Page:Bertram David Wolfe, Jay Lovestone, William Francis Dunne - Our Heritage from 1776 (1926).pdf/13

 Rh counter-revolutionaries from the Constituent Assembly. It seems that the methods of all revolutions are alike—revolutionary.

In this connection it is interesting to hear the testimony of a very conservative historian, Dr. James Sullivan, Assistant Commissioner of Education of the State of New York. Speaking at Columbia University recently, he said:

We can pardon Dr. Sullivan his little weakness as to executions (in Russia they are called executions, in the United States "lists of the slain in battle") in view of his unusual clarity in political analysis. In spite of his proviso as to executions, he was roundly hissed by his respectable audience, as the New York Times reported.

It is false to pretend, as many working class writers do, that the American revolution of 1776, since it did not live up to the glowing promises of the Declaration of Independence, did not accomplish anything. I can only briefly list a few of the results in an article that is already too long. The revolution freed the colonies from England, freed the western land for settlement and thereby raised the standard of living of the colonials, broke the fetters upon the expansion of production and released the gigantic productive forces that are now at hand for social use when the workers take them, lessened to a limited extent the area of slavery, made the first weak steps in lightening the laws against debtors, disestablished the Church and introduced greater religious toleration in many of the colonies, effected a much wider and more democratic distribution of the land than had existed previously, extended the suffrage slightly altho the property qualification for voting was not finally abolished in all states until after 1840, forced the Bill of Rights into the American Constitution, set up a republican form of government which for its day was the most advanced, and served as a revolutionary inspiration to the European bourgeoisie in the French revolution.