The war of words between America and England began long
before the actual outbreak of hostilities in the revolutionary era.
Unfortunately, present-day readers may find it difficult to follow
those battles because the language, ideas, and writing and speaking
styles of the eighteenth century seem so foreign from our own.
There is, however, a key that can be used to "unlock"
the meaning of the essays, broadsides, pamphlets, petitions, declarations,
and other texts composed by Americans in their fight for expanded
rights. Almost all of the texts employed the same set of key arguments,
and learning to recognize and understand those arguments provides
a foundation for analyzing both their rhetoric (methods of persuasion)
and content.
As you might imagine, many of the same core arguments used by
American patriot writers also turn up in the rhetoric of American
Loyalists and British tories, but turned upside down. So, for
example, the idea that parents are responsible for taking good
care of their children is used by patriot writers to demonstrate
the need to break away from an abusive parent, while the related
concept that children owe obedience to parents is used by English
sympathizers to urge submission.
In general, Tory and Loyalist writing also urges the importance
of order while warning against the dangers of disorder, while
patriot writing emphasizes the primary importance of rights and
liberty. (For a good example of an argument based on the importance
of order, see the points raised in 1776 by Loyalist Charles Inglis
in "The
True Interest of America Impartially Stated.") Some have
argued that these two different modes of thought can be used to
characterize debates over the appropriate way of distributing
power throughout hisTory. David Hume, an important figure in the
British Enlightenment, pointed out in his essay "Of the People,"
that the
just balance between the republican and monarchical part of
our constitution is really, in itself, so extremely delicate
and uncertain, that . . . it is impossible but different opinions
must arise concerning it, even among persons of the best understanding.
Those of mild tempers, who love peace and order, and detest
sedition and civil wars, will always entertain more favourable
sentiments of monarchy, than men of bold and generous spirits,
who are passionate lovers of liberty, and think no evil comparable
to subjection and slavery.
Thomas Jefferson made a somewhat similar comment in a distinctively
different tone of voice when he wrote in a letter to Lafayette
in November of 1823: "In truth, the parties of Whig and Tory
are those of nature. . . . The sickly, weakly, timid man fears
the people, and is a Tory by nature. The healthy, strong and bold,
cherishes them, and is formed a Whig by nature." It is not
hard to tell which side Jefferson was on.
During the era of the American revolution, sometimes a writer
or orator would develop a number of what I cam calling "core
arguments" at some length, devoting one or more paragraphs(or
pages) to the development of each concept. At other times, the
writer or speaker would use a kind of rhetorical "shorthand"
to refer to a concept without bothering to develop an extended
explanation or provide evidence of the point. The fact that these
arguments were such a standard part of revolutionary-era thinking,
writing, and speaking meant that the appearance of a particular
word or phrase would automatically trigger in the minds of the
audience a rich set of associations.
In fact, a great many of the same arguments that made up the
repertoire of American revolutionary rhetoric in the 1760's and
1770's had already long been in use in England as the ongoing
struggle between the monarchy, Parliament, and people over the
proper allocation of rights and power. While concepts such as
"the law of Nature" developed new meanings over the
years, the familiarity of these principles meant that that when
a person in late eighteenth century America or Britain heard a
phrase like "natural law" or "unnatural parent"
s/he could draw upon a depth of understanding that is difficult
for a present-day reader to comprehend.
By employing familiar phrases that instantly introduced arguments
that had grown in meaning and emotional import over hundreds of
years, authors were able to relieve themselves of the necessity
of fully developing the arguments unless they chose to do so.
Short but dense clusters of code words or phrases can often be
found in the openings or closings of texts, where they function
as a a preview, concluding summary, or even "vision statement"
of the position of the author. You can see these tactics in operation
in the Fast-Day Proclamation Governor Jonathan
Trumbull issued on December 19, 1775, urging the people of Connecticut
to resist those who:
threaten us with general Destruction, for no other Reason known
to us, than that we will not surrender our Liberties, Properties,
and Privileges, which we believe God and Nature, the British Constitution,
and our Sacred Charters give us a just right to enjoy.
(You may want to consider how many of the core arguments listed
below appear in this statement.) The ability to make short-hand
arguments was particularly useful to those making brief statements.
The Declaration of Independence, for example, is quite short when
you consider the broad extent of the historical, political, and
philosophical territory to which it lays claim. At the same time,
when a speech or piece of writing was designed to focus on a select
number of specific arguments, this rhetorical shorthand also allowed
the author to supercharge those arguments by including occasional
code words or phrases that brought with them the intellectual
and emotional power of other concepts that were not part of the
main focus.
But why do we so often encounter such a large number of arguments
crammed into a single text in the revolutionary era? Is it evidence
of the use of a crude or sophisticated rhetorical style? One possibility
is that people were trying to load their texts with as much ammunition
as possible. Sometimes a piece of persuasion that collects together
a wide variety of points is referred to as making a "grapeshot"
argument. "Grapeshot" was a kind of ammunition used
in cannons. To put together a "grapeshot" charge, you
would collect a large number of metal balls, scraps, or other
projectiles and put them into a canvas bag or metal canister.
Sometimes the individual balls were clustered together and attached
with metal rods. Although this kind of ammunition was not suitable
for use if you wished to aim with accuracy at a specific target,
it was very useful if you wanted to be able to point
your cannon in the general direction of the enemy with the assurance
that at least one of your projectiles would hit something. That
could also explain the strategy behind these texts that offer
assortments of arguments.
Something that seems to support the idea that collections of
core arguments functioned essentially as grapeshot ammunition
comes from the fact that so many of these points seem to contradict
one another. For example, how could a person writing a brief text
argue that Americans deserve "constitutional rights"
because they were part of England and at the same time claim that
the Puritan settlers split from England in order to find freedom?
How could a speaker insist on the idea that all things can be
explained by reason alone while also using references from the
Bible as evidence?
Let's be honest about this. In some cases people were undoubtedly
collecting every projectile available into whatever kind of canvas
bag was available. Since this same method was use on both sides,
it is likely that this method of combining arguments that represented
an "assortment" of viewpoints was an accepted model
of rhetoric. In other cases, those writing or speaking may have
not seen the inconsistency that is so clear to us today. For example,
it is sadly the case that many of those who protested in the loudest
possible terms against what they called the attempt of "tyrants"
to turn "freemen" into "slaves" failed to
see that the same logic should have led them to emancipate the
slaves they held in America.
Probably central inconsistency we encounter in revolutionary-era
texts was caused by the apparent clash between the Enlightenment
ideals that had begun to gain serious attention in the late seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries and earlier modes of thinking.
Enlightenment thinkers emphasized the importance of individualism,
reason, science, and a generally optimistic view of human nature.
But even though those ideas had won wide acceptance by the era
of the revolution (particularly among American radicals), they
did not wholly and immediately displace older, more God-centered
visions of the world, more authority-based visions of society,
and darker, more cynical visions of human nature. While the philosophically-inclined
certainly used the new concepts to construct a wholesale revision
of their ways of thinking, other people no doubt accepted some
of the new ideas and placed them alongside the older ones. For
example, even today the fact that science has demonstrated that
colds are not caused by having wet feet or sitting in a draft,
we routinely find ourselves taking almost primitive ritualistic
precautions when we happen to get wet and cold. And as new modes
of thought are introduced, people sometimes develop new interpretations
of their previous beliefs and continue to incorporate them into
their way of thinking about the world. Thus, the Enlightenment
emphasis on religion and science did not eliminate church-going
but instead caused some people to change the way they thought
about God and religion.
And there are at least some cases in which we see evidence that
a writer or speaker is intentionally introducing an argument inconsistent
with others in the text in order to be persuasive. Not all readers
or listeners are scrutinizing words carefully to see if they offer
a systematic philosophical or political vision. Instead, they
are often looking for something that connects with their own interests.
If you wish to appeal to a broad audience, in other words,, you
may find it necessary to incorporate a similarly broad collection
of appeals. Be sure to remember this simple fact of life before
you build an interpretation of a text (or person) by focusing
on a single argument without placing it in the context of the
larger body of ideas represented in the writing.
However, as you become acquainted with the core arguments of
the debate that was going on in the revolutionary era, you can
sometimes begin to see how seemingly disparate arguments not only
connect to one another but cohere. When Americans insisted that
they were, in fact, "Englishmen" and entitled to English
rights, they had to point to their colonial charters to back up
that claim, and they needed to refer to the concepts of "natural
law," "divine law," "classical republics,"
and the notion of governments having the responsibilities of parents
in order to define just what those rights should be. Moreover,
arguments about "natural law" and "divine law"
often depend on one another, because natural law is so often described
as God's plan for mankind. Even when Americans insisted that their
forefathers had fled England in search of freedom, the very act
of seeking independence marked them as part of the English tradition
of working towards an expansion of popular rights. In fact, in
a sense, the first Puritan settlement was designed to serve as
a model for the rest of English culture. As Governor Winthrop
proclaimed in "A Model of Christian Charity" while still
onboard the ship Arabella before he and his fellow passengers
had even set foot on American ground: ""We shall be
as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us."
While Bernard Bailyn has argued in The Ideological Origins
of the Revolution that these "clusters of ideas . .
. did not in themselves form a coherent intellectual pattern,"
he went on to suggest that "what brought these disparate
strands of thought together . . . and shaped it into a coherent
whole" was the long tradition of "radical" English
writers "united in criticism of 'court' and ministerial power."
This means that you can use the following list of core arguments
to identify and interpret particular rhetorical points being raised
by an author, but that you should also consider the ways in which
these points are combined to formulate more complex arguments.
Below, you will find a brief explanation of a select set of the
central arguments that fueled the writing of Jefferson, John and
Sam Adams, Franklin, and their confederates. Once you understand
those claims, it becomes much easier to understand individual
texts. It also becomes possible to see how the documents of the
two contending parties engage in a kind of conversation with one
another. But what may be most interesting of all is the fact that
a great many of the same arguments that made up the repertoire
of American revolutionary rhetoric can also be found in the works
of British writers who engaged in an ongoing struggle against
the centralized powers of government for the gradual expansion
of the rights of English freemen.
A Selected List of "Core Arguments" Used in
the Debate Over Revolution
Americans are "Englishmen"
and Englishmen have Earned Constitutional Rights
According to this argument, although those who first settled
America had left England many years before, the charters given
to them by the King at that time guaranteed that the original
colonists and their descendents would continue to be Englishmen.
One factor that may make this argument perplexing is the fact
that there has never been a written English constitution. However,
the term is used to refer to the general set of rights and privileges
set forth in such documents as the Magna
Carta (also known as "'The Great Charter of the Liberties
of England") and the English
Bill of Rights, as well as those protected by Common Law.
Unlike laws created by a legislature, the "common law"
is based on long agreed-upon understandings of right practice
as interpreted by judges.
If you see any of the following references or terms in a text
from the revolutionary era, consider whether the author is using
this argument: Englishmen, freemen, rights, Magna
Carta (or Magna Charta), constitution,
Sir Coke.
Click here
for a fuller discussion of this topic.
Natural Law
Guarantees All Human Beings Fundamental Rights
"Natural
Law" is a name used to refer to one or more of the following
beliefs:
- All individuals are entitled at birth to certain "natural
rights" that guarantee their personal safety and property.
- All human beings are endowed with reason so they are able
to distinguish right from wrong.
- Human beings sometimes enter into a "social contract"
to form an association/ government that will protect the life
and property of the members and promote their welfare.
- When a ruler or legislature acts against the welfare of the
people, the government no longer deserves the submission of
the people.
If you see any of the following references or terms in a text
from the revolutionary era, consider whether the author is using
this argument: natural law, law of nature, nature's law, reason,
rational, sense or common sense, Grotius, John Locke, Algernon
Sidney. Proponents of natural law often use the following
words when characterizing the opposition: bias, prejudice,
unreasonable, superstition.
Click here for a fuller
discussion of this topic.
Divine Law Guarantees All Human
Beings Fundamental Rights
Supporters of natural law believed that according to "Divine
Law" power rested in the hands of the people rather than
their monarchs. This went directly counter to the earlier theory
of the "divine right of kings," which was explained
in the following terms in a 1610 speech to parliament by James
I of England (1603-1625):
... The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth:
for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit
upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods.
There be three principal [comparisons] that illustrate the state
of monarchy: one taken out of the word of God, and the two other
out of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the Scriptures
kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation
compared to the Divine power.
On the other hand, since Enlightenment thinkers believed in a
God who was the embodiment of reason and goodness, they assumed
that as the "author of nature" he created an order designed
to promote the welfare of his creatures.
In other words, both reason and Biblical revelation makes it
clear that God has given people the gift of life, the reason to
make use of it, and the right to enjoy their possession of the
earth. When a ruling power usurps these rights, human beings have
not only the right but perhaps even the responsibility to refuse
to submit to his/her/its authority.
You may be seeing this argument when the author includes prominent
and/or frequent references to the Bible or other religious resources.
If you see any of the following references or terms in a text
from the revolutionary era, consider whether the author is using
this argument: God, divine, divine rights, revelation, Bible,
author of nature, God of nature, nature's God.
Click here for a fuller
discussion of this topic.
Parents Have a Natural Authority
Over their Children, but England has Not Behaved as a "Natural"
Mother
Understanding the principles of natural law theory can help us
to understand the significance of a metaphor that comes up repeatedly
in revolutionary rhetoric: the image of a mother who has neglected
or abused her child. Proponents of natural law agreed that some
forms of authority were inherently natural, and the most frequently
cited example is the "natural" power that a parent exercises
over a child. Many British and Americans would have been familiar
with this concept not only through the works of Enlightenment
thinkers but also because it was one of the central tenets of
the Puritan belief. The same metaphor had also been used for generations
of monarchists to defend the absolute authority of the king, for,
as James I put it in a 1610 speech to parliament, "Kings
are also compared to fathers of families: for a king is truly
parens patriae [parent of the country], the politic father of
his people."
This very familiar concept was put into use by the English and
by loyalist Americans to defend the right of the mother-country
to demand obedience from its "child." Those on the other
side of the debate used the same metaphor to suggest that if England
was the mother country, then it had behaved in an unnatural fashion
and the child needed to be protected from it's savagery.
In fact, Paine and others go on to turn the parent-child metaphor
against the English, arguing that "savage" or "unnatural"
behavior of Britain towards America obliges American parents to
protect the lives and futures of their own children by eliminating
the source of the danger.
If you see any of the following references or terms in a text
from the revolutionary era, consider whether the author is using
this argument: mother, mother country, parent, child, unnatural,
savage, brutes, brutish.
Click here for a fuller
discussion of this topic.
The Model of Ancient
Republics Show that Freemen Should Not Submit to Slavery
The eighteenth-century interest in Enlightenment ideals brought
with it a renewed interest in the literature, politics, philosophies,
and morals of the classical world, particularly as they were expressed
in Rome. (For example, the
Library of Congress exhibition on Jefferson's Library describes
his deep interest in the writings and ideals of Cicero.)
Thus, when a writer or speaker wanted to use an argument based
in republican principles, he would often quote Cicero, cite an
example from Roman history, or make some other reference to the
classical world. In the ancient republics, and particularly Rome,
the English found a model of society that celebrated the importance
of the individual of good character who fully contributed to the
development of the civic community.
Classical literature, a fundamental part of the reading of all
educated Europeans and Americans in that period, did more than
just provide a way of thinking about the importance of republican
values. As Gordon Woods suggests in his chapter on "The Republicanization
of Monarchy" in his classic work, The Radicalism of the
American Revolution: "Classical Republican Rome . .
. became the means by which enlightened eighteenth-century Englishmen
could distance themselves from their own society and achieve the
perspective from which to criticize it." (p101) Many Americans,
of course, found that distance and distinctive treatment provided
another kind of perspective that prompted critical thoughts. However,
in their case classical authors and examples provided a means
of voicing their criticism in terms that others might regard as
socially acceptable or more difficult to ridicule.
The contrasting nature of "slavery" and "freedom"
was a common topic of contemplating and argument among classical
authors, and American rhetoricians used this same formula to protest
British claims of authority over their lands and lives. For example,
in 1765, John Adams wrote in "A Dissertation on Canon and
Feudal Law":
Have not some generals from England treated us like servants,
nay, more like slaves than like Britons? Have we not been under
the most ignominious contribution, the most abject submission,
the most supercilious insults, of some custom-house officers?
Have we not been trifled with, brow-beaten, and trampled on,
by former governors, in a manner which no king of England since
James the Second has dared to indulge towards his subjects?
Frequently, writers and orators would incorporate classical denunciations
of slavery into their own texts.
Although present-day Americans associate the word "slavery"
with the captivity of African-Americans in the period before Emancipation,
eighteenth century Americans who encountered that term in writing
or oratory about politics would have been likely to think of its
classical associations. Admittedly, this is hard to imagine, given
the fact that slavery did exist in the colonies in that period.
Yet, the founders raged against their own "enslavement"
by England even while most of them supported slavery of a more
gruesome type in their own land. In part, Americans were following
ancient precedents in seeing a distinction between what constituted
just treatment of those of one's own race and culture and what
was reasonable when dealing with "other" peoples. Even
many of the founders themselves, however, admitted there was a
fundamental contradiction in this approach. For more on this topic,
see Revolutionizing
the Revolution: If "All
Men are Created Equal," What About African-Americans?
In 1765, John Adams wrote in "A Dissertation on Canon and
Feudal Law":
Have not some generals from England treated us like servants,
nay, more like slaves than like Britons? Have we not been under
the most ignominious contribution, the most abject submission,
the most supercilious insults, of some custom-house officers?
Have we not been trifled with, brow-beaten, and trampled on,
by former governors, in a manner which no king of England since
James the Second has dared to indulge towards his subjects?
While it was common for writers and speakers to warn their audiences
of the threat of slavery posed by England, may have been even
more common to celebrate American freedom in illustrations by
including an image of the "liberty cap" on top of a
rod. In ancient Rome, a formal ceremony was held when a slave
was to be given freedom. Part of the ritual involved granting
"freedom by the rod," which involved the master or official
tapping the slave with a long pole, sometimes topped by the "liberty
cap" which was to be worn by the freed man when attending
the funeral of his former master. Here is just one example of
the way the liberty cap image was incorporated into American iconography.
For more information on this subject, see :The
Cultural Significance of Roman Manumission, by Bonnie Palmer.
Colonists are Entitled to
Charter Rights
During the period in which America was first settled by English
colonists, it was customary for each corporation or group of people
intending to take possession of particular lands to seek a charter
from the king. Colonial
charters typically included both specifically defined land
grants and sets of rules under which the colony would operate.
In recognition of the fact that distance made it impossible for
the king or parliament to rule the colonies directly, most charters
specified the responsibilities and privileges of specific officers
who would be appointed by the crown while also providing the colonists
with some freedom to set up civic structures and rules suited
to their situation as long as those systems were not in conflict
with English law. In practice, this led some colonies to develop
practices such as conducting town meetings and holding elections
for a wide variety of officials. The 1629
charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony signed by Charles
I, for example, made it possible for its people to develop the
habits of a democratic society. Henry William El son noted in
his History
of the United States of America (1910),
This charter was very similar to the third charter of Virginia
of 1612. But there was one remarkable point of difference; it
did not provide, as did the Virginia charter, that the seat
of government must remain in England. This omission led to the
most important results in the building of New England.The experience
of democracy based on direct representation undoubtedly made
Americans impatient with the more indirect mode of representation
by which the members of Parliament claimed to "represent"
Americans even though colonists had no opportunity to vote in
Parliamentary elections.
This situation was further inflamed in 1774 when Parliament responded
to the Boston Tea Party by passing the set of regulations known
as or "The
Coercive Acts" in Britain and labeled "The
Intolerable Acts" in America. Some elements of these
acts directly rescinded rights that had previously been articulated
in colonial charters. For example, the original charter of Massachusetts
had already been revised (and limited) several times before
the Massachusetts
Government Act further restricted the terms of its charter
by increasing the British government's power over the colonial
governor while also increasing the governor's power over the colonists.
The same act took away the charter-guaranteed right of freemen
to elect many of their local officials.
For a large collection of charters and contracts, see the 18th
Century Documents at the Avalon Project of Yale Law School.
If you see any of the following references or terms in a text
from the revolutionary era, consider whether the author is using
this argument:
charter, compact, contract, ancient, forefathers, ancestors.
"Forefathers"
Earned Freedom for All Americans
Although it would seem to contradict both the claim that Americans
are Englishmen, and that the rights of the colonists were founded
on government charters, American patriots often argued that their
"forefathers" had left England in order to find freedom
in a new world. All Americans are thus entitled to liberty because
their ancestors had braved the challenges involved in taming the
wilderness.
This argument can be found in many of the documents of the revolutionary
era, but it was also given a different kind of expression in the
celebration of Forefather's
Day. Once a small private celebration held by a small group
of friends to commemorate the landing of their own ancestors at
Plymouth, Forefather's Day was transformed into a major holiday
in Massachusetts with a serious political message in the years
before the revolution. Not surprisingly, as the split with Britain
grew closer, the speeches delivered on Forefather's Day placed
a strong emphasis on the idea that the Puritan settlers had sought
and earned freedom in this new land.
If you see any of the following references or terms in a text
from the revolutionary era, consider whether the author is using
this argument:
forefathers, ancestors, settlers, Puritan, brave,
wilderness.
America is Entitled to Rights (and
Respect) Because It Is Destined to Be Mighty
Even in the eighteenth century it was clear that the size of
America and the scale of its resources suggested that it was likely
to develop a large population, a prosperous economy, and perhaps
even political power. Therefore, many of those seeking greater
independence from England argued that the "mother country"
should be courting Americans rather than restricting them. Some
writers, in fact, went so far as to suggest that some day the
capital of England would be relocated from London to some more
important city in America. Edmund Burke, a member of Parliament
who supported the colonists in their pleas, argued in his Speech
on Conciliation with America, (March 22, 1775):
our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious
empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable
conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the
number, the happiness of the human race. . . . English privileges
have made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make
it all it can be.
Even Adam Smith, who believed that Americans were wrong to protest
the taxes and other measures that required them to contribute
to the support of England, admitted:
