The Commodification of Revolution

After the conclusion of the events of the Revolutionary War and the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine continued to promote revolution.  For Jefferson it was in support of the French Revolution near the end of his stay as Minister to France and for Paine it was first in England and then eventually in France.  They exported a brand of revolution that was distinctly American, based on the principles, values, and the eventual Constitution that resulted from the American Revolution.                Jefferson promoted a rather conservative, practical and sensible revolution.  He frowned upon the violence of extremism and felt that the course of events were moving to rapidly in revolutionary France as he “was aware of the danger of pressing abstract principles too far in particular situations when circumstances were unfavorable…”* Jefferson thought very little of the revolution at its birth and was unprepared for the social upheavals that followed.** 

* Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, Volume Three: Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962), 39.

** Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 374.

Before Paine, the monarchy and hereditary authority had rarely been questioned.  Republican government was not even an issue brought up.  Paine dismissed the English constitution, which had been guiding revolutionary thought until this point, and instead replaced it with the notion “that balanced government was essential to liberty.”*  Paine helped create “the secular language of revolution.”**              Common Sense called for independence in a manner more boldly than had ever been spoken of before.  To Paine, “war was inevitable.”***  The only way to achieve freedom was through a bloody war with England. 

            Paine articulated his argument which allowed him to reach hundreds of thousands of people.  He wrote in language that almost anyone could understand.  He did not reference obscure or even well known works of great literature in the pedantic manner of pamphleteers prior to himself.****  “Politics, Paine insisted, could and must be reduced to easily comprehensible first principles…And the first axiom of Paine’s politics was simply the possibility of change.”*****  Paine’s writings reached the masses in a manner unmatched at that time.  “Common Sense went through twenty-five editions…in the single year 1776.”******

* Eric Foner, Tom Paine & Revolutionary America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 75-76.

** Ibid., xv.

*** Ibid., 77.

**** Wood, 55-56.

***** E. Foner, 85.

****** Ibid., 79.

This idea of the preservation of the status quo will play an important role in the eventual commodification of revolution, which will appear in the United States and the world over 200 years later.   This idea also reinforces the notion of the bourgeois revolution, with the upper-classes using the lower-classes for their own personal gain only to put the lower-class back into its place after this goal has been met.                  The pamphlets of the revolutionary period merely expressed ideas that had long been developing and building throughout colonial society during the previous 40 years.  The ideas of the pamphlets reflected a way of thinking that many colonists already possessed.*

* Ibid., 189-90.

This idea of the preservation of the status quo will play an important role in the eventual commodification of revolution, which will appear in the United States and the world over 200 years later.   This idea also reinforces the notion of the bourgeois revolution, with the upper-classes using the lower-classes for their own personal gain only to put the lower-class back into its place after this goal has been met.                  The pamphlets of the revolutionary period merely expressed ideas that had long been developing and building throughout colonial society during the previous 40 years.  The ideas of the pamphlets reflected a way of thinking that many colonists already possessed.*

* Ibid., 189-90.

Much of the argued ideology was based on ideologies originally from England.  Many writers in this revolutionary time wanted only to preserve the rights that every Englishman was granted by the constitution of 1688.*  This leads many historians to see the American Revolution as less a revolution than a conservative movement fought in the name of an already existing status quo as the, pushing the Revolution back to its pre-20^th century standing.  “Revolution was an ideological, constitutional, political struggle and not primarily a controversy between social groups undertaken to force changes in the organization of the society or the economy.”**  “The colonists were content to celebrate the wonderful balance of forces they understood to exist in England, and to assume that in some effective way the same principles operated both in epitome within each colony and in the over-all world of the empire as well.”***

* Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), 165-166

** Bailyn, x-xi.

*** Ibid., 75-6.

The importance of groups such as the Sons of Liberty cannot be denied, but the true voice of the Revolution lain in the many pamphlets and newspapers where the ideological battles were fought out in the public sphere.  The pamphlets of revolutionary America were written in an effort to convince their opponents of their point of view and reasons for revolting.  The pamphlets used intelligent writing to express anger and discontent, not “blind hate” of their enemies or stir fear among the population.[1]  Many pamphleteers quoted ancient texts in an effort to support their cause, but many times the quotes were conducted on a “superficial” level “without a full understanding” of the original text from which the quote was lifted.[2] 

[2] Ibid., 26-28.

From this point on, “…the imperial relationship and American respect for British authority—indeed, for all authority—would never be the same.”[1]  The colonists were officially united.  Political awareness rose and a new consciousness was born.  The colonists learned the power, and effectiveness, of the mob.  The seeds of revolution were planted.[2]

                The period between 1766 and the first battle of the American Revolution was marked by an ideological battle of ideas of freedom and law before the guns were drawn in 1775.  “The struggle over the Stamp Act disclosed that two irreconcilable conceptions of the nature of the British Empire and the rights of Americans had sprung up on opposite sides of the Atlantic.” [3]  Grassroots organizations played an important role in mobilizing the masses, but were not the most important factor in revolutionary thought. 

[2] Ibid., 30.

[3] Miller, 167.

.  Wealthy merchants and members of “gentleman” society, including John Hancock and William Levingston, either supported the mobs or actively participated in the riots and mob action in the name of freedom and American liberty.[1]  Without the upper-classes invoking the lower-class to rise against the British, “the lower-class would have remained quiet, content to see the British government impose taxes which would have fallen most heavily upon the wealthier colonists.”[2]                 Mob violence, riots, public outrage, and a colonial boycott of British goods, forced Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act in February 1766[3] after less than twelve months.  Swift repeal of act by those in power could be seen as an indication of the mistake made on their own part, but the colonists took this to imply there was more behind it; it was too suspicious, there must be a hidden motive.[4]

[1] Miller, 130-131.

[2] Ibid., 131.

[3] Wood, 30.

[4] Bailyn, 99.

At town meetings throughout the colonies called for action against, and the repeal of, the Stamp Act.  Patrick Henry, newly elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, called for a challenge to the power of the Crown.  The Speaker of the House stopped Henry under accusations of treason.  The resolves Henry offered, though not officially approved by the Virginia assembly, were reprinted in newspapers throughout colonial Virginia.  “Many Americans became convinced that Virginians had virtually asserted their legislative independence from Great Britain.”[1]

                As stated above, proletarian violence had occurred in the past in working-class neighborhoods, brothels, and seaports to protest actions by the British, but anti-Stamp Act violence marked the first time the upper ranks of society participated in it.