How revolutionary was the American Revolution?
In other words, how much did the Revolution change the lives of the people who lived in the colonies? Did it make their lives better? Did it make their lives worse? Did their lives even change at all? Was it better for some and worse for others? You may also wish to re-read the sections of the unit that covered the drafting and ratification of the Constitution for added historical context.
You will NOT need to do outside research for this essay. All of the sources you need will be provided for you below. There are both sources that you have read before and sources that you have not read just yet. A piece of good advice: Read them all again with the main question in mind.
Here are the sources you must use in your essay:
Boston King recalls fighting for the British and securing his freedom, 1798
Boston King recalls fighting for the British and for his freedom, 1798
Abigail and John Adams Converse on Women’s Rights
Hector St. John Crevecoeur Describes the American People, 1782
Hector St. Jean de Crèvecœur Describes the American people, 1782
You must also use the selection from Thaddeus Russell we read earlier in the unit:
Thaddeus Russell, A Renegade History of the United States (pp. 23-24)
During what we call the American Revolution, a second American revolution took place: a counterrevolution against the pleasure culture of the cities. Personal freedom and sensual pleasure came under attack during the democratic revolution not because the revolutionaries were puritans but because democracy is puritanical.
We normally think of democracy as a system of rights and freedoms: voting, speaking freely, equal treatment under the law, and so forth. But true democracy, the kind of democracy that the Founding Fathers wanted, is much more than that. John Locke, the man who, in the English world, helped invent the notion that the people should rule and who inspired all of the American democratic revolutionaries, made this brutally clear. “It seems plain to me:’ he wrote in Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693 ), “that the principle of all virtue and excellency lies in a power of denying ourselves the satisfaction of our own desires, where reason does not authorize them:’ Locke knew that managing society is a big job requiring enormous discipline. If the people were to do it, then the people would have to renounce their personal freedom. Most importantly, they would have to be taught to feel shame for their selfish desires. “Esteem and disgrace are, of all others, the most powerful incentives to the mind, when once it is brought to relish them:’ Locke wrote. “If you can once get into children a love of credit, and an apprehension of shame and disgrace, you have put into them the true principle, which will constantly work and incline them to the right.” The kind of punishment used by monarchs and slave owners to keep the people orderly and productive – whipping, flogging, executions, and the like – only “patches up for the present, and skins it over, but reaches not to the bottom of the sore; ingenuous shame, and the apprehensions of displeasure, are the only true restraint. These alone ought to hold the reins, and keep the child in order.”
With these ideas in mind, the Founding Fathers fought simultaneous wars against the British and the renegade impulses of Americans.
