The Forces in Conflict 139
American Revolution was, after the disturbance at Geneva already recounted, the
earliest successful assertion of the principle that public power must arise from
those over whom it is exercised. It was the most important revolution of the eigh-
teenth century, except for the French. Its effect on the area of Western Civilization
came in part from the inspiration of its message (which in time passed beyond the
area of Western Civilization), and in part from the involvement of the American
Revolution in the European War of American Independence, which aggravated
the financial or political difficulties of England, Ireland, Holland, and France. The
climax and failure of the early movement for parliamentary reform in England, the
disturbances in Ireland leading to “Grattan’s Parliament” in 1782, the Patriotentijd
and revolution of 1784–1787 among the Dutch, the reform programs of Necker
and Calonne and beginnings of revolution in France, and a marked enlivening of
political consciousness through the rest of Europe—all described in the following
chapters—were all, in part, a consequence of the American Revolution.
The Revolution: Was There Any?
It is paradoxical, therefore, to have to begin by asking whether there was any
American Revolution at all. There may have been only a war of independence
against Great Britain. The British lid may have been removed from the American
box, with the contents of the box remaining as before. Or there may have been a
mechanical separation from England, without chemical change in America itself.
Perhaps it was all a conservative and defensive movement, to secure liberties that
America had long enjoyed, a revolt of America against Great Britain, carried
through without fundamental conflict among Americans, by an “American con-
sensus,” in the words of Clinton Rossiter, or, as George Bancroft said a century
ago, a revolution “achieved with such benign tranquillity that even conservatism
hesitated to censure.”^1
A populous country, much given to historical studies, has produced an enor-
mous literature on the circumstances of its independence. Occupied more with
European than with American history, I have been able only to sample this litera-
ture. It is apparent, however, that there is no agreement on what the American
Revolution was. Differences reflect a different understanding of historical fact, a
difference of attitude toward the concept of revolution, or a difference of feeling on
the uniqueness, if it be unique, of the United States.
The old patriotic historians, like Bancroft, who fumed against British tyranny,
had no doubt that there had been a real revolution in America, even if “benignly
tranquil.” Writers of a liberal orientation in a twentieth- century sense, admitting
that all revolutions are carried through by minorities and by violence, have said
that the American Revolution was no exception. Some have seen a kind of bour-
geois revolution in America, in which merchants and planters made a few conces-
sions to the lower classes, but then, at the Philadelphia convention of 1787, rallied
1 C. Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic: the Origin of the American Tradition of Political Liberty (New
York, 1953), 352–56; G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Boston, 1879), III, 10–11.