The Lamp of Experience

Chapter IX. The Whig Historical Tradition and the Origins of the American Revolution

LAMP_201-250.indd 26 5/27/11 1:28 PM CHAPTER IX The Whig Historical Tradition and the Origins ofthe American Revolution In seventeenth-century England men found history peculiarly instructive and useful. By the eighteenth century, history had become the practical study for gentlemen on both sides of the Atlantic . Americans praised history as "the least fallible guide," and their "oracle oftruth."1 The British colonies may have been predominantly agricultural but they produced a society with remarkably bookish (if not literary) tastes. Shelf after shelf of historical studies in college libraries, booksellers' shops, library societies, lawyers' offices, and personal libraries attest to the measure ofthe colonists' historical interest and opportunity. Their study of history was a vital part of their intellectual environment. With history the Revolutionary generation ofAmericans sought to extend its political experience; with assistance from the past, Americans determined their future. I The colonial focus was on the history of the mother country. "The history of Great Britain," remarked John Jay in The Federalist, "is the r. Such comments abound in The Federalist; see Jacob E. Cooke's annotated edition (Middletown, Conn., 1961), Federalist No.6 (Hamilton), 32, and Federalist No. 20 (Madison ), 128. 226 LAMP_201-250.indd 27 5/27/11 1:28 PM The Whig Historical Tradition and the American Revolution one with which we are in general the best acquainted." 2 To know English history was to know America's origins. And to know English history in the mid-eighteenth century was to know history as it was written and sometimes made by Englishmen of the "True Whig" persuasion, so designated by Robert Molesworth. These were the writers, so aptly called "Commonwealthmen" by Caroline Robbins, who justified political action against the Stuarts in the seventeenth century by appeals to the antiquity of the privileges sought. These were the writers who offered a historical justification ofthe Glorious Revolution, reveled briefly in its accomplishment, and then found to their horror that after r688 neither England's government nor its society remained true to its professed purposes. They became fearful for the future of their country as they saw the love of luxury increase and attachment to virtue diminish. The power and ambition of the Crown was not yet curbed; Parliament threatened a new despotism as dire as that of the Stuarts-indeed, threatened a despotism made worse by an alliance ~ith the Crown at the expense of the people. What these radical whig historians and critics said about their government and society made sense to many Americans. Well read on the golden age of their Saxon ancestors, colonial patriots thoughtfully noted the contrast presented in the whig portrayal of modern England. There seemed to be a conspiracy to defraud Englishmen of their constitutional rights overseas as well as at home. John Adams was quite specific: "the conspiracy . . . against the Public Liberty," he declared in 1774, "was first regularly formed, and begun to be executed , in 1763 or 4." 3 The American interpretation ofEnglish history colored colonial explanations of events and furnished Americans with an arsenal of arguments that eventually transformed a rebellion into a revolution. Independence-which required revolution-was not initially intended by the colonial leaders. As Clinton Rossiter observed when studying their political theory, "however radical the principles of the 2. Federalist No.5 (Jay), 24. 3· John Adams, Diary, Mar. 6, 1774, Butterfield, ed., Adams Papers, II, 90. 227 LAMP_201-250.indd 28 5/27/11 1:28 PM THE REVOLUTIONARY USE OF HISTORY Revolution may have seemed to the rest ofthe world, in the minds of the colonists they were thoroughly preservative and respectful of the past."4 Their respect for the past brought them to their rebellious and finally revolutionary posture. The last stage of their journey was the most difficult and also the most carefully related to history: on the eve of independence colonists were consulting such whig oracles as Hulme's Historical Essay on the English Constitution (it was "invaluable"), noting anew how the Saxons secured "the free election of their magistrates and governors; without which our ancestors thought all our liberties were but a species of bondage." Comparisons were irresistible : "How different from, and how much superior to, our present form of government, was the Saxon, or old constitution of England !" 5 The language of history was commonplace: "Provoke us not too far!!" warned a Rhode Islander; "Runymede is still to be found, as we...