It has become de rigueur, even among libertarians and classical liberals, to denigrate the benefits of the American Revolution. Thus, libertarian Bryan Caplan writes: “Can anyone tell me why American independence was worth fighting for?… [W]hen you ask about specific libertarian policy changes that came about because of the Revolution, it’s hard to get a decent answer. In fact, with 20/20 hindsight, independence had two massive anti-libertarian consequences: It removed the last real check on American aggression against the Indians, and allowed American slavery to avoid earlier—and peaceful—abolition.”1 One can also find such challenges reflected in recent mainstream writing, both popular and scholarly.
In fact, the American Revolution, despite all its obvious costs and excesses, brought about enormous net benefits not just for citizens of the newly independent United States but also, over the long run, for people across the globe. Speculations that, without the American Revolution, the treatment of the indigenous population would have been more just or that slavery would have been abolished earlier display extreme historical naivety. Indeed, a far stronger case can be made that without the American Revolution, the condition of Native Americans would have been no better, the emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies would have been significantly delayed, and the condition of European colonists throughout the British empire, not just those in what became the United States, would have been worse than otherwise.
These are the first two paragraphs of this month’s Econlib Feature Article. The article, “Benefits of the American Revolution: An Exploration of Positive Externalities” by economic historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel.
Since I’ve taken over as the person who lines up a monthly article for the Econlib Feature Article, I’ve had Liberty Fund commission 12 articles a year for a little over 10 years. Of the 120+ articles I’ve lined up and edited, the one this month is my favorite. One main way I judge what’s my favorite is by how much I learn.
I learned a lot and I highly recommend this piece.
Of course, I lined it up because of the coming July 4th holiday. What I hadn’t known, but learned this morning, is that John Adams predicted that the day we would celebrate is July 2 because that’s when the Second Continental Congress voted for independence. So it’s fitting that the piece appears on July 2.
READER COMMENTS
Jon Murphy
Jul 3 2018 at 1:25am
Gee thanks. I’m not offended at all 😉
Joking aside, you undersell this Hummel’s article. It’s fascinating. I, too, learned a lot about the history of some of England’s other colonies like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Daniel Klein
Jul 3 2018 at 4:34am
Great piece. Vintage Hummel.
I wonder how Jeff feels about “revolution” vs. “war for independence” or “secession.” Regarding Jeff’s closing remarks, where he cites Gordon Tullock: The exceptional nature of the American “revolution” is accounted for, to some extent, by its not being a revolution. It’s not as though the colonists went to London and undid the Crown and Parliament. This is a point that Daniel Hannan likes to make. I think it is unfortunate how much the American and French “revolutions” are spoken of as though parallel. There’s an important difference between George Washington and Robespierre or Oliver Cromwell.
The American struggle is like a 20 year old son who has moved out, lives in his own apartment, and throws off the long-arm of his parents—an arm that reaches across a freakin’ ocean. The French revolution is like a 20 year old son who still lives at home and then throws his parents out of their own home!
Daniel Klein
Jul 3 2018 at 6:03am
Further:
It seems to me that the war waged by the South in the 1860s was every bit as much a revolution as the war waged by the colonists. But we never speak of the Southern Revolution. It seems to me that calling the colonists’ war a “revolution” is a piece of grandiosity. It would be interesting to compare word usage in US and UK history textbooks.
John Alcorn
Jul 3 2018 at 9:07am
@ Daniel Klein,
Re your comment: “I wonder how Jeff feels about ‘revolution’ vs. ‘war for independence’ or ‘secession.’ Regarding Jeff’s closing remarks, where he cites Gordon Tullock: The exceptional nature of the American “revolution” is accounted for, to some extent, by its not being a revolution.”
There was secession (Declaration of Independence), followed by war to achieve independence, culminating in a radical change in the system of government (constitution-making, creation of a national polity, federalism, separation of church and state, etc. etc. etc.) If this isn’t a revolution, what is?
Sure, the French revolution and the Russian revolution were more radical in some ways than the American revolution. But they were all rebellions that changed the system of government.
Daniel Klein
Jul 4 2018 at 2:44am
@John Alcorn
It’s interesting to ponder the differences between revolution, revolt, rebellion, coup, and independence/secession. The last category, independence/secession, where a part outside of the ruling capital, the seat of sovereignty, wants to walk away from the rest of the whole and the sovereign and become its own polity, can be further divided into those that are peaceful and those that turn violent because the ‘parent’ government doesn’t want to let that part walk away. The Wikipedia page on ‘Revolution’ discusses definitions and typologies. And at this page there is a list of revolutions and revolts.
I simply note that not all violent independence/secessionist struggles are called ‘revolution,’ yet most exhibit the features you list for the American secession. We never speak of the Confederate Revolution. The Dutch war for independence from Spain is called the Dutch Revolt, not the Dutch Revolution. It seems to me that revolution especially means the whole shebang, as in the English, French, Russian, Iranian—again, analogous to throwing the parents out of their own home.
At the page listing revolutions and revolts, there are some that, like the American, are basically independence/secessionist struggles. But it seems like most of those are not called ‘revolution,’ and that whole shebang remains the most salient meaning of revolution.
I suppose that my part/whole formulation is often inapt, in the sense that the colony of Massachusetts, say, was never a part of the English polity, but was rather a separate thing that happened to have rulers (‘parents’) appointed by the English government. On that interpretation the American struggle can then be interpreted as whole-shebang, as jettisoning the ‘parents.’ The problem with interpreting Massachusetts thusly is that those local Massachusetts ‘parents’ were in fact subordinates to rulers back in England; they weren’t global top dogs.
Perhaps authors who want to play up the idea that the rebelling unit was its own place all along, its own polity, tend to call the struggle a ‘revolution,’ whereas authors who want to play up the idea that the place was a part of larger political whole call it ‘independence,’ ‘revolt,’ ‘rebellion.’ Again, it would be interesting to compare US and UK textbooks on the American conflict.
John Alcorn
Jul 6 2018 at 11:41am
@ Daniel Klein,
Thanks for your full, nuanced reply. Perhaps clarity would be served by calling secession-revolutions, such as the Dutch & American cases, ‘Revolts.’ Language has its own ways. I would say that that the Patriots made, and the Loyalists suffered, a Revolution, which necessarily involved also secession; and that the British at the center suffered a revolt (secession).
Sharon Kinkade
Jul 3 2018 at 6:59pm
It is called Liberty !
Jeff Hummel
Jul 7 2018 at 9:59am
@Dan and John,
Your discussion about subtle distinctions in the correct terminology for describing what is generally referred to as the “American Revolution” is interesting. My own view is that it is not easy to draw precise boundaries between terms such as “revolution,” “secession,” “revolt,” “rebellion,” and “coup.” Many events simultaneously display features of several of these terms.
Dan’s preference for “secession,” for instance, runs up against the fact that independence was never the colonists’ original goal. Even after military conflict broke out in April 1775, a majority of the Continental Congress did not favor independence until February 1776, and it was a slim majority. The first colony to actually instruct its delegates to vote for independence was North Carolina the following April. Thus we have nearly a year of hard fighting during which a majority of Patriots favored and expected to achieve reconciliation within the British Empire. It was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published in January 1776, that ultimately tipped the scales in favor of secession.
Also the difference between the French and American Revolutions can be overdrawn. The American Revolution admittedly had no reign of terror, but the treatment of Loyalists could be quite appalling, with disturbing instances of brutality and killing. Given that many Loyalists fought for the British, some historians have started referring to the Revolution as a civil war, a term neither of you consider. At the end of the War for Independence, an estimated 50,000 Loyalists left the United States, out of total population of 2.5 million. The French Revolution generated as many as 130,000 émigrés and deportees, out of a total population of 25 million. Thus the American Revolution produced refugees at almost four times the rate of the French Revolution. And while many émigrés eventually returned to France, very few Loyalists returned to the U.S.
I still maintain that the American Revolution brought momentous benefits, but let us not overlook its costs and excesses. Moreover don’t those benefits themselves qualify as revolutionary changes in the domestic arena?
Jeff Hummel
Jul 7 2018 at 4:38pm
Correction: I meant to address my previous comment to Dan and John, not Dan and Tom. Apologies for the error.
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