The Problem of Becoming "One"
Although Benjamin Franklin proposed "We are One" as
one of the mottos to be printed on Continental Currency in 1776
and designed a logo of interlocking rings to reinforce his message,
it was not an easy matter for the thirteen original colonies to
come together in the Revolutionary Era. Before you can agree with
another person or group or feel connected to them in any meaningful
way, you need to be able to share information and exchange ideas.
In the twenty-first century, you may have an interesting encounter
with a person you meet on a trip, but unless you continue your
face-to-face conversations in some other form by exchanging letters,
emails, or phone calls, you are unlikely to be able to build a
real friendship. The kinds of quick long-distance communication
that we take for granted were not, however, available to the colonists.
In some respects, it was easier for a colonist to communicate
with those in England than with people in other colonies. The
workings of both government and trade relied on regular exchanges
between the colonists and the "mother" country. And
to a large extent colonists thought of themselves essentially
as "British" and as members of a particular British
colony. When people described themselves as "Americans"
in the first half of the eighteenth century, they were generally
talking about themselves as members of a group of people who shared
certain practical, political, and economic concerns. The term
"American" had not yet gained the weight of meaning
it has since accumulated and was not yet connected to any deep
sense of an identity based on a unified set of beliefs, practices,
laws, and traditions. In fact, it was the 1770's that our present-day
understanding of what it means to be an American truly began to
develop. As Andrew Burstein writes in Sentimental Democracy,
Inventing a nation entails giving definition to the character
of the people, identifying their compatible qualities and common
understandings, cultivating a sense of moral community. In the
United States, this process is still going on.. . . Almost every
such attempt to define the nation's identity can be linked in
some way to an embellishment of the language and events of the
American Revolution . . . . (Note: to read a longer excerpt
from Burstein's book, go to Farrar,
Straus & Giroux Publishing.)
A single colony would not have had the power to establish independence
from England. Revolution required unity, and the only way to make
"from many, one" was to establish a serious and continuing
conversation among the American people that could transcend geographical
boundaries and connect the people of the green mountains of Vermont
to their counterparts in the back country of Virginia. The conversation
also needed to transcend boundaries of class and connect mechanics,
merchants, farmers, ministers, land owners, sailors, women, servants,
and all other members of the society. Finding a way to connect
with one another despite their differences was one of the major
challenges confronting the colonists as their troubles with Britain
began to deepen. In the years after the war, John Adams explained
conditions in the years leading up to the Revolution in this way:
The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government
so different; there was so great a variety of religions; they
were composed of so many different nations; their customs, manners,
and habits had so little resemblance; and their intercourse
had been so rare and their knowledge of each other so imperfect
that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the
same system of action was certainly a very difficult enterprise.
Loyalist Daniel Leonard, writing on January 9, 1776 as Massachusetts
in the Boston Gazette, used precisely this sense of division as
a basis for warning that a revolution would be disastrous for
"Americans":
For if our connexion with Great-Britain by the parliament
be dissolved, we shall have none among ourselves, but each colony
become as distinct from the others, as England was from Scotland,
before the union. . . . Daniel
Leonard, "Letters addressed to the Inhabitants of the Province
of Massachusetts Bay," January 7, 1775
Earlier Attempts to Join (or Die!)
In the years leading up to the 1770's, there had been a few periods
of intense "conversation" in the face of other crises
such as the French and Indian War and the Stamp Act Crisis. For
example, in 1754, representatives from seven colonies worked together
at the Albany Convention to arrange a treaty with the Iroquois.
Always ready to seize any opportunity to encourage the exchange
of ideas and coordinated action, Benjamin Franklin put forth a
Plan for Colonial Union similar in many ways to the Plan
for Union proposed by William Penn in 1697 to the London Board
of Trade. Both proposals called for each colony to send representatives
to regular meetings for the purpose of conferring, making joint
decisions, and speaking with one voice on behalf of the American
people.
The crown's unwillingness to allow the colonies to coordinate
their affairs suggests why a revolution was later required in
order to achieve independence. But the fact that the assemblies
of several colonies also voted down the proposal indicates that
there were more immediate obstacles to unity. Franklin would,
no doubt, have been pleased had he known that many of the recommendations
both he and Penn proposed would be incorporated into the United
States Constitution when it was adopted in 1787. However, it is
also easy to imagine how exasperated he would have been to learn
that over thirty years would lapse before the union he sought
would be achieved.
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Frustrated by the unwillingness of colonial
legislatures to accept his "Plan
for Colonial Union"out of fear they might lose
individual power by agreeing to work jointly, Franklin designed
and published this simple warning: "Join, or Die."
This icon would later gain popularity and importance as
a revolutionary symbol. For more on this topic, see Picturing
Revolution.
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Consider, then, the difficulties faced by the thirteen colonies.
Separated by vast distances and in many cases quite different
from one another in their beliefs, business transactions, and
cultures, what hope was there that they could unite in a common
cause against England? If Benjamin Franklin was right and it was
important to "Join, or Die," how could the colonists
find means of communicating so they could join together?
The Communications Revolution that Made the American
Revolution Possible
The fact that the colonists succeeded in "becoming one"
made the revolution particularly worthy of study for John Adams.
He marveled:
The complete accomplishment of it
in so short a time and by such simple means was perhaps a singular
example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made
to strike together: a perfection of mechanism which no artist
had ever before effected.
Adams hinted at the nature of the "mechanism"
when he directed Americans interested in finding how the Revolution
had come about to look at the "records, records, pamphlets,
newspaper, and even handbills, which in any way contributed to
change the temper and views of the people, and compose them into
an independent nation."
So effective was the exchange of every mode of print,
speech, and handwritten material as a means of uniting the colonies,
that, for example,
revolutionary language by 1773 was sounding in
virtually every adult ear in Massachusetts, and that there was
a fluid continuum of discourse joining the Boston press and
town meeting and the talk in meetings and taverns throughout
the Province. (Bushman, “Massachusetts Farmers and the
Revolution,” 79-81 quoted by Ray Raphael in The First
American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, [The
New Press, New York, 2002] 35.)
In pictures commemorating the reading of the Declaration
of Independence, we see how that exchange worked. The final
version of the Declaration, a piece of writing that had been drafted
by a committee and revised in response to countless debates, was
copied by hand and printing press so it could be sent out to the
people. Riders carried copies to George Washington and a
series of towns and cities, and at each location a person would
read the Declaration aloud to the people. In the depiction
below, we can see how the reading of the document inevitably led
to countless other conversations, meetings, and pieces of writing.
In a very real sense, the American revolution could
NOT have happened without the mail and the other systems by which
Americans exchanged ideas. Building consensus and a communal identity
required a shared understanding that could only be developed through
an ongoing civic conversation that took place through the use
of informal conversations, letters, speeches, meetings, newspapers,
pamphlets, broadsides, and books.
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