The Ideological Origin of the American Revolution, published originally in 1967 by Harvard Professor of History Bernard Bailyn, is one of the most respected studies of the ideology and world view of the American Revolutionary period. The book helped to establish Bailyn’s reputation as a leading American historian. The text won both a Pulitzer Prize, and the Bancroft Prize for writing on American History. Bailyn’s text was part of a new movement in the study of history which actually focused on the actual documents produced by real people, including ordinary people, to create the historical narrative. Previously, historians told the story of history through the history of great ideas or great men. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution attempts to tell the story of history by looking at the real life of the people who lived during the period. Bailyn’s thesis in the text is that by studying the pamphlets and other primary documents written during the period he could discover the political ideology of the revolutionary era. He discovered that this political ideology, composed of two strands, a devotion to liberty and a worry about a conspiracy against liberty, was inherited from English political culture, but underwent a transformation in America that enabled it to support the many changes to political and social life and organization that occurred in this period.
The book is broken down into six major sections, with a postscript about the ratification of the Constitution, which was added after the original publication. Chapter One “Literature of the Revolution” begins by exploring the nature of the primary documents used by Bailyn in the study. It is surprising that these documents were never studied in depth like this before, because as Bailyn notes, “deficiencies the leaders of the American Revolution may have had, reticence,
fortunately, was not one of them. They wrote easily and amply, and turned out in the space of scarcely a decade and a half and from a small number of presses a rich literature of theory, argument, opinion, and polemic (Bailyn 1). Stored in state, federal and library archives, the pamphlets and broadsides of the writers of the Revolutionary period is a treasure of historical data. He discusses why the pamphlet was the preferred form for political communication, both in England and in Colonial/Revolutionary America. It was seen as the proper format for argumentative and persuasive writing. It was long enough to develop and sustain an argument, but short enough to be relatively cheap and easy to print and distribute in large numbers (Bailyn 3-5).
Those seeking public office, or to influence public debate about political policy, were expected to write pamphlets, and often they were written anonymously or under a pseudonym. Even though Bailyn on touches on Benjamin Franklin briefly in The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, he presents an excellent historical case which proves Bailyn’s point about the pamphlet. Franklin, in his Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin discusses several pamphlets that he either wrote, or published for others. These pamphlets were always on current political events, ranging from the French and Indian War to arguing to support a paper currency to several pamphlets about the controversy over the Stamp Act. Because Bailyn is trying to avoid the “great man” version of history, he does not study any one political writer in great depth, but the example of Benjamin Franklin in an excellent source for outside verification of Bailyn’s claims.
Chapter Two explored the origin of both the pamphlet form, and of some of the political ideas expressed by the Americans. Bailyn finds that both originate in English printing and political culture. However, the American environment and experience altered the content of these ideas and concepts and made them uniquely American. Bailyn notes that, “in the intense political heat of the decade after 1763, these long popular, though hitherto inconclusive ideas about the world and America's place in it were fused into a comprehensive view, unique in its moral and intellectual appeal” (Bailyn 22). Bailyn then goes into detail tracing the origins of the ideas and the rhetorical devices used to convey them. He does this in order to prove the second part of his overall claim. Only by reconstructing the original form and source of the rhetoric and content of these ideas is Bailyn able to demonstrate how much they changed into a uniquely American ideology.
Chapter Three of Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, “Power and Liberty: A Theory of Politics” seeks to outline the details of what this unique American political worldview was. As the title of the chapter suggests, the main elements of this American political ideology were the terms power and liberty. Power was used to describe the power that some men had over others as a result of social or political organization. In other words, power was the power of government to compel people to act in a certain way, and to punish those who did not. Power was seen as closely related to ambition, and those with power always sought to exercise more. Thus, the Americans of this period saw an eternal struggle between power and liberty (Bailyn 55-58). For, “The public world these writers saw was
divided into distinct, contrasting, and innately antagonistic spheres: the sphere of power and the sphere of liberty or right. The one was brutal, ceaselessly active, and heedless; the other was delicate, passive, and sensitive (Bailyn 57-58). This is general expression of the ideology which Bailyn discovered. Liberty was always under assault from the forces of power; the more power a ruler gained, the more liberty his subjects lost. This is why the writers of the American pamphlets used the term slavery so often. Beyond a certain point, the encroachment of power into the realm of personal liberty passed simple government compulsion and pushed the subject from the world of being a citizen to the world of being a slave. A slave had no liberty. Bailyn notes that some of the American writers saw the irony of talking about slavery while being a part of a slave holding society, while others simply used the slaves they owned as an example of a powerful warning to the Americans. If King George’s power was left unchecked, the Americans would cease being the King’s subjects and become the King’s slaves.
In Chapter Four, “The Logic of Rebellion”, Bailyn demonstrates one of the most original twists these political concepts took in the American political mind. As the 18th century developed, especially the second half of the century, the Americans came to see a vast conspiracy against both liberty and the American colonies was in action. This conspiracy sought to reduce the status of the colonists, who viewed themselves as free subjects based on their charters, or as subjects protected by the traditional rights of English liberty, from free men to slaves. The Americans saw this conspiracy as active everywhere across the Empire. It was occurring among British authorities, and their American helpers here in the colonies. It was also active back across the Atlantic in London, both in the halls of Parliament and in the King’s Privy Council. Various duplicitous ministers, or members of Parliament, or American governors were postulated to be behind or responsible for the conspiracy. It was not until the very last days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence that most Americans came to see King George as the source of the conspiracy.
Chapter Five, “Transformation” explains how the Americans turned this conspiratorial thinking, and the concept of the struggle between power and liberty, into a call for Revolution and Independence. Overall, Bernard Bailyn’s Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is one of the best historical studies I have read. He clearly makes his points, and backs them up with primary evidence. He provides samples of the pamphlets to prove his case. He presents a fair and accurate reading of the American pamphlets, and uses all of that to construct a viable historical theory.
Works Cited
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University, 1992.
