: the Electoral College, reapportionment (gerrymandering), and amending the U.S. Constitution. Just for fun, check out the mini-biographies on two interesting Americans from the period, Noah Webster and John Jacob Astor, and enjoy some non-government trivia you can use to amuse your admirers and annoy your enemies.

Article / Updated 05-19-2023

Ronald Reagan figured that if you cut taxes on companies and the very wealthy and reduced regulations on business, they would invest more, the economy would expand, and everyone would benefit. Of course, this approach, based heavily on the views of economist Milton Friedman, a Reagan advisor, would require cutting government services, which would most affect Americans on the bottom of the economic ladder. But the benefits would eventually “trickle down” from those on the top of the ladder to those on the bottom. At least, in theory. So, early in his administration, Reagan pushed through a package of massive tax cuts, and the economy got better. Unemployment dropped from 11 percent in 1982 to about 8 percent in 1983. Inflation dropped below 5 percent, and the gross national product rose. While Reaganistas were quick to point to the president’s policies as a great deal, critics pointed in a different direction. Although Reagan had cut taxes, he and Congress had failed to cut government spending. In fact, he greatly increased spending on military programs. Because the government was spending far more than it was taking in, the national debt rose from about $900 billion in 1980 to a staggering $3 trillion in 1990. Moreover, most of the benefits of Reagan’s trickle-down approach failed to trickle, priming the pump for another economic downturn after he left office.

Article / Updated 04-25-2023

America’s independence was ultimately won not by the actions of a few extraordinary individuals, but by the efforts and sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of “ordinary” people. The impact of the struggle on various groups within the country, however, and their reactions to it, varied widely and often set neighbor against neighbor. In Delaware, a mob dragged a neighbor from his home to be “humiliated in publick” by being whipped by a “lowly” African American. In Connecticut, another mob stripped a local doctor of his clothing, covered him in hog dung, and then broke the windows of his house. Tories and Whigs “Times began to be troublesome, and people began to divide into parties,” James Collins, then a 16-year-old North Carolina boy, noted in his memoirs years later. “Those that had been good friends in times past became enemies; they began to watch each other with jealous eyes, and were designated by the names of ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory.’” What Collins was witness to was the American civil war that raged within the larger global conflict. Whigs (after the British political party considered more sympathetic to the American cause) was a term used to describe those Americans who favored independence from Britain, although they often called themselves Patriots, and their foes most often called them Rebels. Tories (after the conservative British political party) referred to those who either remained loyal to the crown (also referred to as Loyalists) or who refused to embrace either side. It was an ugly war. The Delaware man who was whipped happened to be a Patriot constable who was targeted by his Loyalist neighbors. The Connecticut doctor was a supporter of the king and ran afoul of his Patriot neighbors. Whippings and beatings were by no means the worst confrontations between Americans on opposing sides. In Virginia, for example, a militia officer presided over “trials” of those not deemed patriotic enough. He resorted to hanging them so often from the large walnut tree in his backyard, his name became synonymous with such extra-legal executions. His name was Charles Lynch. Deciding who was a Tory For ardent Patriots such as the firebrand writer Thomas Paine, determining who was friend or foe was a straightforward process: “He that is not a supporter of the Independent States of America . . . is, in the American sense of the word, a TORY.” But in reality, it wasn’t that simple. Nor is it accurate to assume that Loyalists were all powdered-wig-wearing, snuff-sniffing, upper-crust aristocrats. In fact, some Americans didn’t embrace the cause of independence for dozens of reasons. True, some were indeed motivated by a wish to maintain their status quo of wealth and privilege. Others were directly affiliated with the British government in various capacities and had an obvious vested interest in the revolution failing. But many were motivated by their own form of patriotism, to the king and Britain. Others saw themselves as sensible, moderate, and respectful of law and order. Some thought a war of rebellion wasn’t necessary to work out differences between the colonies and the mother country. Many tenant farmers of rich Patriots felt more oppressed by their landlords than they did by George III. Non-Irish Catholics feared persecution by the largely Protestant Patriots. As the war dragged on, some of the working poor were resentful of Patriot military drafts that allowed the wealthy to buy their way out of service. And some Americans didn’t like being pushed around by anyone, or just wanted to be left alone. “Many people who disapprove Independence have no other wish than to remain at peace,” observed James Allen, a Philadelphia lawyer. “& (be) secure in their persons without influencing the minds of others.” Thousands — maybe as many as 80,000 at the start of the war — were religious pacifists who had come to America to avoid conflicts: Quakers, Shakers, Moravians, Mennonites, and Amish among them. Patriots versus Loyalists Just how many of the estimated 2.5 million non-Native American people living in the rebellious colonies were Loyalists is impossible to precisely determine. Historians’ estimates have ranged from 20 percent to 35 percent. That doesn’t include the colonies’ 500,000 African American slaves. Nor does it include thousands of Americans who strove to stay out of the war altogether. It is safe to say, however, that the neighbor-against-neighbor conflicts were geographically widespread. Generally, the areas that had been settled the longest and had the deepest roots in self-government — Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia — tended to be more for independence than newer colonies, such as the Carolinas and Georgia. The Middle States, such as Pennsylvania, which had large populations of pacifist religious groups, tended to be neutral. But exceptions and contradictions were everywhere. Wealthy people in the North might be ardent Loyalists, hoping to hold on to what they had. Their rich counterparts in the South, on the other hand, might favor independence if for no other reason than they feared British efforts to offer slaves freedom in turn for rebelling against their masters. Average Americans in urban areas, exposed to the daily bombardment of independence-minded media, might lean Patriot, while their rural brethren didn’t know or care about issues like taxes on paper or duties on tea. The persecution of Tories In the early stages of the Revolution, differences between Patriots and Loyalists generally ranged from social ostracism and bullying to beatings and vandalism. But by the time of the Declaration of Independence signing, Tory-hunting became a more serious pastime. Neighbors forced neighbors to sign loyalty oaths to the cause of independence. Houses were searched to see whether their occupants were abiding by the boycotts of British goods. Longtime grudges within communities were settled, with patriotism as the excuse. And paranoia about loyalty ran so deep that at the Second Continental Congress, some delegates, including James Madison, suspected Benjamin Franklin was a British spy. States passed various laws to formalize ill treatment of Loyalists. Wishing good things for the king became a crime in Virginia. In Connecticut, public allegiance to the crown could get you hanged. By the end of the war, New York had proclaimed that Loyalists weren’t entitled to collect legally owed debts from Patriots. The seeming contradiction of a fight for freedom that embraced repressive civil and government actions was not lost on British newspapers, as shown. Or as a Maryland congressman mused with no little irony, “It is a strange freedom that is confined always to one side of the question.”

Article / Updated 06-23-2022

The American Revolution has had enormous effects on the development of world history since that time. We can learn a lot from exploring other events that happened following the American Revolution and from considering the reasons that this revolution, unlike many others, was a successful endeavor. It was a revolution like no other, “a revolution,” in the words of the 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke, “made not by chopping and changing of power in any of the existing states (nations), but by the appearance of a new state, of a new species, in a new part of the globe.” How big was the American Revolution? Overstating the effects of the American Revolution on world history would be difficult. It’s been estimated, for example, that more than half of the countries belonging to the United Nations in 2019 could trace their beginnings back to documents proclaiming their legitimacy as sovereign states and modeled on or inspired by America’s Declaration of Independence. In fact, it could be argued that just a single Revolutionary War battle in the fall of 1777 in eastern New York led to a French king having his head cut off; the end of the Spanish Empire in the New World; doubling the size of the United States; firmly establishing Canada as a British colony; and hastening the settlement of Australia. That may seem a bit of stretch, but consider this: In September and October 1777, American forces defeated a British army near Saratoga. The stunning victory, and surrender of the entire British force, helped convince French King Louis XVI to throw France’s formidable military behind the American cause. That contributed greatly to America’s military victory over the British in the Revolutionary War. America’s subsequent creation of a democratic republic provided a vivid example to the French of how effective an uprising against a tyrannical government might be. French revolutionaries used the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a template for drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789. One of the casualties in the French Revolution that followed was Louis XVI — the same monarch who had helped America win its revolution. Inspired by the U.S. and French revolutions and led by Simón Bolívar — the Venezuelan who became known as the George Washington of Latin America — much of Spain’s colonial empire in Latin America revolted in the first three decades of the 19th century. By 1830, what are now the nations of Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Peru had declared independence. In addition, the former Portuguese colony of Brazil and French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) had likewise successfully rebelled. The loss of Saint-Domingue to a rebellion led by former slave Toussaint Louverture so irritated the French dictator Napoleon that he launched a major assault to retake the island. That ended in disastrous defeat for the French. The debacle helped persuade Napoleon to forget about a French Empire in the Americas. And that decision spurred France in 1803 to sell America 828,000 square miles of what became known as the Louisiana Purchase, for $15 million (about $335 million in 2019.) That doubled the size of the United States. After the U.S. victory in the Revolutionary War, as many as 80,000 Americans who had been loyal to the British fled to Canada. That had a radical demographic effect on the sparsely populated country, most of whose non-native inhabitants up to that time were of French descent. The influx of the loyalist Americans helped solidify Britain’s cultural and political hold on Canada. Prior to the Revolutionary War, America had served as a dumping ground for Britain’s unwanted, which included a vast number of those convicted of various crimes. Faced with the post-war problem of where to send its excess convicts, Britain settled on its almost-empty colony of Australia. Between 1788 and 1868, an estimated 165,000 prisoners were transported to the Down Under continent. Sure, lots of other elements are involved in each of these events that helped bring them about and influenced their outcomes. But there is no denying the American Revolution played a significant role in all of them. What kind of revolution was it? Through most of the 20th century and into the 21st, a continual hot topic of debate among historians has been whether the American Revolution was a conservative or radical affair. The conservative-event camp argues that the real aim of the Founding Fathers was a revolution in a literal sense: a 360-degree return to the rights, liberties and economic system that America had lived under during most of the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries. That was before the British government began looking for ways to raise revenues from its American colonies and started enforcing laws that benefited the mother country at the inconvenience of the colonists. America’s leaders, the conservative-revolution camp contends, had nothing new or particularly daring in mind in terms of a new form of government. They mostly just wanted the British to stop changing things. The proof of that, the argument goes, is that even after the Constitution was written and the new government framework it contained was established, the same people were still in charge. Slavery continued; women remained legally inferior; and voting was still largely limited to adult males who owned something of value. But, the radical camp counters, the conservative revolution argument ignores the fact that an entirely new form of government resulted. The Founding Fathers came up with a fundamentally different view of the relationship between government and people. Under monarchies or autocracies, government serves the purposes of the one or the few, and operates through the labor and sacrifices of the many. In the model created by the Constitution, the government functions through the will of the people it serves, as expressed by the actions of the representatives they elect. True, the radical camp concedes, the Founding Fathers ignored or sidestepped the inherent hypocrisy of a nation founded on lofty ideals of liberty, yet allowed slavery and treated half the populace as second-class citizens. But they point out that the soundness of the governmental system the founders created has allowed it to gradually work to redress those wrongs: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, for example, ended slavery in 1865; the 19th gave women the right to vote in 1920. These changes weren’t reliant on the desires of individual rulers or even the whims of popular opinion. They came about as the result of Americans operating under a system, which when it was created, was a radical departure from governments of the time. In the end, it may be futile to attempt to accurately categorize the American Revolution. A revolution is a massive upheaval, undertaken by a mass of human beings with different motives, aspirations — and levels of enthusiasm. For example, John Hancock was a wealthy merchant; George R.T. Hewes, a poor shoemaker. Hancock presided over the group that drafted the Declaration of Independence; Hewes helped dump tea in Boston Harbor. Neither had anything to gain directly from rebellion. But both rebelled and risked their lives in doing so. Was Hancock a conservative hoping to go back to the good old days, and Hewes a radical pining for a new way of doing things? I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters. Assigning generalized labels to their reasons may be an interesting academic exercise, but not a whole lot more. Why did the American Revolution succeed? As the citizens of scores of other countries around the world can attest, not every revolution works equally well. England underwent two revolutions in the 17th century. One resulted in the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell; the other substituted one monarch for another. The French Revolution gave France — and the rest of the world — Napoleon. The Russian Revolution transformed the government from a corrupt and despotic regime to a corrupt and totalitarian regime. But the American Revolution, however bumpy its path, succeeded. One reason was roots. Americans mostly derived their ideas about government from Britain, whose people had long wrestled with trying to balance the authority of the state with the liberty of the individual. By the time shots were fired at Lexington, many, if not most, Americans had also enjoyed decades of representative democracy, at least at the local level. Self-government was not a new experience. And unlike many other nations, America had escaped dominance by a single religious organization or secular interest group. Then there was luck. America abounded in natural and economic resources. Life at the time of the revolution was generally pretty good in the colonies. The desperation faced by starving or war-torn nations on the verge of rebellion was absent and thus so was the desperate need to grab onto the first Cromwell or Napoleon to come along and offer a quick fix. Finally, Americans settled on three key aspects to the system that helped ensure the revolution could mature. One was the system of checks and balances among the three branches of government — what the historian Richard Hofstadter termed “a harmonious system of mutual frustration.” While the system has certainly generated its fair share of friction, it has maintained a balance the Founding Fathers sometimes feared would be unobtainable. In 1974, for example, President Richard Nixon refused to release audiotapes recorded in his office to Congress, which was considering impeachment proceedings against Nixon. Nixon based his refusal on what he claimed was a “privilege” accorded to the executive branch. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Congress. About two weeks after the court’s decision, the president resigned. The second key aspect of the America system that differentiated it from those of other revolutions was the recognition that the rights of the minority were every bit as important as the rights of the majority. As Thomas Jefferson put it in his first Inaugural Address, “Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail . . . the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate (this) would be oppression.” Finally, there is the elasticity of the Constitution. The document’s framers recognized they weren’t perfect and were thus unlikely to create a perfect blueprint for running the country. In the 230 years between 1789 and 2019, a total of 27 amendments were added to the Constitution. They guaranteed rights, made changes in the process of government — and in the case of Prohibition, made one societal activity illegal and then legal again. What you can learn from the American Revolution One of the most rewarding things about the study of history is its reassuring reinforcement of the fact that nobody is now, or ever has been, perfect. It naturally follows that nothing any human has ever done has been perfect. That, as John Adams pointed out in answering letters from admirers in the first quarter of the 19th century, applied to both the Founding Fathers and their efforts. “I ought not to object to your reverence for (us),” he wrote one fan, “but to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of comparing the merits of different periods, I have no reason to believe we were better than you are.” To another correspondent, Adams explained that “every measure of Congress from 1774 to 1787 inclusively, was disposed (of) with acrimony and decided by as small majorities as any question is decided these days . . . it was patched and piebald (irregular) then, as it is now, and ever will be, world without end.” So, one lesson to be learned from the American Revolution is that it’s unreasonable to expect the political descendants of the Founding Fathers to be any more infallible than they — or the fruits of their labors — were. Which raises a second lesson: The American Revolution wasn’t finished with the end of the war, or the adoption of the Constitution, or the peaceful shift of power from one political party to another. It has been followed by a series of mini-revolutions, additions to the country’s ever-changing menu of unresolved issues and unaddressed problems. The menu’s items have included the end of slavery; the preservation of the Union; the extension of suffrage and other rights to women; the establishment of a safety net of programs from Social Security to Medicare; the push for a color-blind justice system, and ongoing efforts to ensure that the scales of majority rule and minority rights remain in balance. And that leads to a third lesson, and one I touch on in the Introduction to this book: The American Revolution isn’t over. “On the contrary,” wrote Dr. Benjamin Rush, physician, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Founding Father, “nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.” Dr. Rush’s words were written in 1786. We’re still working on perfection.

Article / Updated 03-07-2022

It is an inescapable fact that there were no “Founding Mothers,” at least not in the sense the term "Founding Fathers” is used to describe the male leaders of the American Revolution. No women served in Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, or helped draft the Articles of Confederation or US Constitution. While specifics varied from state to state and sometimes from community to community, women during this period generally had little legal standing. So tiny was their role in politics that even to suggest having a larger one was a subject of great humor — at least to men. When Abagail Adams wrote her husband John in 1776 to “remember the ladies” while drafting the fledgling country’s new government, he replied, “I cannot help but laugh. . . . Depend upon it. We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems.” To a colleague, however, John took a more serious, if just as chauvinistic, tone. Extending the right to vote too widely under the new government would open a Pandora’s box of universal demands: “There will be no End to It. New Claims will arise. Women will demand a Vote.” American revolutionary women labored on the home front Women could and did enter the political arena by writing letters, circulars, and tracts and helping to operate lines of communication and information. And as in all great wars, it fell to women to do everything but fight to keep things going. When Americans quit buying machine-made cloth from England, for example, American women had to make it by hand. “I rise with the sun and all through the long day I have no time for aught but my work,” wrote a Connecticut farmer’s wife whose husband was off to the war. Even during family prayer time, she admitted, her mind was on “whether Polly remembered to set the sponge for the bread, or put water in the leach tub or to turn the cloth in the dyeing vat. . .” Less specific but more important, women were expected, at least in Patriot families, to infuse the children with the spirit of representative democracy and the value of individual liberty. It was a task that historian Linda Kerber labeled “republican motherhood,” and political leaders urged Revolutionary-era men to remind their spouses of its importance. “Let their husbands point out the necessity of such conduct,” wrote Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, “that it is the only thing that can save them and their children from distresses, slavery and disgrace…”. In addition to bearing the brunt of wartime shortages and other hardships, it also fell to women to bear the losses of men who would not come home from the fighting, as well as steeling themselves to send off their husbands and sons to war — or going themselves. Women near the battle front in the American Revolution A widowed Irish immigrant in South Carolina, Elizabeth Jackson lost two of her three sons to the war. She nonetheless volunteered to act as a nurse for wounded Americans held on British prison ships in Charleston Harbor. After contracting cholera, she summoned her remaining 15-year-old son, who had been fighting the British since he was 12 and bore the slash marks of a British officer’s sword to prove it. “Avoid quarrels if you can,” Andrew Jackson recalled his mother telling him before she died, “ . . . (but) if you ever have to vindicate your honor, do it calmly.” Women often served as nurses, cooks, seamstresses, and laundresses to the various militias and Continental Army. General Washington wasn’t keen on the practice, since the women had to be fed precious rations. And, try as he might with repeated orders to the contrary, they often hitched rides in supply wagons, thus slowing things down. But since his own wife Martha often traveled with him, Washington did not order his commanders to ban women entirely from the army camps. If they didn’t tag along with their husbands, sons, and brothers, women might make uniforms, gather food, or perform other tasks for the troops. One group of three dozen Philadelphia residents were so persistent in raising funds for the army, a Loyalist complained “people were obliged to give them something to get rid of them.” They ultimately raised the staggering modern-day equivalent of $300,000. “Necessity,” a Revolutionary War woman recalled in 1810, “taught us to make exertions which our girls of the present day know nothing of.”

Step by Step / Updated 08-11-2021

Invention isn’t the only important word to begin with the letter i. Innovation and inspiration also fit the bill. And, of course, important. Here’s a list of ten important innovations or inspirations in various cultural fields that have made a major impact on American life.