The Meaning of the American Revolution

The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to cease?

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their  religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. While the king, and all in authority under him, were believed to govern in justice and  mercy, according to the laws and constitution derived to them from the  God of nature and transmitted to them by their ancestors, they thought themselves bound to pray for the king and queen and all the royal  family, and all in authority under them, as ministers ordained of God  for their good; but when they saw those powers renouncing all the principles of authority, and bent upon the destruction of all the  securities of their lives, liberties, and properties, they thought it  their duty to pray for the continental congress and all the thirteen  State congresses, &c.

There might be, and there were others who thought less about religion and conscience, but had certain habitual sentiments of allegiance and  loyalty derived from their education; but believing allegiance and protection to be reciprocal, when protection was withdrawn, they thought  allegiance was dissolved.

Another alteration was common to all. The people of America had been educated in an habitual affection for England, as their mother country;  and while they thought her a kind and tender parent, (erroneously  enough, however, for she never was such a mother,) no affection could be  more sincere. But when they found her a cruel beldam, willing like Lady Macbeth, to "dash their brains out," it is no wonder if their  filial affections ceased, and were changed into indignation and horror.

This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

By what means this great and important alteration in the religious, moral, political, and social character of the people of thirteen  colonies, all distinct, unconnected, and independent of each other, was  begun, pursued, and accomplished, it is surely interesting to humanity  to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity.

To this end, it is greatly to be desired, that young men of letters in all the States, especially in the thirteen original States, would  undertake the laborious, but certainly interesting and amusing task, of searching and collecting all the records, pamphlets, newspapers, and  even handbills, which in any way contributed to change the temper and  views of the people, and compose them into an independent nation.

The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government so different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were composed  of so many different nations, their customs, manners, and habits had so  little resemblance, and their intercourse had been so rare, and their  knowledge of each other so imperfect, that to unite them in the same  principles in theory and the same system of action, was certainly a very  difficult enterprise. The complete accomplishment of it, in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the  history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together -- a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever before effected.

In this research, the gloriole of individual gentlemen, and of separate States, is of little consequence. The means and the measures are the proper objects of investigation. These may be of use to posterity, not only in this nation, but in South America and all other  countries. They may teach mankind that revolutions are no trifles; that they ought never to be undertaken rashly; nor without deliberate consideration and sober reflection; nor without a solid, immutable,  eternal foundation of justice and humanity; nor without a people  possessed of intelligence, fortitude, and integrity sufficient to carry them with steadiness, patience, and perseverance, through all the  vicissitudes of fortune, the fiery trials and melancholy disasters they  may have to encounter.

The town of Boston early instituted an annual oration on the 4th of July, in commemoration of the principles and feelings which contributed  to produce the revolution. Many of those orations I have heard, and all that I could obtain, I have read. Much ingenuity and eloquence appears upon every subject, except those principles and feelings. That of my honest and amiable neighbor, Josiah Quincy, appeared to me the most  directly to the purpose of the institution. Those principles and feelings ought to be traced back for two hundred years, and sought in  the history of the country from the first plantations in America. Nor should the principles and feelings of the English and Scotch towards the colonies, through that whole period, ever be forgotten. The perpetual discordance between British principles and feelings and of those of  America, the next year after the suppression of the French power in  America, came to a crisis, and produced an explosion.

It was not until after the annihilation of the French dominion in America that any British ministry had dared to gratify their own wishes,  and the desire of the nation, by projecting a formal plan for raising a national revenue from America, by parliamentary taxation. The first great manifestation of this design was by the order to carry into strict  executions those acts of parliament, which were well known by the appellation of the acts of trade, which had lain a dead letter,  unexecuted for half a century, and some of them, I believe, for nearly a  whole one.

This produced, in 1760 and 1761, an awakening and a revival of American principles and feelings, with an enthusiasm which went on increasing  till, in 1775, it burst out in open violence, hostility, and fury.

The characters the most conspicuous, the most ardent and influential in this revival, from 1760 to 1766, were, first and foremost, before all  and above all, James Otis; next to him was Oxenbridge Thacher; next to  him, Samuel Adams; next to him, John Hancock; then Dr. Mayhew; then Dr. Cooper and his brother. Of Mr. Hancock's life, character, generous nature, great and disinterested sacrifices, and important services, if I  had forces, I should be glad to write a volume. But this, I hope, will be done by some younger and abler hand. Mr. Thacher, because his name and merits are less known, must not be wholly omitted. This gentleman was an eminent barrister at law, in as large practice as any one in Boston. There was not a citizen of that town more universally beloved for his learning, ingenuity, every domestic and social virtue, and  conscientious conduct in every relation of life. His patriotism was as ardent as his progenitors had been ancient and illustrious in this country. Hutchinson often said, "Thacher was not born a plebeian, but he was determined to die one." In May, 1763, I believe, he was chosen by the town of Boston one of their representatives in the legislature, a colleague with Mr. Otis, who had been a member from May,  1761, and he continued to be reflectcd annually till his death in 1765,  when Mr. Samuel Adams was elected to fill his place, in the absence of  Mr. Otis, then attending the Congress at New York. Thacher had long been jealous of the unbounded ambition of Mr. Hutchinson, but when he found him not content with the office of Lieutenant-Governor, the command of  the castle and its emoluments, of Judge of Probate for the county of  Suffolk, a seat in his Majesty's Council in the Legislature, his  brother-in-law Secretary of State by the king's commission, a brother of that Secretary of State, a Judge of the Supreme Court and a member of  Council, now in 1760 and 1761, soliciting and accepting the office of  Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, he concluded, as Mr. Otis did, and as every other enlightened friend of his country did, that he sought that office with the determined purpose of determining all  causes in favor of the ministry at St. James's, and their servile  parliament.

His indignation against him hence forward, to 1765, when he died, knew no bounds but truth. I speak from personal knowledge. For, from 1758 to 1765, I attended every superior and inferior court in Boston, and  recollect not one, in which he did not invite me home to spend evenings  with him, when he made me converse with him as well as I could, on all  subjects of religion, morals, law, politics, history, philosophy, belles  lettres, theology, mythology, cosmogony, metaphysics, -- Locke, Clark,  Leibnitz, Bolingbroke, Berkeley, -- the pre-established harmony of the  universe, the nature of matter and of spirit, and the eternal  establishment of coincidences between their operations; fate,  foreknowledge absolute; and we reasoned on such unfathomable subjects as  high as Milton's gentry in pandemonium; and we understood them as well  as they did, and no better. To such mighty mysteries he added the news of the day, and the tittle-tattle of the town. But his favorite subject was politics, and the impending, threatening system of parliamentary  taxation and universal government over the colonies. On this subject he was so anxious and agitated that I have no doubt it occasioned his  premature death. From the time when he argued the question of writs of assistance to his death, he considered the king, ministry, parliament,  and nation of Great Britain as determined to new-model the colonies from  the foundation, to annul all their charters, to constitute them all  royal governments, to raise a revenue in America by parliamentary  taxation, to apply that revenue to pay the salaries of governors,  judges, and all other crown officers; and, after all this, to raise as  large a revenue as they pleased, to be applied to national purposes at  the exchequer in England; and further, to establish bishops and the  whole system of the Church of England, tithes and all, throughout all  British America. This system, he said, if it was suffered to prevail, would extinguish the flame of liberty all over the world; that America  would be employed as an engine to batter down all the miserable remains  of liberty in Great Britain and Ireland, where only any semblance of it  was left in the world. To this system he considered Hutchinson, the Olivers, and all their connections, dependents, adherents, shoelickers, &c., entirely devoted. He asserted that they were all engaged with all the crown officers in America and the understrappers of the ministry  in England, in a deep and treasonable conspiracy to betray the liberties  of their country, for their own private, personal and family  aggrandizement. His philippics against the unprincipled ambition and avarice of all of them, but especially of Hutchinson, were unbridled;  not only in private, confidential conversations, but in all companies  and on all occasions. He gave Hutchinson the sobriquet of "Summa Potestatis," and rarely mentioned him but by the name of "Summa." His liberties of speech were no secrets to his enemies. I have sometimes wondered that they did not throw him over the bar, as they did soon  afterwards Major Hawley. For they hated him worse than they did James Otis or Samuel Adams, and they feared him more, because they had no  revenge for a father's disappointment of a seat on the superior bench to  impute to him, as they did to Otis; and Thacher's character through life  had been so modest, decent, unassuming; his morals so pure, and his  religion so venerated, that they dared not attack him. In his office were educated to the bar two eminent characters, the late Judge Lowell  and Josiah Quincy, aptly called the Boston Cicero. Mr. Thacher's frame was slender, his constitution delicate; whether his physicians  overstrained his vessels with mercury, when he had the smallpox by  inoculation at the castle, or whether he was overplied by public  anxieties and exertions, the smallpox left him in a decline from which  he never recovered. Not long before his death he sent for me to commit to my care some of his business at the bar. I asked him whether he had seen the Virginia resolves: "Oh yes--they are men! they are noble  spirits! It kills me to think of the lethargy and stupidity that  prevails here. I long to be out. I will go out. I will go out. I will go  into court, and make a speech, which shall be read after my death, as my  dying testimony against this infernal tyranny which they are bringing  upon us." Seeing the violent agitation into which it threw him, I changed the subject as soon as possible, and retired. He had been confined for some time. Had he been abroad among the people, he would not have complained so pathetically of the "lethargy and stupidity  that prevailed;" for town and country were all alive, and in August  became active enough; and some of the people proceeded to unwarrantable  excesses, which were more lamented by the patriots than by their  enemies. Mr. Thacher soon died, deeply lamented by all the friends of their country.

Another gentleman, who had great influence in the commencement of the Revolution, was Doctor Jonathan Mayhew, a descendant of the ancient  governor of Martha's Vineyard. This divine had raised a great reputation both in Europe and America, by the publication of a volume of seven  sermons in the reign of King George the Second, 1749, and by many other  writings, particularly a sermon in 1750, on the 30th of January, on the  subject of passive obedience and non-resistance, in which the saintship  and martyrdom of King Charles the First are considered, seasoned with  wit and satire superior to any in Swift or Franklin. It was read by everybody; celebrated by friends, and abused by enemies. During the reigns of King George the First and King George the Second, the reigns of the Stuarts, the two Jameses and the two Charleses were in general  disgrace in England. In America they had always been held in abhorrence. The persecutions and cruelties suffered by their ancestors under those reigns, had been transmitted by history and tradition, and Mayhew seemed  to be raised up to revive all their animosities against tyranny, in  church and state, and at the same time to destroy their bigotry,  fanaticism, and inconsistency. David Hume's plausible, elegant, fascinating, and fallacious apology, in which he varnished over the  crimes of the Stuarts, had not then appeared. To draw the character of Mayhew, would be to transcribe a dozen volumes. This transcendent genius threw all the weight of his great fame into the scale of his country in  1761, and maintained it there with zeal and ardor till his death, in 1766. In 1763 appeared the controversy between him and Mr. Apthorp, Mr. Caner, Dr. Johnson, and Archbishop Secker, on the charter and conduct of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. To form a judgment of this debate, I beg leave to refer to a review of the whole,  printed at the time and written by Samuel Adams, though by some, very  absurdly and erroneously ascribed to Mr. Apthorp. If I am not mistaken, it will be found a model of candor, sagacity, impartiality, and close, correct reasoning.

If any gentleman supposes this controversy to be nothing to the present purpose, he is grossly mistaken. It spread an universal alarm against the authority of Parliament. It excited a general and just apprehension, that bishops, and dioceses, and churches, and priests, and tithes, were  to be imposed on us by Parliament. It was known that neither king, nor ministry, nor archbishops, could appoint bishops in America, without an  act of Parliament; and if Parliament could tax us, they could establish  the Church of England, with all its creeds, articles, tests, ceremonies,  and tithes, and prohibit all other churches, as conventicles and schism  shops.

Nor must Mr. Cushing be forgotten. His good sense and sound judgment, the urbanity of his manners, his universal good character, his numerous  friends and connections, and his continual intercourse with all sorts of  people, added to his constant attachment to the liberties of his  country, gave him a great and salutary influence from the beginning in  1760.

Let me recommend these hints to the consideration of Mr. Wirt, whose Life of Mr. Henry I have read with great delight. I think that, after mature investigation, he will be convinced that Mr. Henry did not "give  the first impulse to the ball of independence," and that Otis,  Thacher, Samuel Adams, Mayhew, Hancock, Cushing, and thousands of  others, were laboring for several years at the wheel before the name of  Henry was heard beyond the limits of Virginia.