NATURE OF THE REVOLUTION
Was the American Revolution a people's
revolt?
Viewpoint: Yes. The common people, motivated by republican principles,
fought against special privilege and pushed for greater political, religious, and
social equality.
Viewpoint: No. The American Revolution was an independence movement
directed by the elite, who determined the goals of the rebellion and its direction.
In interpreting the past, historians are often influenced by the times in
which they live. Bias is evident in analyses of America's War of Independence.
Historians writing during the Progressive period of the late 1800s and early
1900s, a time when private monopolies were widely regarded as threats to
democracy, firmly believed that colonial society was closed and undemocratic.
These historians regarded economic and social issues as the main causes of
the Revolution, not ideas, which they considered to be mere propaganda
invented by the elite to further their self-interests. Surrounded by class conflict,
the Progressive historians tended to see the Revolution in Hegelian-Marxist
terms, as class conflict. Likewise, historians writing during the protest movements of the 1950s to 1970s, which sought to advance the interests of the
underclass, argued that the history of the Revolution had been written too
much from the "top down" and not enough from the "bottom up." To that end
they focused their attention on the lower classes, which they frequently saw in
conflict with the upper classes.
During the relatively peaceful, prosperous, and conservative post-World
War II era some historians challenged this interpretation. They saw colonial
society as open and democratic. Therefore, the common man felt no urge to
launch a class war to achieve greater equality. Instead, Americans were
reluctant rebels who fought the Revolution in order to preserve the democratic society they already possessed against threats from Britain to change
it. If some power was transferred from the elite to the lower classes, it was the
result of chance or the exigencies of war, not through forceful demands by the
masses. In the end, ideas rather than natural and constitutional rights shaped
the Patriots' understanding of events and guided their actions.
Despite the stark contrast between these two interpretations of the
American Revolution, both arguments have merit because the War of Independence comprised thirteen separate rebellions, each with its own set of
causes and consequences. With such enormous diversity from state to state,
information to support either interpretation is easily available. In states such
as Pennsylvania, for example, the masses played an influential role in the
rebellion and gained significant political advancements following it. In states
such as South Carolina and Maryland the lower classes largely deferred to
the planter/merchant elite, who engineered a rebellion that successfully maintained the political and social status quo through the remainder of the century.
Clearly, if one is to better understand the complexity and nuances of the
nature of the American Revolution, historians must move past the simplistic
213
approach of these two schools of Interpretation. The Revolution was not a clear-cut class war,
because too many members of the different classes fought on both sides. Neither was the Revolution simply an ideological contest between leaders on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. To determine
the validity of either viewpoint, the reader must confront several related questions: what were the
motives and goals of the Patriot leaders? Did the rebellion go beyond the scope of their objectives?
If so, why and what role did the masses play in the transformation? Finally, did the Revolution cause
class conflicts or did it simply exacerbate social cleavages that already existed?
Viewpoint:
Yes. The common people, motivated
by republican principles, fought
against special privilege and
pushed for greater political,
religious, and social equality.
Delegates from twelve states attended the
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in
1787 because they believed that the Articles of
Confederation had failed to resolve several pressing problems. Nearly bankrupt, the government
had neither an effective currency nor the power
to tax citizens. It could control neither foreign
nor interstate commerce, and world powers
regarded it lightly. The fifty-five delegates often
disagreed about how best to deal with those vexing problems and about the kind of document
that should replace the Articles. Yet, they were
united on another more immediate concern.
Almost all the delegates believed that the American Revolution had unleashed radical political
forces that threatened the fabric of their society.
These men of property and standing resolved to
reverse the outcome of a genuine people's revolution. In the colorful words of Secretary of War
Henry Knox, they had met to "clip the wings of
a mad democracy."
Prior to the American Revolution, government on both the provincial and local levels had
been securely in the hands of prominent menplanters, merchants, and lawyers. Voters ordinarily deferred to this elite group in elections.
However, resistance to British imperial policies
before 1775 and the warfare (with its accompanying egalitarian ideology) that followed dramatically changed all that.
Mobilizing an effective opposition to an
imperial power required the combined efforts of
elite leaders, popular organizations such as the
Sons of Liberty, and urban mobs. Drawing upon
the work of generations of English dissenting
writers, authors from James Otis and Samuel
Adams to John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson
crafted a rationale for opposition to royal policies by arguing in essays, pamphlets, and letters
that the contemporary British regime was led by
corrupt and power-hungry ministers intent upon
subverting liberty in America. By exposing what
214
they saw as a conspiracy against freedom, these
writers were attempting to prompt and sustain
resistance to British policies. Sons of Liberty
emerged in several towns to organize the resistance. Composed of intellectuals, artisans, shopkeepers, and merchants, these organizations
successfully fused the anti-imperial arguments of
the essayists with lower-class grievances to persuade mobs to take action against British targets.
Mob action, often in defiance of British
authority, had long been a part of colonial urban
life. There had been more than one hundred
riots in the colonies by the mid 1760s. Sailors,
apprentices, journeymen, poor workingmen, free
blacks, and slaves dominated most mobs,
although they often included middle-class types.
Mobs took action when they concluded that
community leaders could not or would not act in
their best interests. They were particularly militant in opposition to British efforts at impressment or the collection of customs duties. It
surprised few, then, when mobs prevented the
successful implementation of the Stamp Act
(1765), Townshend duties (1767), and Tea Act
(1773) and compelled British authorities to
remove troops following the 1770 Boston Massacre. The available evidence clearly supports historian Marcus Rediker's conclusion in an article
in The Transforming Hand of Revolution: Reconsidering the American Revolution as a Social Movement, edited by Ronald Hoffman and Peter J.
Albert (1996), that urban mobs "provided much
of the spark, volatility, momentum, and sustained militancy for the attack on British policy
after 1765."
While leaders of the resistance movement
appreciated the effectiveness of mob action, they
worried about the consequences of frequent rioting. In their anti-British efforts, members of mobs
regularly betrayed their resentment of those in
colonial society who had wealth and power. In
1765 a Boston mob ruined the elegant mansion of
Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson; a New
York City mob destroyed Lieutenant Governor
Cadwallader Colden's expensive coach; and a
Charles Town mob entered the home of wealthy
merchant Henry Laurens, whom they "menaced
very loudly" and handled "pretty uncouthly." By
1775 it was clear to worried wealthy Americans
that the riots had contributed to an alarming
decline in deference. According to Merrill Jensen
HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N
in The American Revolution within America
(1974), William Bull, lieutenant governor of
South Carolina, explained that because of their
increased participation in riots, the people "have
discovered their own strength and importance
and are not now so easily governed by their
former leaders." Mobs did not disappear when
the war began, either. After 1775 there were several riots against merchants whom the people
believed were engaged in price gouging and
hoarding of basic staples.
Mass meetings and boycotts also helped
mobilize the people, giving many an opportunity to debate revolutionary principles and vote
on resolutions. County meetings in New Jersey,
Maryland, and Connecticut, for example,
declared the Stamp Act unconstitutional. In
December 1773 more than 5,000 people
crowded into Old South Meeting House in Boston to denounce the Tea Act. Thousands, including many women, joined the resistance by
signing or supporting several nonimportation
and nonconsumption agreements. In 1774 the
Continental Congress, in response to the Coercive Acts, formed a Continental Association to
suspend all trade with England. In virtually all
counties and towns, citizens elected committees
(some 7,000 men) to monitor merchants to
ensure compliance. All these activities accustomed ordinary people to engage in politics as
never before, and their activism did not end with
the beginning of warfare. About 232,000 men,
or 40 percent of military-age white males, served
in either their state militia or the Continental
Army during the American Revolution. These
men, motivated by the ringing words of the Declaration of Independence (1776) that "all men
are created equal," insisted on being treated as
equals. The enlistees and the officers they elected
mixed freely, the former often debating with the
latter about which orders to obey. Elite leaders
contributed to this insubordination by frequently yielding to militia demands such as
allowing the use of plain hunting shirts for standard uniforms. When recruits tired of service,
many simply went home. By one estimate, nearly
half of them deserted at least once. George Washington, who had little regard for the militia, concluded that men who served in these units were
too "accustomed to unbounded freedom" to
accept the "proper degree of Subordination."
These militiamen, so despised by officers in
the Continental Army, truly had many faults.
They were subject to independent local commanders, making coordinated tactical use of militia units difficult. They wasted supplies and
weapons, and they often fled from the field of
battle. Yet, militia units often fought well when
joined with the Continental Army, particularly
when the fighting got close to their homes. The
FRANCHISES OF
AMERICA
Most Patriot teaatem vfawwf th® Anglo-Atrmrioan conflict In itf&otogfatt
terms, particularly m a defense of their natural and constitutional rights.
In a letter to the First Contfrwrttaf Congress in 1774, William Henry Drayton, a leading South Carotin® revolutionary, catalogued a fist of American
grievances concerning recent Parliamentary measures directed toward
the Golonm;
1. By Acts of the British Parliament, taxing those
American Freeholders, although they have not any representation of their own election in Parliament
Z . „ . that Placemen dependent upon the Crown,
being Strangers Ignorant of the interests and laws of the
Colonies, are sent from England to fill seats in Council,
where they often have a majority.
3. By there not being any constitutional Courts of
Ordinary and of Chancery in America.
4. By the Judges holding their seats at the will of the
Crown; a tenure dangerous to the liberty and property of
the Subject; and therefore justly abolished in England.
5. By the oppressive powers vested in the Courts of
Admiralty.
6. By the British claiming and exercising a power to
bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever... to deprive
subjects of English blood of the right of representation in
the Colony of Quebec... and to quarter Soldiers in
America, against her consent of the Freeholders. All
which are illegal, and directly contrary to the Franchises
of America,
Source: Robert W* Qibb®$, Documentary History of tie American
Revolution Consisting of Letters and Papers Relating to fne Con*
test for Liberty, Chfefly in South Carolina from Originals In the Possession of the Editor, and Other Sources, 3 volumes (New York:
Appteton* 1BS3-m7),
militia made a greater contribution in this people's revolution, however, in the struggle to win
the hearts and minds of the population. Whenever British troops approached, men knew they
faced a test of loyalty. Falling out with weapons in
hand to oppose the enemy revealed a man's commitment to the Patriot cause. Failure to do so
brought social ostracism or worse from neighbors. This extraordinary pressure by the militia
usually assured popular support for the Patriot
side in the struggle to defeat the powerful British.
Some militia units also sought to influence
politics. The most-politicized militias—those in
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia—made
many demands. They insisted that recruits be
allowed to elect officers and that everyone,
including the rich, should share the burden of
military service. They further offered their views
on the creation of new state governments,
H I S T O R Y IN D I S P U T E , V O L U M E 12: THE A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N
215
demanding annual elections with broad suffrage
and fairer tax systems.
Although the militia contributed to a
Patriot victory, the Continental Army was essential. After 1776 it increasingly relied upon the
young and the poor—the landless, indentured
servants, apprentices, slaves, enemy deserters,
and prisoners. Patriotism motivated many men
to join, but so did the bounties offered to
recruits and the prospects of regular food rations
and pay, along with a promise of land after the
war. Despite their humble backgrounds, Continental soldiers, reflecting the developing egalitarian sentiment of the times, became more
assertive. They often resisted submitting to officers other than those they admired or liked.
Indeed, many officers often found it necessary to
demonstrate respect for privates. By the third
year of the war, soldiers began demonstrating
their frustration with the lack of civilian support
for their commitment by looting, drinking
heavily, and deserting. Between 1779 and 1783,
as they grew ever more desperate, many soldiers
participated in several mutinies. In January
1781, for example, more than one thousand men
in the Pennsylvania line mutinied. Rather than
attempting to seize power, mutineers, like mobs
before the Revolution, were defying authorities
they believed negligent in their duties.
Patriot leaders, through a blitz of publications, sought to mobilize mass support for the
Patriot cause by promoting the idea of equality.
Many economically independent small farmers
and artisans, who made up a majority of the population, eagerly adopted this egalitarian rhetoric.
They demanded that governments not only rest
on "the consent of the governed" but should
also give more power to ordinary citizens. Residents of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,
according to Jensen, instructed their delegates to
the state constitutional convention to establish
"a simple democracy, or as near it as possible"
and to "oppose everything that leans to aristocracy or power in the hands of the rich." The
anonymously authored pamphlet The People the
Best Governors (1776) called for annual elections
for all officeholders and argued that all twentyone-year-old males should be eligible to hold
office and to vote.
Even though the structures of the new governments in most states resembled those of their
colonial predecessors, with governors and
two-house legislatures, there were concessions to
the people's demands for more power. For example, most executive, judicial, and legislative officials were elected rather than appointed, and
they served short, limited terms. State constitutions, additionally, gave most political power to
the lower houses of the legislatures, the branch
most susceptible to popular influence. Indeed,
216
voters rejected traditional elites and elected men
more like themselves to serve in the lower
houses. In a study of the composition of houses
of representatives during the American Revolution, The Sovereign States, 1775-1783 (1973),
Jackson Turner Main concluded, "men from
average families, of little education or political
experience, became a majority." Gordon S.
Wood in The Creation of the American Republic,
1776-1787 (1969) noted that Massachusetts governor James Bowdoin, at the end of the Revolution, was amazed that he could "scarcely see any
other than new faces" in his state's government.
James Kir by Martin wrote in Men in Rebellion:
Higher Governmental Leaders and the Coming of
the American Revolution (1973) that to many
men, such as Virginian Roger Atkinson, it was a
pleasure to see their "new Assembly now sitting—under the happy auspices of the People
only." "I confess I am pleased," Atkinson
explained to a friend. While the assembly "is
composed of men not quite so well dressed, nor
so politely educated, nor so highly born as some
Assemblies I have formerly seen . . . upon the
whole I like their Proceedings." These were the
"People's men," he concluded, "and the People
in general are right."
As the people changed the old political
order, they also challenged religious authority in
two significant ways. First, dissenters and proponents of religious liberty worked to implement
the principle that financial support for churches
should be voluntary. In most colonies, one
denomination had enjoyed government sanction and tax support. In New York and the
Southern states, the Church of England lost its
tax support during the American Revolution. In
effect, it was disestablished. While the Congregational Church remained established in New
England, Quakers, Anglicans, and Baptists were
permitted to have their state church tax be paid
to support their denomination. Efforts outside
New England to implement a similar "general
assessment" failed because of a fear of renewed
Anglican dominance.
Second, building upon a trend that had
emerged with the midcentury Great Awakening,
the people enthusiastically embraced evangelical
Christianity. A diminished deference to learned
theologians accompanied their widespread challenge to orthodox beliefs and styles of worship.
They sought an enthusiastic religious experience
with a simple message of redemption from charismatic clergymen. The Baptist denomination
benefited the most from this populist development. In the three decades after 1780, the number of Baptist congregations grew from less than
500 to more than 2,500. As Nathan O. Hatch
has explained in The Democratization of American
Christianity (1989), "the rise of evangelical Chris-
HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N
tianity," as in politics, is "a story of the success of
common people in shaping the culture after
their own priorities."
The surge of activism culminating in a people's revolution did not incorporate all Americans. The egalitarian rhetoric did not extend to
Native Americans, blacks, and women. Most
Indian tribes remained neutral during the conflict. About thirteen thousand Native American
warriors fought with the British, while only a
few sided with the Americans. However, the
British-allied warriors chose badly. The victorious Americans seized ever more native lands. On
the other hand, some slaves benefited from the
egalitarian spirit of the Revolution. When the
war began, slaves sought freedom in several ways:
by filing lawsuits, enlisting in the army or navy,
and, most successfully, by running away.
Although thousands of blacks achieved freedom
through military service and flight, gradual
emancipation laws implemented in the Northern
states scarcely changed the lives of the vast majority of blacks who remained slaves for the remainder of their lives. Likewise, women realized few
gains. They participated in boycotts and food
riots and occasionally raised money for the Continental Army. They also managed farms and
businesses while their husbands were away serving in the military or in political office. For their
efforts, women increasingly were esteemed as
models and teachers of civic virtue, but they
gained little more than greater access to education and divorce.
Despite the shortcomings of the People's
Revolution, contemporaries understood that
they were living in a time of remarkable transformations. Those changes were frightening to men
of wealth and standing. From their perspective,
the state governments were too responsive to the
popular will. The elite believed that common
folk lacked the virtue and wisdom to rule and
worried that they were unwilling to deal with
threats to their property. In the 1780s, in several
states where debtors faced foreclosure on their
property, mobs intimidated judges into closing
courts. Moreover, planters, merchants, and lawyers quickly grew tired of the need, as Patrick
Henry explained it, to "bow with utmost deference to the majesty of the people."
Virtually all the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention expressed little faith in
"the people." Massachusetts delegate Elbridge
Gerry spoke for many when he said that the people "are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated
by designing men." Roger Sherman concurred.
The people, in his judgment, "should have as little to do as may be about the government." As a
consequence, delegates shifted the focus of
power from the state governments to the
national government, and in the process, dramatically diminished the political role of the people.
Most officials in the new government gained virtual immunity from the popular pressures faced
by their counterparts on the state level. The chief
executive would be chosen by an electoral college, members of the Senate would be selected by
state legislators, and federal judges would be
appointed for life terms. Only the members of
the House of Representatives would face the
challenge of winning a popular vote. The Founding Fathers were aristocrats deeply troubled by
the radical thrust of the People's Revolution.
They created a national government "of the people," but one largely removed from them. They
had adopted a view brilliantly captured in an
incongruous statement by New England clergyman Jeremy Belknap, who remarked: "let it
stand as a principle that government originates
from the people; but let the people be taught. . .
that they are not able to govern themselves."
-LARRY GRAGG, UNIVERSITY OF
MISSOURI AT ROLLA
Viewpoint:
No. The American Revolution was
an independence movement
directed by the elite, who
determined the goals of the
rebellion and its direction.
The decision to participate in the American
revolutionary movement was often complicated.
People chose to break away from England for a
variety of reasons, some of which were associated
with class interests. Increased poverty and frustration with British troops, for example, fueled
many urban protestors, while unfair debt, fear of
slave revolts, and laws prohibiting speculation in
Western lands inspired many of Virginia's
wealthy planters to oppose the British. Ultimately, though, the decision to revolt was personal. George Washington could have been
thinking of the Crown's denial of his commission as an officer in the British Army when he
decided to join the American cause. Additionally, Benjamin Franklin became a revolutionary
while residing in England; his son became a Loyalist while living in America. Both were appalled
by the abuses of the respective legislatures.
Joseph Plumb Martin, who joined Washington's
army as a teenager, signed on after a bitter fight
with his grandfather. Thus, people from all
classes joined the American rebellion for a variety of economic, social, political, and personal
reasons. The elite could not have convinced the
HISTORY IN DISPUTE,
VOLUME 12: THE A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N
217
culture that undermined deference. This declining deference affected Southern cities, too. In
Charles Town, South Carolina, for example,
twenty-three of twenty-six members of the Sons
of Liberty were artisans. Only one merchant,
Christopher Gadsden, belonged to the organization, and he served as its leader. Indeed, artisans
in Charles Town played a variety of public roles:
they joined fellowship societies, sponsored horse
races, and nominated slates of candidates. Moreover, as the royal government became paralyzed
over a bitter and protracted controversy involving the assembly's £1,500 donation to the
English political critic John Wilkes, a de facto
committee composed of fifteen artisans, fifteen
merchants, and sixty-nine planters performed the
necessary tasks of government. Thus, for the first
time, craftsmen played a significant role in governing South Carolina. This political pattern prevailed throughout the states during the
Revolution. By serving on political committees
and participating in mob activities, the "middling sorts" managed to increase their political
influence. But did the lower classes' increasing
political participation undermine the elite's
political dominance?
lower classes to join the Revolution anymore
than they could have influenced the Loyalists of
their own class. The elite did not control the
herds; they were just heading in the same direction. Yet, it was often the elite who gave the Revolution its voice and direction. The real question
is how much did deference by the lower sorts
toward the traditional elite change over the
course of the Revolution?
The coming of the Revolution had an
out-of-door aspect to it. The perceived violations
of American constitutional and natural rights by
the British were often met with mob violence
and popularly enforced economic sanctions. The
lower orders therefore played an important part
in the events leading to actual rebellion; in the
process, they gained a greater sense of their political power. In his study of the urban masses in
eighteenth-century Northern colonies, The Urban
Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and
the Origins of the American Revolution (1979),
Gary B. Nash found that factional fighting
among the elite in the decades prior to the Revolution facilitated the lower orders' realization of
their political abilities. The creation of political
organizations, the dissemination of republicanminded literature, and mob action all produced a
218
HISTORY IN DISPUTE,
Stuart M. Blumin, in his study of the urban
middle class, The Emergence of the Middle Class,
Social Experience in the American City, 1760-1900
(1989), found no evidence that the middling sort
wished to displace the traditional planter/merchant elite. The republican spirit of the Revolution diminished the people's deferential attitude
toward the elite, but it did not eliminate it. In
Charles Town, for example, the elite controlled
the mob and the course of the Revolution in
that state. The artisans who participated in the
political process still deferred to merchants and
planters. When urban artisans founded the Fellowship Society in 1762 to raise money for a
public hospital, they soon deferred leadership
positions within the organization to local merchants, who were eager to participate in such a
worthy cause. During the Revolution, additionally, only a few local artisans held seats on important Patriot committees. Instead, the lower
classes in Charles Town and other cities still
allowed the elite to be their voice and give them
direction. Even in Boston, the hotbed of unrest,
urban protestors had Samuel Adams as their
spokesman and leader. Likewise, the Sons of Liberty in Charles Town took their cues from Gadsden, a wealthy merchant whose obnoxious
personality alienated him from those in his own
class. Both Adams and Gadsden lacked an audience among their peers, so they used the lower
classes to further their own personal agendas.
Neither Adams nor Gadsden advocated social
leveling; nor did the lower classes, for that matter. Gadsden believed in popular rights but with
aristocratic leadership. Adams believed popular
VOLUME 12: THE A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N
organizations served an important purpose in
the resistance movement, but once an elected
republican government emerged, popular uprisings were useless and dangerous. Since these
groups chose spokesmen who still believed the
elite should rule, it is unlikely that they questioned that idea themselves.
Not only did the lower classes' natural tendency to defer to their social superiors hinder
them from augmenting their political power but
division among themselves also prevented them
from developing a strong sense of class consciousness. As Nash pointed out, class consciousness among workers was inchoate. Divisions
existed among ethnic groups, wealth levels,
crafts, and within the workshops themselves
between master and journeyman. The most politically active artisans were generally wealthy and
did not really belong to the lower or middle
classes. Only the wealthiest craftsmen had the
economic independence necessary to pursue
political careers.
The rise in political awareness and participation among the lower classes during the
American Revolution did not last. After the
war, political leaders discouraged the type of
protests generally associated with the lower
classes. Never a majority in legitimate political
circles, "the people" could really only influence
public policy through mass demonstrations.
However, popular revolts such as Shays's Rebellion (1786-1787) and the Whiskey Rebellion
(1794) frightened political leaders, who saw
them as a threat to the fragile and embryonic
republic. When Charles Town artisans violently
protested the lenient treatment of Loyalists
after the war, the planter/merchant elite, in the
South Carolina, Gazette and General Advertiser,
blasted their behavior as "indiscretion, folly and
insolence." And although several artisans had
served on revolutionary committees, by the
1790s only two served in political office. Moreover, by placing extremely high property qualification for serving in political office in the 1778
constitution, the South Carolina gentry
ensured the continuation of the ancien regime.
On the other hand, elites in all states held high
political office from the beginning of the revolutionary movement through the early national
period. The same cannot be said for members
of the lower classes, whose primary weapon,
street violence, was no longer needed once the
revolutionaries had suppressed the Loyalists
and had overthrown British tutelage.
In the final analysis, the elite set the political agenda for the Revolution. The lower
classes' political motivations, if they existed at
all, were usually narrowly defined and based on
local issues. The elite articulated and defined
the colonists' complaints with the mother
country. Ultimately, the American Revolution
was a political contest between political leaders
in America and Britain. The major issues that
fueled the rebellion—Whitehall's increasing
placement of non-natives in colonial government and Parliament's offensive economic and
political policies—were primarily threats against
the elite, not the lower classes. Patriot leaders
did not seek independence to advance social leveling and political democracy; rather, through
independence, they sought to preserve their
political, social, and economic dominance. They
recognized that the lower classes could help
them achieve this goal and thus allowed them a
secondary role in the American cause. The
lower classes were more than willing to accept
this role without questioning the authority of
their local leaders.
-MARY C. FERRARI, RADFORD UNIVERSITY
References
Stuart M. Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle
Class, Social Experience in the American City,
1760-1900 (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Theodore Draper, A Struggle for Power: The
American Revolution (New York: Times
Books, 1996).
Arthur A. Ekirch Jr., The Challenge of American
Democracy: A Concise History of Social
Thought and Political Action (Belmont, Cal.:
Wadsworth, 1973).
Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, revised edition, volume 1
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).
Mary C. Ferrari, "Artisans of the South: A Comparative Study of Norfolk, Charleston and
Alexandria, 1763-1800," Dissertation, College of William and Mary, 1992.
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York:
Knopf, 1948).
Merrill Jensen, The American Revolution within
America (New York: New York University
Press, 1974).
Keith Krawczynski, William Henry Drayton:
South Carolina Revolutionary Patriot (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
2001).
Jackson Turner Main, The Sovereign States, 17751783 (New York: New Viewpoints, 1973).
HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N
219
James Kirby Martin, Men in Rebellion: Higher
Governmental Leaders and the Coming of the
American Revolution (New Brunswick, N J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1973).
Richard B. Morris, "'We the People of the
United States': The Bicentennial of a People's Revolution," American Historical
Review, 82 (February 1977): 1-19.
Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social
Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).
Ray Raphael, A People's History of the American
Revolution: How Common People Shaped the
Fight for Independence (New York: New
Press, 2001).
Marcus Rediker, "A Motley Crew of Rebels: Sailors, Slaves, and the Coming of the American Revolution," in The Transforming Hand
of Revolution: Reconsidering the American
Revolution as a Social Movement, edited by
Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert (Charlottes ville: University Press of Virginia,
1996), pp. 155-198.
Howard B. Rock, Artisans of the New Republic:
Tradesman of New Tork City in the Age of Jefferson (New York: New York University
Press, 1979).
220
Steven Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class: The
Philadelphia Militia and the "Lower Sort"
During the American Revolution, 1775-1783
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University
Press, 1987).
South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, 29
April 1874 and 1 May 1784.
Charles G. Steffen, The Mechanics of Baltimore:
Workers and Politics in the Age of Revolution,
1763-1812 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1984).
Thad Tate, "The Coming of the Revolution in
Virginia: Britain's Challenge to Virginia's
Ruling Class, 1763-1776," William and
Mary Quarterly, third series, 19 (July 1962):
323-343.
Robert M. Weir, "Who Shall Rule at Home: The
American Revolution as a Crisis of Legitimacy for the Colonial Elites," Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, 6 (Spring 1976):
679-700.
Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American
Republic, 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969).
Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution
(New York: Knopf, 1992).
HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N