Could our American Revolution still be called “radical” if blood had not been shed or houses burned? And if that had been the reality, could the years of 1775-76 still be called a “revolution”? The answers to these questions can come from looking at the context of the war, the events leading up to it, and at what “type” of radicalism the Revolution embodied. Over the years, a great number of articles, books, and essays have been written about the degree of radicalism apparent during those events of the late 18th century. All of these ideas were made possible by the careful study of the hundreds of letters, essays, and records made during those tumultuous times in America’s history and it is only through careful study that we can determine if the Revolution was a revolution at all.
Two articles in particular, published 30 years apart, conclude with a radical view of the war for independence and both end in marked favor of using “revolutionary” to describe the American war for independence. Peter Marshall cleverly ends his 54 page article, Radicals, Conservatives and the American Revolution, by saying, “It is my guess that, after the work is done, we shall still have an American Revolution on our hands” (Marshal, 54). The work he is describing is the need to study and understand the “changes that occurred in the previous thirty years” leading up to the war in 1775 (Marshall, 54). Marshall’s excellent essay pits historians against historians and orthodoxy against new ideas by detailing many different notions about the Revolution. He cites many well-known, and rarely debated, figure heads of Revolutionary antiquity and invites the reader to join “the stimulating debate on the causes and nature of the Revolution” (Marshal, 1). By identifying the apparent causes of the revolution (economic, political, social, etc.), a better understanding of the revolution and its radicalism can be reached. His paper identifies a plethora of arguments surrounding a conservative, liberal and/or radical view of the revolution, all which have come from analyzing these changes. One of the theories he distinguishes is a purely political interpretation, in which, “no major economic or social tensions are admitted to exist” (Marshall, 46). This theory stands in opposition to the account of the events in the history book, Give Me Liberty!: An American History, written by Eric Foner. Foner’s chapter on the Revolution describes the “violent social turmoil” (Foner, 156) in the colonies that began long before 1775. This turmoil included riots (149,150,159), boycotts (155, 158), and a unified public outcry (162). Marshall realizes that the “Revolution was limited, according to its recent interpreters, not only in its consequences, but also in its immediate scope” (Marshall, 46). This observation, which is something Eric Foner could approve of, is that the events studied could be precieved as much more violent and radical then previously supposed. This type of conclusion would lead to a very radical view of the Revolution. Marshall then points out an economically based theory (a facet of the revolution I suspect he agrees with) that states; “The destruction of the seaports, the continual process of inflation that marked Continental finance, provide additional factors of economic disorder” (Marshall, 49). He sums up this description by saying, “…it seem[s] certain that that conditions favored, even compelled, extensive social and economic change”(Marshall, 49). It appears that Marshall wants to point out that the radicalism of the revolution is measured by the amount of change brought, not just by the amount of property destroyed or lives lost.[1]
This is a statement that Gordon Wood could accept. Wood, a renowned historian, argues that America did indeed experience a dramatic social transformation in his article, The Radicalism of the American Revolution. He writes that the intense transformation meets the prerequisites of a “revolution”. He talks about the need for context when determining the radicalism of the Revolution. Many of the theories that compare the American Revolution to other revolutions in history conclude, due to a lack of “social misery or economic deprivation suffered, or by the number of people killed or number of manor houses burned” (Wood, 2), that our Revolution was anything but radical. This conservative view of the Revolution tends to drive the reader towards a separate line of conclusions. For example, Wood points out that a strictly conservative, politically based view makes us “…think of the American revolution as having no social character [and] as having virtually nothing to do with the society.” He then points out the modern significance of this by adding that if the Revolution had nothing to do with society then it would have “…no social causes and no social consequences” (Wood, 1). Throughout his essay, he calls on the reader to fight the modern inclination of Americans to think of our earlier revolutionaries, like Washington, Jerfferson and Adams, as “too stuffy, too solemn, too cautious, [or] too much the gentleman” (Wood, 1) to be involved in a “revolution”, and a radical one at that. Wood concludes that, as hinted at by the title of his article, the American Revolution was indeed radical.
In his 1818 letter to Baltimore publisher Hezekiah Niles, John Adams makes very clear statements concerning the Revolution and about the American war for independence. He begins his letter by pointing out a difference between the war and the revolution. “The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations”.[2] This sentiment declares that the American Revolution did not start with the first shots being fired in 1775, but that it was a steady transformation in the hearts and minds of the people in the colonies. He goes on to add, “This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and [1] Marshall protects his use of the term “radical” by quoting scholar Miss Cecelia Kenyon. Kenyon “suggests the term ‘radical’ and ‘conservative’ have caused much confusion and should be used with great care…” (qtd. in Marshall, 56). In the end, she too concludes that the Revolution “…was still a revolution and it was radical”, while also pointing out that it was “…a limited revolution and it was primarily a political movement [with] social and economic repercussions…” (qtd. In Marshal,56)
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