The American Evolution, not Revolution!

Since 1776, there have a many attempts by other countries to replicate what the Americans did that fateful year.  The French were the first in 1789, followed by others, including the Mexicans (1810), the Russians (1917), the Chinese (1949), and the Cubans (1959).  Unfortunately, rather than providing those nations with leaders such as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, these revolutions ended with tyrants such as Napoleon, Santa Anna, Stalin, Mao, and Castro.  In more recent times, as the former authoritarian regimes are replaced with totalitarian ones, the democratically inspired revolts in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria seem destined to share the same fate as the above mentioned revolutions.  

This begs the question, “Why did the American Revolution succeed where so many have failed?”

As I illustrate in my book, Liberty Inherited, the American Revolution was not really a revolution.  It was actually the next step in the development of a socio-political-economic system that evolved over the previous 1200 years in England.   As George Washington would write in 1783, the British Empire “was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and suspicion but in an epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.” 

And he was not alone.  In 1763, John Adams wrote in Novanglus No. VII:

[T]he British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition be just, the British constitution is nothing more nor less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government’s being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend. An empire is a despotism, and an emperor a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy.

And, as late as March 1775, Benjamin Franklin was hopeful that British America could remain part of the Empire, even to the point of offering his entire net worth to pay for the tea spilt in the Boston Tea Party if London would only address the colonists’ grievances.

It is clear from these few examples (and there are many more) that the Founding Fathers of this nation considered the British system of government—with its limited government and respect for the rights of the individual—the best in the world.  They did not consider it tyrannical, despotic, or authoritarian.  Even after the defeat of the Empire by the American colonists Washington still maintained a positive opinion of the system.  

Furthermore, through the colonial assemblies and the hands-off approach of London, the colonists had over 150 years of semi self-rule.  Each colony had an assembly based on the English Parliament (either unicameral or bicameral) with the now familiar executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.  The most common shape of a colonial government had the executive in the form of the colony’s governor appointed by London, a legislature in the form of an assembly elected by the colonists, and a judicial with locally elected judges and the Governor’s Counsel acting as a supreme court.  The colonies, with few exceptions, were free to create their own laws as long as the laws did not violate English Common Law.  These 150 years of experience created political traditions, customs, and culture that the colonies of the other colonial powers (mainly Spain and France) lacked.  

While it is true that the Founding Fathers established a congress rather than a parliament, an elected president rather than a hereditary monarch, and a federal republic rather than a constitutional monarchy, the American Revolution is less of a revolution than it initially appears to be.  The truth is that when the time came for British America to become America and establish its own government the Founding Fathers took the system they knew, respected, and envied and made it their own.  They used the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to justify their own actions; kept English Common Law as the basis of their legal system; and used the Declaration of Rights of 1689 (which guaranteed in writing the ‘rights of all Englishmen’) as the model and basis for the founding documents (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights).  So, while the mechanics of government were changed, the basic political principles and values of the English system—mainly limited government, individual rights, private property, and free market economics—remained at the heart of the system.  The ‘rights of freeborn Englishmen’ became the ‘rights and liberties of Americans.’

This is why the American Revolution was really more of an evolution than a revolution.  It is also why the Americans were able to succeed where so many others have tragically failed, often with great bloodshed and loss of life.  Real revolutions attempt to fundamentally change a society by imposing an unfamiliar political system (including values and principles) on the people.  This is traumatic for the society and results in the blood-thirsty tyrannies that often come out of the chaos they create. The Founding Fathers did not try to impose a system of government that was alien or offensive to the majority of the people.  In fact, the principles on which the new government was based on were quite familiar to most of the colonists because it was, in reality, an Americanized version of the British system. 

This does not take away from the fact that the American form of government was not a leap forward in the idea that the common man is capable of ruling himself.  But this idea did not develop out of thin air.  It developed out of the British system, which—just as the American system was leap forward from the British system—was a leap forward from the absolutism that condemned the common man to a life of poverty and servitude.  

This is what made it evolutionary, not revolutionary, and why the Americans succeeded where so many have failed.

Related posts:

No 1776 without 1688

The Greatest Myth of the American Revolution

Englishman's Right to Bear Arms and the 2nd Amendment

In my last blog post, No 1776 without 1688, I discussed how many of the rights we take as being uniquely American were actually the rights that many Englishmen enjoyed in the 17th century.  I do this for more than just amusement purposes. By understanding the proper historical perspective of the founding of this nation, we get clarity into what motivated the Founding Fathers.  We get an insight into why they took the actions they did.  Lastly, we get an intimate understanding of the principles conveyed in the founding documents of this nation.

This is especially true for the Bill of Rights and its most controversial amendments, the right to bear arms. There are two current interpretations of this amendment.  One interpretation believes that the founding fathers intended the right to bear arms to be limited to members of "a well regulated militia." The other interpretation believes that the founding fathers meant for it to be a check and balance on the authority of government. Therefore, it is an individual right outside of the governmental system or establishment.

A cursory reading of the amendment lends validity to both of these interpretations.  But when we trace the right to bear arms back to its historical origins we find that only one interpretation is substantiated.

As I explain in my book, Liberty Inherited, the right to bear arms first appeared in writing in the Declaration of Rights of 1689. Like the Bill of Rights, the Declarations of Rights was the product of a revolution and the events leading up to it. 

By the time of James II ordination in 1685, the limits on an English monarch's power had long been established. But James did not like this and wanted to restructure the English government on the French and Spanish models. In both of these countries, the king had absolute power over the nation and his subjects. James knew this would require him to impose his will on the liberty loving and fiercely independent English people.

One of the obstacles to James' goals was that the English people were just as well armed as any loyal force he could assemble.  He could not entirely eliminate the ownership of weapons since many at that time relied on them for their livelihood.  Therefore, he used his royal prerogative to restrict the weapons that an Englishman could own to those that could only be used for hunting and sporting purposes. This meant that the average person would only be allowed to own small caliber muskets for small game and shotguns for bird hunting. This left the populace at a great disadvantage to royal forces and at the mercy of the King.

After waking up to the threat that James II posed to their liberty the English people overthrew him in what was to be known as The Glorious Revolution. Like the Americans 100 years later, they realized that they would need a document that would assert “their ancient rights and liberties.” That document was the Declaration of Rights and in its list of rights number seven states:

7. That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law

Please note that the intended purpose of arms was for ‘defense.’  Considering the motivating factors behind the document it is clear that the drafters of the Declaration of Rights saw an armed populace as a defense against government, in this case a monarchy, abuses of power. 

It is not inconceivable that the drafters of the Bill of Rights did not intend the 2nd amendment to, likewise, be a check on the power and authority of government. To do otherwise, is to believe that such learned men such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin were utterly unaware of the document that guaranteed their rights as Englishmen.

American liberty? Think again!

The Cause

If the American Revolution was not about independence, what was it about?

The Greatest Myth of the American Revolution

In this video I explore the question of what the American Revolution was about.  Was it just independence the colonists were seeking or did they pick up arms for something more profound?

Constitution! What Constitution?

Having a name like John Hancock, I have read the Declaration of Independence hundreds of times.  Yet, until I wrote Liberty Inherited: The Untold Story of America’s Exceptionalism, I never gave much thought to the line:

 “He [George III] has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution ….”

But after writing the book I started to ponder:

“What constitution is Mr. Jefferson referring to?”

The Constitution of the United States was still a decade away. So he could not have been referring to it.

Mr. Jefferson used the singular “Constitution” rather than the plural “Constitutions,” which implies that it covered all the colonies and bound George III.  So he could not have been referring to any constitutions that the individual colonies had since any one would not have covered all thirteen and George III would not have been bound by them.

“Maybe he was referring to the Colonial Charters?” I thought, “George III would have been bound by them.”

While that is true, each charter applied to only a few colonies so, again, the singular “constitution” would not be applicable.  Furthermore, Mr. Jefferson specifically uses the term “charters” when referring to those documents.

So what Constitution is Mr. Jefferson referring to?

By looking beyond 1776, beyond the Atlantic, I now understand that the constitution Mr. Jefferson was referring to was the English Constitution that ensured the rights that “all Englishmen are naturally entitled to.”

Most Americans do not realize that there was an English constitution.  This is probably because it, unlike its American off-spring, was not a written formal document.  It was more like English Common Law that evolved through precedence; a living constitution that was constantly being changed by new charters, parliamentary action, and royal prerogative.

Unfortunately, in modern Britain the constitution has evolved itself into extinction but in the mid-1700s is was still a very vital and revered element of English politics.  It, more than anything else, defined what an Englishman was since it distinguished the free-born Englander from his servitude-born continental neighbor.   As the lyrics in Rule Britannia goes:

When Britain first, at Heaven's command

Arose from out the azure main;

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sang this strain:

"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:

"Britons never will be slaves."

The nations, not so blest as thee,

Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;

While thou shalt flourish great and free,

The dread and envy of them all.

"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:

"Britons never will be slaves.

The charter the first verse refers to was the constitution that created the environment of liberty that would produce the Jeffersons, the Wahsingtons, the Adamses, and, yes, the Hancocks that made the founding of this nation possible.  It was the rights it guaranteed that the Patriots were fighting for from the first battles of Lexington and Concord until July 4th, 1776.  It also became the basis of the principle political philosophy this nation was established on.

I am sharing this because I know that many of you are exploring and studying the founding of this great nation.  For some, it is a return to a familiar but neglected subject.  For others, it is the first real attempt at understanding the founding of this nation.  So, whether you are increasing your knowledge or just starting out, I urge you to look beyond 1776 and beyond the Atlantic.  You may find an understanding that you never realized existed.




John Hancock is a historian specializing in the History of the English-speaking peoples.  His new book Liberty Inherited: The Untold Story of America’s Exceptionalism is due out next month.  Click below if you would like details on how you can get a personalized signed copy for just $13.50 (+S&H).  A saving of 20% off its cover price.

Click below for more details:

http://www.libertyinherited.com.

We are all Classical Liberals Now

In 2008 elections the Democratic Party, lead by its leftist members, swept into the White House and took control of both chambers of congress.  The MSM eagerly and giddily pronounced Conservatism dead.  Shortly after Obama’s inauguration Newsweek went so far as to do a cover proclaiming, “We are all Socialists now.”

In the mid-term elections of 2010 Conservative Republicans returned to congress in-force.  They took back control of the House of Representatives and all but eliminated the Democrat majority in the Senate.  The American people had put the brakes on the Socialist schemes of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

This swift shifting of the pendulum left the liberal elites confused and dazed.  I can recall one commentator observing that, “In 2008, they elected Liberals.  Now they elected Conservatives.  This just shows that the American people do not know what they want.” 

At the time, I remember thinking, “No, the American people know what they want.  The problem is that neither party is offering it to them.”  

It has been my experience that the majority of Americans are neither 100% Conservative nor 100% Liberal.  But we tend to take these titles because they are the only two of three options from which we have to choose.  Or we go with the third option of being an independent.  

This does not mean that the American people do not have a political foundation.  They do. It is the uniquely American form of Classical Liberalism.   Although we may argue over implementation, most Americans support the classical liberal principles of: 

·         Limited Government

·         Individual Rights

·         Private Property

·         Free-market Economics

The first two guarantees political freedom while the latter two provide the opportunity for economic freedom.

This was the “Great American” experiment.  It was these principles of classical liberalism on which this nation was founded and remained its basic political philosophy for over 100 years.  Millions of immigrants from all corners of the globe, seeking freedom, were drawn by the hope that classical liberalism offered.   More significantly, it resulted in America becoming the most prosperous and powerful country in history.  A country that, when true to these principles, is truly the “shining light on the hill.” 

Unfortunately, since the early 1900s, there has been an aggressive campaign to eradicate this nation’s Classical Liberal roots.  This campaign has been so successful that most people have never heard of Classical Liberalism.  It is no longer taught in school.  Even political science or history classes, if it is taught, it is done so as a long lost political philosophy from the Enlightenment Age of Europe. 

It is remarkable that its principles still exist.  But they do.  They are in the heart of every American who believes that America is an exceptional country, which, I believe, is the majority of us.

No, Newsweek, the American people are not Socialist. They are not even Liberal or Conservative.  They are what they always have been; Classical Liberals! 

Back to School History Lesson

Last month my daughter returned to school.  As a high-school junior, she is required to take American History.  When I asked her about the class, she told me that they were starting from the beginning.  “Christopher Columbus and all that” is how she put it.  She then handed me the class outline.  The sections leading up to the American Revolution was the same story that most Americans learn.  It essentially starts with the discovery of America by Columbus and then progresses through the settlement of Jamestown, the French and Indian War, and terminates with the events immediately preceding the Revolutionary War, such as the various tax acts, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party.  It confers on the student the impression that nothing of importance was transpiring in Mother England during that time.  That England was asleep until one day George III wakes up and exclaims, “My God, I have colonies.  Let’s tax them!”

The reality is that there were many events that transpired in the mother country that profoundly influenced the development of the American colonies.  In 1707, for example, the union of England and Scotland meant that although the colonies started off as English they fought Britain for their independence.  The most notable and significant of those events was the Glorious Revolution of 1688.  Although the Glorious Revolution took place almost 100 years before America’s struggle for independence, it did more to bring about the American Revolution than any other event in America’s pre-independence history.  It could be argued that if the Glorious Revolution of 1688 did not occur or had the outcome been different the American Revolution probably would not have happened at all.  Additionally, the success of the thirteen colonies forming into one constitutional republic would not have been possible without the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The events surrounding the Glorious Revolution are so vital to the creation and development of the United States that in “Liberty Inherited: The untold story of America’s exceptionalism” I dedicate over a quarter of the book to the subject.  In summary, the road to revolution started when James II wanted to return England to the absolutism that the monarchies on the continent enjoyed.  In this system, the king has absolute power over everything in his realm including its people.  In England, this form of servitude was restricted by a series of covenants or contracts, including the Magna Carta (1215).  Upon seeing this threat to their liberty, the English rose up and through a series of events replaced James II with the Dutch ruler the Prince of Orange and his wife Mary.  But before the Prince of Orange could become William III, King of England, he had to accept what became known as the Declaration of Rights.

This declaration ensured that England would continue on its path to developing the tradition of limited government, of parliamentary supremacy, of personal freedom and of the common law.  The limitations placed on the monarchy by this document meant that the king could not act without the consent of the people as represented by parliament.  Additionally, it ensured the rights and liberties of individual Englishmen.   It guaranteed his right to bear arms, to a speedy trial, to due process, to be safe and secure in his life and property.  Like all good Englishmen, the Founding Fathers believed these to be their God-given rights and made sure that, in one form or another, they were included in the Bill of Rights.  The fact is that the framers of the constitution used the declaration, the system of limited government it established, and the rights it protected as the template for establishing the United States of America.

Additionally, I believe that if James II had not been removed from the throne of England the United States would not exist today, at least in its democratic form.  Once he assumed the throne James set out to reform the colonies along the same authoritarian format used by France and Spain.  His plan was to form the thirteen colonies into four captaincies.  This would be followed by the elimination of the colonial assemblies and an appointment of a Royal Governor with absolute authority and answerable only to the king.  At that time, many of the colonies were just beginning to enjoy representative democracy.  To eliminate it at this point would result in the colonies losing almost 100 years of the democratic experience they would need to establish the new nation.  Under those conditions, it is highly unlikely that the American Revolution would have been fought, much less won.  The events immediately following a victory by the Patriots would certainly have been different.  The probability of establishing the liberty based country we have today would certainly have been almost zero.  Instead, the liberty focused revolution would probably have resulted, not in a Washington, but in an American version of Napoleon, Santa Anna, Lenin, Stalin, or Chavez. 

Until a few years ago I, like most Americans, was ignorant of the Glorious Revolution.  This ignorance was not out of a lack of interest but a result of the way American history is taught.  This is not a partisan issue since both sides have benefited from keeping Americans uneducated.  Conservatives do so because it supports the myth that the establishment of this nation was miraculous.  Liberals do it because if the American people understood the origins of their liberties they would realize what a threat an ever-increasing and powerful government is to those liberties.  Therefore, much to the chagrin of our British cousins, Americans are not informed of the struggles that made this country possible.  This limited education has had dire consequences for our country.  Without this part of our history, we do not have a context to put the American experience into.  We lose the sense of what it means to be an American and clarity as what type of nation the United States was established to be.  We fail to recognize the implication of being an English colony had for the development of the United States.  More tragically we fail to recognize the dangers that threaten to eliminate our liberties forever.

As I explain in “Liberty Inherited: The untold story of America’s exceptionalism,” the founders of this extraordinary nation did not accidently stumble onto the system of government they established in 1789.  It was developed over several centuries and, while I still think that America is based on a miracle, I now realize that that miracle took place several hundred years earlier in a place called England.  In fact, the more I study the origins and history of our liberty the more I marvel at its existence.  The more I learn the more I appreciate the improbability of its survival.  This becomes strikingly clear especially when compared to what was going on in the rest of the world at the time, which, for the common man, was slavery and servitude.  This leads me to ponder a couple of questions:

If schools did not omit the tremendous struggles for liberty that were occurring in England at a time when the United States was nothing more than scattering of fledgling colonies, would we, as Americans, feel or think differently about our country?

Would we still be having the political debate that is currently dividing this nation?  

What do you think?  Leave your comments and thoughts below.

Is preserving life worth the loss of individual freedoms?

The debate on health care has once again raised one of the greatest criticisms against those with conservative principles; that they do not care about the welfare of others. That they will let people die so that they can go on living the privileged life they hold so dear. To a degree, I guess, this is correct. I mean the crusade to eliminate death at all cost has always bothered me. I have always felt that if people want to engage in an activity that threatens or shorten their lives then they should have the freedom to do so. But with this freedom comes the responsibility of recognizing the consequences of their actions and if that activity should lead to an early demise then so be it.


This may sound cruel and heartless but only if we limit ourselves to being worried about the people who are inhabiting the planet at this very moment. My concern is greater than that and it expands all of human existence. It comes from the understanding that for most of its history mankind’s story is one of slavery, bondage, and servitude. That those with power controlled the powerless to such a degree that they could, just by their word, sentence people to death. It also comes from the stark realization that it is when individual freedom is sacrificed that the value of life comes to have so little meaning.

Yes, there was Greece, or more accurately Athens, where democratic ideas first took root and then the constitutionally controlled Roman Republic. But it must be recognized that these were anomalies in the history of mankind. The majority of the world’s civilizations, such as those found in the bible, are more known for their records of oppression then they are for freedom (or in today’s terms: Human-rights). Even outside of the bible we see that human life had very little value. Slavery was common throughout the world up until the mid-1800s when the British Empire declared war on the “uncivilized” practice. The sacrifice of individuals for the greater good was seen in its extremity in ancient America where people where ritually killed in order to please an unhappy deity. On one such occasion in 1487 the Aztecs sacrificed 80,400 prisoners in a bloodbath that lasted non-stop for four days.

Of course the argument is that that was ancient history. We have evolved into a more enlightened and sophisticated people. In fact, the 20th century, during which those of us over ten were born, could be called the bloodiest in history. Totalitarian regimes killed hundreds of millions of people and enslaved whole societies. There are people still alive who witnessed the Nazi program that lead to the extermination of 12 million people and the tens of millions more who were to perish in Stalin’s “workers paradise.” The fact is that this will always be the result whenever the principles of individual freedom are sacrificed.

This is why I put “conservative” or, more accurately, American principles over life and welfare. I recognize that what was started in 1776 was an experiment unlike any other in history. True, it did get its roots from the great thinkers of the 18th century Scottish enlightenment (when most of the people of the world were still suffering under some form of bondage) but it took great Americans to put theory into practice. I also recognize that for those living today 234 years seem like an eternity but in reality it is a small sliver of man’s history. A small sliver that brightly shines in all the darkness that preceded it.

So you see, I do care about people’s lives. The difference is that I accept the fact that death is part of living and it cannot be outlawed. That people will make choices that put their lives at risk and they must be allowed to do so. By trying save everyone we run the risk of losing the principles that not only has preserved life but has also made the pursuit of life an alienable right! A right that says that we, as individuals, determine what we want to do with our lives. Finally, by putting the principle of individual freedom above life itself, I do not limit it to those who are fortunate enough to happen to be on the planet at this time. I am preserving it for my children and generations that are to follow. And that, my friends, is greater than life itself!