By: Clinton Rossiter

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By Clinton Rossiter
A Revolution to Conserve

• Presented By Kate Baltz, Michele Fascelli,
  Christine Gordy, Margaret Rohlich, Tyler Smith

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Conservative Theory

• Colonists were not enthusiastic about a
  sovereign or mother country so far away.
• --Rossiter
• The Revolution was effected before the war
  commenced. --John Adams
• People held the power to change or keep the way
  of life that they had become accustomed to.
• Colonists enjoyed self-government only a few
  colonists were content English subjects.
• Chief characteristics of the American mind
• Self-reliance
• Patriotism
• Practicality
• Love of Liberty

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Cont.
Conservative Theory

• Edmund Burke, an extraordinary student of
  political realities, singled out six sources of
  an Americans love of freedom
• Spirit of Liberty
• English Descent
• Popular Forms of Government
• Education
• Manners in the Southern
• The Remoteness of the Situation From the First
  Mover of Government.
• Burke explained that the liberty colonists
  cherished rested on firm and fertile ground
  that colonists had enjoyed, in fact and in
  spirit, a measure of opportunity and
  self-direction so unique to mankind.

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Cont.
Conservative Theory

• Alexis de Tocqueville summed up the American
  Revolution and revealed the nature of the
  American Republic
• The great advantage of the Americans is that
  they have arrived at a state of democracy without
  having to endure a democratic revolution.
• Unlike other revolutions in history, the
  real American revolution was over and done with
  before the Revolution began. The first
  revolution alone made the second possible.

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• The 1st ingredient of American liberty was the
  heritage from England.
• Because the colonists were descendants of
  Englishmen, virtually all institutions,
  traditions, ideas, and laws were English origin
  and inspiration
• Colonists brought over good and evil of the 17th
  century
• Good was toughened and improved
• Bad was discarded due to frontier conditions

Section 1
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• Environment
• Interaction with heredity created a special brand
  of Englishman in the 18th century
• When something pleased an Englishmen, he could be
  more English than the English and it pleased
  him most when issues of liberty and
  self-government were in question.
• The conduct of colonial affairs by the English
  govt. rested on these assumptions
• The colonies were dependents of their parent
  states.

Section 1 Cont.
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• The interests of the colonists were less
  important to those of England.
• The colonies were a source of wealth and support
  for the land out of which they had departed from.
• Had their not been any confusion at the
  beginning, domestic period in the middle, and
  salutary neglect throughout most of this period
  permitted the colonists to build a theory and
  condition of self-government. --Rossiter

Section 1 Cont.
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Section 2

• The harsh fact of geography, the remoteness of
  the colonies, squared the difference between
  imperial purpose and colonial aspiration. The
  lack of contact between one colony and another,
  the result of distance and unbelievably bad
  roads, allowed each to develop on its own.
• It didnt help that Britain was so far away.
• Land prevented any sizable part of energy to be
  devoted to government. The settlers insisted
  that the government let them alone and perform
  its severely limited tasks at the amateur level.

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Section 2

• The wilderness didnt itself create democracy it
  often encouraged the growth of ideas and
  institutions hostile to it. It did help produce
  some of the raw materials of American democracy
• Self-reliance --Dislike of privilege
• Social fluidity --Optimism
• Simplicity
• Equality --Devotion to liberty
• Wages were also generally higher and working
  conditions were better in the colonies than in
  England that advanced the cause of liberty. This
  happy condition was a distinct shortage of
  labor and a prime reason for a shortage of land
  for the asking.

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Section 2

• All these factors combined to give new force to
  the English heritage of law, liberty, and
  self-government.
• Institutions that settlers brought with them
  emerged in shapes that horrified royal governors.
• The colonists have developed more simple,
  workable, and popular institutions than they had
  been for several centuries in England.
• The English descent and heritage of the
  colonists, the conflict of imperial and colonial
  interests, the rolling ocean, the all-pervading
  frontierthese were the forces-behind-the-forces
  that shaped the history of the colonies.

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Section 3

• Colonists were not completely at the mercy of
  their environment. It usually was of their own
  making.
• The colonies had begun to take on a pattern of
  national origins that was characteristically
  American they looked to one country for their
  language, institutions, and paramount culture,
  but to many countries for their population.

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Section 3

• The arrival of non-English immigrants did much to
  weaken the hold of the mother country. The
  newcomer wanted to be as loyal as anyone else,
  but allegiance to the Crown lacked emotion.
• The influx of aliens did much to strengthen the
  Protestant, dissenting, individualistic character
  of colonial religion.
• The 18th century immigrants helped democratize
  the political institutions that had been brought
  over from England and put to work in the
  wilderness.
• The mere volume of immigration had a pronounced
  effect on colonial life The swarming of these
  industrious people made possible the remarkable
  expansion in territory and population in America.

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The 2nd American Revolution Succeeds The 1st

• The resolution for independence, the decision to
  fight as a separate and equal people rather
  than as a loose association remonstrating
  colonials, served as a climax to the revolution
  as a formal beginning of one, and it is this
  revolution -- the real American revolution has
  been described.
• The forces-behind-the-forces are
• English heritage -- the ocean
• the frontier -- imperial tension
• Until the last days of independence, the
  colonists were demanding English rights.

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The 2nd American Revolution Succeeds The 1st

• The peaceful revolution that had been gathering
  momentum from the time of the first settlements
  moved irresistibly to conclusion, and the
  fighting revolution could now begin.
• The Americans were blessed with a way of life
  that knew much freedom and held the promise of
  more. They could make a revolution a parent to
  settlement and not a nursery of future
  revolutions.
• This was one colonial people that went to war for
  liberty knowing in its bones what liberty was.
• Clinton Rossiter

The End