2. The American Revolution¶
Core Argument¶
The American Revolution, as this chapter argues, was a bourgeois revolution driven by the young American bourgeoisie’s need to break free from British taxes, trade restrictions, and other fetters. The Stamp Act of 1765 served as the immediate trigger, but the revolution succeeded only because the masses—artisans, small farmers, sailors, and the lower middle class—were mobilised by agitators like Samuel Adams. The wealthy merchants who initiated the revolt soon recoiled as the poor became active, but decisive mass action, including the Boston Tea Party, forced the pace. General Gage understood the class basis, noting that the merchants used the lower classes to achieve their ends. The masses fought for demands that primarily benefited the rich, their own discontent being an unconscious revolt against their position.
The revolutionary leaders initially sought compromise with Britain, not independence. The First Continental Congress was composed of wealthy landowners and merchants, who were conservative because they represented vested interests. As in the French and English Revolutions, the bourgeois leadership sought compromise; the Revolution only succeeded when leadership passed to the masses. The American elite feared the masses more than the British. Most of the American aristocracy were pro-British Tories. The revolutionary government confiscated Tory estates—about one-third of total colonial property—broke them up, and sold them to small farmers, achieving an agrarian reform. Congress placed George Washington, a rich landowner, in command to impose order and discipline against the egalitarian spirit of the revolutionary army. Washington’s methods did not improve military effectiveness; his attempt to impose regular army discipline undermined the guerrilla tactics that were the revolutionaries’ strength. The war dragged on inconclusively until French intervention, motivated by rivalry with Britain, tipped the balance.
After the British were driven out, class divisions re-emerged. The wealthy upper class split between Whigs and Tories, but defeated Tories joined the winning side. A new oligarchy formed a reactionary bloc against democracy, giving the Constitution a restrictive interpretation that stressed property rights above all else. The proclaimed Rights of Man did not include women, slaves, Native Americans, or the propertyless majority. Shays’s Rebellion marked the stage where the masses felt cheated of victory. The oligarchy, terrified, understood the need for a strong state as a bulwark against the masses. The 55 delegates who met in 1787 to draft the Constitution were all moneylenders, merchants, manufacturers, bondholders, or slaveholders. Not one was from the working class or small farmers. Hamilton was openly contemptuous of democracy. The Constitution was only approved by a narrow margin among those eligible to vote.
Jefferson observed deep class division in France and supported the French Revolution. The French Revolution split American politics: Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans favoured France, a loose confederation of states, and represented small farmers and urban proletarians; Federalists favoured Britain, strong central government, and represented big merchants and manufacturers. The French Revolution inspired slave uprisings in Santo Domingo and Gabriel Prosser’s rebellion in Virginia, which was brutally suppressed. Jefferson advocated states’ rights as a progressive defence of democracy. The Federalist–anti-federalist struggle is characterised as a counterrevolutionary Thermidor versus defenders of 1776’s revolutionary aims. Despite the Declaration’s egalitarian implications, power remained with propertied elites; property qualifications restricted political participation. Jefferson’s 1800 election victory was met with reactionary attacks. The capital’s move to Washington removed government from New York’s masses. Jefferson rejected monarchical trappings, dressed modestly, and opened the White House to all, contrasting with later imperial pretensions.