American Revolution Notes: Radical or Moderate
Interpretations of America
The American Revolution: Moderate or Radical?
Some historians argue that the Revolution was solely aimed at achieving the limited goal of independence from Britain.
There was a consensus among the Americans about keeping things as they were once the break from Britain had been accomplished
The Revolution was inevitably viewed as a struggle of liberty versus tyranny between America and Britain.
The Revolution was “radical in its character,” according to Bancroft, because it hastened the advance of human beings toward a millennium of “everlasting peace” and “universal brotherhood.”
The imperial school believed that political and constitutional issues brought on the Revolution.
The Progressive historians held that the primary causes were social and economic.
Gipson claimed the British were justified in taxing the Americas and tightening the Navigation Acts after 1763, because largely British blood and money had been expended in the “Great War for Empire,” 1754-1763 (French and Indian War).
Carl L. Becker, Charles A. Beard, Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., and J. Franklin Jameson stressed class conflict as well as insisted the political or constitutional ideas had an underlying economic basis.
Disenchantment of the merchants with British rule, said Schlesinger, arose from the economic reverses they suffered as a result of the strict policy of imperial control enacted by the mother country after the French and Indian War.
The merchant class later became, in Schlesinger’s words, “a potent factor o the conservative counterrevolution that led to the establishment of the United States Constitution.”
In the struggle between colonies and the mother country, the Americans emerged as the “conservatives” because they were trying to keep matters as they were before 1763.
Daniel J. Boorsten argued that the revolution was conservative on the imperial as well as the local level because Americans were fighting to retain traditional rights and
The American Revolution: Moderate or Radical?
Some historians argue that the Revolution was solely aimed at achieving the limited goal of independence from Britain.
There was a consensus among the Americans about keeping things as they were once the break from Britain had been accomplished
The Revolution was inevitably viewed as a struggle of liberty versus tyranny between America and Britain.
The Revolution was “radical in its character,” according to Bancroft, because it hastened the advance of human beings toward a millennium of “everlasting peace” and “universal brotherhood.”
The imperial school believed that political and constitutional issues brought on the Revolution.
The Progressive historians held that the primary causes were social and economic.
Gipson claimed the British were justified in taxing the Americas and tightening the Navigation Acts after 1763, because largely British blood and money had been expended in the “Great War for Empire,” 1754-1763 (French and Indian War).
Carl L. Becker, Charles A. Beard, Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., and J. Franklin Jameson stressed class conflict as well as insisted the political or constitutional ideas had an underlying economic basis.
Disenchantment of the merchants with British rule, said Schlesinger, arose from the economic reverses they suffered as a result of the strict policy of imperial control enacted by the mother country after the French and Indian War.
The merchant class later became, in Schlesinger’s words, “a potent factor o the conservative counterrevolution that led to the establishment of the United States Constitution.”
In the struggle between colonies and the mother country, the Americans emerged as the “conservatives” because they were trying to keep matters as they were before 1763.
Daniel J. Boorsten argued that the revolution was conservative on the imperial as well as the local level because Americans were fighting to retain traditional rights and