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America’s Unjust Revolution: What British Tyranny?
September 13, 2010 | 108 comments
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America’s Unjust Revolution: A Rejoinder to Mark Tooley
August 18, 2010 | 77 comments
Another Perspective
America’s Unjust Revolution: A Second Rejoinder to Mark Tooley
Was the American Revolution America’s first civil war?
Mark Tooley’s second attempt to rebut my case that America’s War for Independence was unjust fares little better than his first. It is stronger on rhetoric than reason, not least because it evades central questions raised in my paper in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought and engages with ethically irrelevant questions.
He begins by questioning my passing comment that 2 out of 3 American colonists did not support the Revolution. He writes that I was probably referring to an observation by John Adams. There is nothing probable about it: the source for my comment (clearly identified in footnote 140 of my paper) is none other than David McCullough, author of the celebrated biography of Adams. Tooley, who suggests that Adams was referring to the French Revolution, cites a maximum figure of only 1 in 5 colonists remaining loyal to Britain during the American Revolution. But even if Tooley knows more about Adams’ statement than Adams’ biographer, it matters not. A figure of 1 in 5 would confirm the reality that the rebellion was not simply a war between the colonists and the British (as Hollywood history would typically have it) but was America’s first civil war. And even if all the colonists had supported the rebellion, this would hardly have made it just. Whether a rebellion is just is not to be determined by a poll of the rebels.
Tooley digs himself deeper into irrelevance when he writes about the perseverance of the rebels and the divisions in Parliament. None of this shows the rebellion was just. Many unjust wars have exhibited popular support for, and perseverance by, aggressors, and division among the victims. The fact that the American colonists’ complaints attracted the support of prominent MPs like Edmund Burke serves only to illustrate that those complaints received a full and fair hearing in Parliament. And while Tooley notes Burke’s opposition to the imposition of colonial taxes he is silent about Burke’s endorsement of Britain’s sovereign right to legislate for the colonies in all matters. (For good measure Tooley tosses in references to the rebellions against Kings Charles I and James II. He appears to assume not only their justice but also their analogy to a colonial rebellion against King and Parliament.)
Tooley asks whether the just war tradition permits governments “unlimited license upon their colonists, while allowing the colonists no resort at all, except to suffer endlessly until both law and liberty are extinguished?” Of course not. Such rhetoric echoes the groundless charge in the Declaration of Independence that the British were seeking to impose “absolute tyranny” on the colonies. No one has even begun to show that the British exercised, or intended to exercise, “unlimited license” over the colonies.
He claims stirringly that the rebels were asserting “inalienable rights rooted in British custom and law and further refined in the Declaration of Independence.” He fails, however, to articulate these alleged “rights,” let alone to locate them in the just war tradition. He fails, moreover, to answer a central question I put to him in my previous reply: why was it unjust for the mother country to tax its colonies? What is it about British colonies that supposedly makes them tax-exempt?
The core of the matter is that Britain sought to impose modest taxation on its (hugely wealthy) American colonies. Some New England colonists, invoking a self-serving and spurious “right” to immunity from taxation, conspired to resist legitimate British sovereignty by violence. As the website of the Minute Man National Park explains: “In September of 1774, Boston Patriots brazenly stole four brass cannon right from under British guard” which were “smuggled out of Boston and added to the growing caches of Colonial arms.” It adds: “As Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was almost in total rebellion against the British Government, General Thomas Gage sought to stem armed conflict.” The result of Gage’s attempt to neutralize the rebel arms was Lexington and Concord. If Tooley thinks that measures such as reasonable taxation and an attempt by the authorities to stem armed conflict in a situation of open rebellion amounted to “unlimited license,” he is very wide of the mark.
Turning to the question whether the rebellion was a “last resort,” Tooley asks how much longer the colonists, having sought redress of their “grievances” for 10 years, should have waited: “Should they have waited until all their legislatures were dispersed, their leaders imprisoned, their arms seized, their cities occupied, and their courts usurped by British military judges?” He has history back to front. The British did not provoke rebellion in Boston by taking such measures: such measures were provoked by rebellion in Boston. Moreover (as I pointed out in my paper and my earlier reply to Tooley), the colonists had more than once over those 10 years won the repeal of tax laws through economic pressure. Readers may recall Tooley’s apparent defense of the rebels’ abbreviation of their economic embargo in 1775, namely, that it was “disrupted” by their resort to arms at Lexington and Concord. But the fact of their premature resort to violence is hardly a justification for it.
Turning to slavery, he claims that it is not clear what role it plays in my just war analysis. As I explain in my paper, one criterion of the tradition is that the damage inflicted by war must be proportionate to the good expected. Defenders of the Revolution claim that an important good it promoted was liberty. It is relevant, therefore, to observe that it did not bring liberty for all. My paper quotes one historian of the Revolution who has commented:
“Rich supporters of independence retained their property and much of their power. Many white men made substantial gains, but many others remained poor and were still excluded from participation in politics and government; white women scarcely benefitted at all. Much discriminatory legislation remained in place, especially on religious grounds. Above all, the logic of the Revolution extended human rights to blacks only to a very limited degree. Most continued to be enslaved….”
Tooley challenges my parenthetical comment that the Declaration of Independence was drafted by a man who enslaved his own children. Whether or not Jefferson enslaved his own children (and there is reasonable evidence that he did) he enslaved others. The charge of hypocrisy levelled against slave-owners like Jefferson and Washington by commentators like Samuel Johnson and John Wesley was, and remains, obviously fair.
Tooley refers to my “stringent portrayal” of the just war tradition. It is not, however, my portrayal that is “stringent”: it is the tradition itself. The tradition permits the use of force, but only if its seven criteria are met (as, I think, they have been on occasion.) As I argue in my paper, the American War for Independence met, at most, but two. I must confess that, despite my exchanges with Mark Tooley, I am not clear whether he accepts the standard just war tradition as set out in my paper. If he does not, we have largely been talking at cross-purposes. If he does, then I fail to see how, on any objective application of its criteria, he can conclude that the American Revolution was other than unjust.
So that readers can judge the merits of my paper in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought for themselves, I am hopeful it will soon be posted on the website of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. In the meantime, I am grateful to Mark Tooley for helping to ventilate this important question of the justice of the American Revolution. Understanding the just war tradition is essential to a sound ethical assessment of wars not only past, but also present and future.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (70) | Leave a comment
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Ken (Old Texican)| 8.27.10 @ 7:22AM
John,
You must not have gotten the memo. We Americans simply do not care about your thesis.
Let me give you an alternative question to ponder.
Was Ghandi's war a Just war against the bloated British empire's arrogance in India?
What would have happened if some hard headed Brit had killed Ghandi?
RCV| 8.27.10 @ 2:46PM
Or how about the generations of brave Irishmen who struggle to throw off the yoke of British oppression that starved them to death during the mis-named "Famine" (during which the British exported out of Ireland tons of food grown there, to protect British mercantile interests under the "Corn Laws".)
As I said before, it took much of the rest of the world generations to learn what the brilliant young men of America knew by instinct: we can govern ourselves better than some genetically-challenged royal madman.
Seamus| 9.2.10 @ 1:09PM
Was the armed uprising against Britain (1916-1922) justified? No, it was not. Next question?
Alan Brooks| 8.27.10 @ 3:41PM
Old Texican is correct, for once. Americans don't give a rat's posterior about whether or not we were worse than Mad King Georgy.
Put a cork in it, John-- you played it out far enough.
And if we were wrong to rebel against Mad Georgy, then the colonists were wrong to take the real estate from the natives.
John II| 8.27.10 @ 5:34PM
Whoa! Don't go down THAT path, Alan. No point in throwing kerosene on the smoldering embers. I think we already know where Prof. Keown would go with that one.
It's really very simple. Start with the overarching premise "America bad." All the rest follows.
Alan Brooks| 8.27.10 @ 8:16PM
America IS bad, but better than most others.
There's Scandinavia; but how long before it gets corrupted? it's not like 1964 there-- or anywhere else-- now. As you might have noticed, things go stale after awhile.
Now isn't that just too bad?
Quartermaster| 8.27.10 @ 8:27PM
The author runs a rabbit that is simply ridiculous. This country has never known a Civil War. 1774-1783 was a war for independence from the British Crown. The 1861-65 war was also a war of independence from a dominate north seeking to suppress the south economically and turn it into an economic colony.
The attempt to condemn the colonial rebellion from just war theory might be a nice intellectual pastime, but it is utterly irrelevant. Yes there were men like Sam Adams who was little more than a rabble rouser. But there were also men like his cousin John Adams who defended the men who committed the "Boston Massacre." Sam was the real guilty party in that incident, and John poured oil on the waters.
Yes there were also Brits that tried to calm things. The colonials proposed what became Dominion status later, but the crown rejected it because it didn't fit into their idea of empire. After the successful rebellion in the southern colonies, Canada and others acquired dominion status and the empire was actually better for it. The mish mash of colonial government of the time was ineffective, and that ineffectiveness was demonstrated during the so called French and Indian War.
Wars, in and of themselves, tend to generate atrocities as one side dehumanizes the other. The crown was just as good at it as the colonials were, and attitude stiffened on both sides. In this battle, I have to give the colonials credit, and not just because I'm descended from them, but because there was less arrogance on their part and they had reasonable goals and made a reasonable request of the crown, which was stupidly rejected. The rest is just side effects and Mr. Keown is engaged in little more than an intellectual game about the past.
Alan Brooks| 8.29.10 @ 12:54AM
"The 1861-65 war was also a war of independence from a dominate north seeking to suppress the south economically and turn it into an economic colony."
Yes, but the South wanted the North to legitimize slavery; even to require the North to return fugitive slaves to the South as if to require dogcatchers to send pets back to their owners.
You think anyone is going to go for neoConfederate propaganda in 2010? then YOU are the sucker.
Vic| 8.29.10 @ 10:43PM
"I can only say that while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism." Robert E Lee to Lord Action
Looking at our current state of affairs, I would have to admit he was almost a prophet. The slaves of the time have simply been transferred to a new plantation.
RebelYell| 8.30.10 @ 11:58PM
Actually the Federal Govt passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 I believe. Many Northern States, most famously Wisconsin, resisted based on--wait for it--nullification of an unconsititutional law.
That you somehow think the South was in any position to "force" Northern States to return slaves is proof you've been duped by the "Civil War" propaganda, either that or you're just ignorant.
emo| 8.27.10 @ 7:46AM
This is the left's new tactic. Claim the American Revolution was unjust and thus the creation of the United States as a nation is illegitimate. At least this guy is honest. The left hates the USA and wants to undo 230+ years of history. The left sounds more and more like Iran's President talking about Israel.
Notice the personal attacks on Tooley from Keowan (ie his argument is irrelevant). You can hear the hate in his writing. Typical from the left.
Keowan is no doubt a utopian. We would have or more likely have utopia were it not for the American Revolution. Thus anyone who disagrees with Keowan wants to stop his version of utopia and is an enemy to be hated.
Here we have proof of Keowan's hate for the US and why he thinks the revolution was unjust:
""Turning to slavery, he claims that it is not clear what role it plays in my just war analysis. As I explain in my paper, one criterion of the tradition is that the damage inflicted by war must be proportionate to the good expected. Defenders of the Revolution claim that an important good it promoted was liberty. It is relevant, therefore, to observe that it did not bring liberty for all. My paper quotes one historian of the Revolution who has commented:""
The damage from the American Revolution was worse than the good it created. The US didnt live up to its ideals in the American Revolution, thus the revolution and the creation of the nation are illegitimate. This is the typical leftist utopian position.
Keowan hates capitalism, freedom and liberty. He loves collectivism. Without the American Revolution, whatever nation evolved here would no doubt be more collectivist, more egalitarian and more to Keowan's vision of utopia.
Dont underestimate the left's desire to create utopia and how it drives nearly everything they do.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.27.10 @ 7:56AM
emo,
Excellent thought there. It did remind me that "utopia"...means "nowhere"... hmmm.
emo| 8.27.10 @ 8:25AM
One thing I forgot to mention:
You can see Keowan's anti-Americanism on display. He says the good of the revolution was not outweighed by the bad. But the good didnt end in 1781. The good continues to this day. From the free people's of Eastern Europe etc etc.
Without the American Revolution, America's (or whatever country) influence in the world would be greatly lessened. There would be no nation to champion liberty and freedom. Global collectivism would have had nothing to stop it. Even nations like Canada, Australia and even the UK would be further to the left then they are today.
The American Revolution impacted the entire world. And in a way Keowan hates.
agathis| 8.27.10 @ 8:02AM
As someone who spent a great deal of time studying Just War theory in graduate school, I can say with at least some decent authority that Keown is wrong to assert that his interpretation of the theory is not overly strict. The tradition is less formal than Keown seems to think. The criteria for a just war are not simply black and white, and the answer to the question "is this particular war just?" is not a binary yes/no, but a more/less. For instance, a stringent view of just war (like Keown's) would deny any kind of revolution by the Americans because there was no possibility of finding a competent authority. While the Continental Congress may not have been a perfect substitute, it was clearly quite better than no authority at all. Far better, in fact. But rather than see the criteria as points on a line, he sees them as boxes to be checked off. That is the definition of a stringent view of the Just War theory. A more typical (and fair) view of the theory accepts the imperfections of political expediency and values when one side in a conflict attempts to meet those requirements. By any fair standard, the American side in the Revolutionary War did exactly that.
Keown's approach to the theory is indeed unusually strict, and typical of those who believe that Just War theory has a bias against war. It does not. Just War has a bias towards justice, and demands that force be used if necessary. The stringent approach is favored by pacifists and quasi-pacifists precisely because they're opposed to war on principle. It is a way for them to pay lip service to Just War. It is a distortion of the tradition.
Evanston2| 8.27.10 @ 1:08PM
Thank you. I'm all for asking questions, and rigorous intellectual exercises, but there's a rigidity to Keown's approach that inspires contempt for Just War theory. As a career (now retired) Marine Corps officer, I naturally was concerned with how "right" our actions were, and are. Starting with my commissioning in 1984, the only major action I found objectionable was in the Balkans. I haven't read Keown's other work, but I suspect he'd take the opposite view. If so, I recommend he go to Rome and do more research while those of us who live in the real world fight the genuine Just War. You see, Just War isn't just about war...it's about creating and sustaining conditions under which people thrive and resisting all forms of government that see people as their slaves. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
John II| 8.27.10 @ 6:02PM
"Keown's approach to the theory is indeed unusually strict, and typical of those who believe that Just War theory has a bias against war. It does not. Just War has a bias towards justice, and demands that force be used if necessary."
Exactly. And the key trouble with Prof. Keown's thesis is not the thesis per se, which broaches an interesting question, but rather the insistent sophomorism of its development.
Small wonder that the real talent these days has abandoned academia for the think tanks and the opinion journals. Res ipsa loquitur.
Alan Brooks| 8.29.10 @ 12:59AM
"By any fair standard, the American side in the Revolutionary War did exactly that."
And so did Lincoln's side in 1861.
Ryan| 8.27.10 @ 8:37AM
I think for Keown's theory to hold up, he needs to do a line-by-line analysis of the grievencas that were laid out in the Declaration of Independance.
Also..."no taxation without representation."
Tim*| 8.27.10 @ 8:47AM
There are " Dynamic Doers " and then there are the " Big Bore Talkers " .
The Brit Apologist falls into the second category .
Like most Lawboys , Keown here thinks he can talk the panties off the jury or anyone else , he gets a shot to bloviate at .
Pity his poor captured audience students .
Down The Brits , Up The Rebellion !
Alan Brooks| 8.29.10 @ 1:03AM
Right,
plus: Down With Tim*-- Up With Israel!
(and don't take it personally, I'm just breaking your balls, that's all)
Stammon| 8.27.10 @ 8:52AM
The application of this thesis is seriously flawed, even if the thesis is itself nonsense.
Keown cites:
"Rich supporters of independence retained their property and much of their power. Many white men made substantial gains, but many others remained poor and were still excluded from participation in politics and government; white women scarcely benefitted at all. Much discriminatory legislation remained in place, especially on religious grounds. Above all, the logic of the Revolution extended human rights to blacks only to a very limited degree. Most continued to be enslaved…."
from Bonwick. Yet he ignores the rest of the paragraph:
"Nevertheless, what happened in the United States was indeed a revolution.... Republicanism rested on different principles of those of the royal regime that preceded it and the "anciens regimes" of continental Europe. Government in America derived it's authority from it's citizens and possessed only limited powers; it no longer ruled over subjects, nor did it enjoy the absolute supremacy claimed by Parliament in Britain.... Previously dominant elites were obliged to admit their social inferiors to a share of political power, and important reforms were introduced in many states."
So was it all worth it? One can derive any label and system of thought to qualify that label. You can make a boy into a pig or a tomorrow into hope. But that doesn't make it reality nor will it make a working society that will vest it's citizens in perpetuating it's existence.
Stammon| 8.27.10 @ 8:59AM
One more thought;
This is trite, but does Keown understand that without that "Unjust Revolution" he would be writing in German now?
Conquistador| 8.27.10 @ 10:50AM
Not really. If you are referring to the Nazis, they came to power because of the conditions imposed on Germany by the allies after WWI. If not for Tommy Wilson getting into that conflict while it was at a stalemate and helping to drag it out, the conflict would have ended up status quo ante and the sequel wouldn't have been inevitable.
Stammon| 8.27.10 @ 11:20AM
That is why it is a trite response. There is no way to know what the future would've been had the Colonies remained within the British Empire. Although the argument can be made that without the American Revolution, there wouldn't have been the inspiration for the French Revolution, and we would all be speaking french right now.
John - TMF| 8.27.10 @ 9:09AM
Wow... if Monty had been this dogged in the pursuit of his established goals at Caen, we'd have broken out of Normandy in early July... instead of having a field to field slug fest through the bocage...
I realize that humans hate to be told that they are wrong. Mr. Keown, you sir, are flat out wrong.
1) applying religious personal philosophical tenants to issues of national sovereignty is often fraught with fallacy.
During the period of roughly 1640 until 1763 the Colonies had formed, with a very light hand applied to it by the British crown, (of course we too were treated to Cromwell's protectorate).
The colonies all had representative governments, social structures, lines of commerce, and evolving traditions. The British crown's assertion of the right to tax, control, and supersede colonial self-rule was arbitrary and tyrannical, period.
Absolutely any levy issued by Parliament upon the colonial governments without their consent was unjust. (The phrase in for a penny, in for a pound comes to mind, here.)
The sovereign act of the now united colonies as the United States of America was perfectly justified, debated in full, and declared with a full catalog of sovereign grievances issued.
So your premise falls flat on its face.
2. McCullough, the last time that I checked, was still a 20th-21st Century Historian (whose works on "John Adams" and "1776" I read and enjoyed) is hardly an original source for such assertions of popularity. If the Revolution was disdained or neglected by two-thirds of the population it would have never survived past the disasters of 1776. The assertion is contradicted by the facts of history not the fluff of supposition.
An unpopular cause would not provide the manpower to sustain the losses (the American Revolution is only surpassed by the American Civil War in percentage of population lost.)
3. Your absolutist assertion of "Just War" also fails in one other critical level. It was written by a CHURCH, not a real nation, and that CHURCH believes -I am a practicing member of "that church" - that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Son of God, and defeated death by rising from the dead. Within the context of that act, issues of the Kingdom of Man were left to the Kingdom of Man. We cannot impose the Kingdom of God within the bounds and limitations of the Kingdom of Man (our world). We do not rise from the dead, and are only promised such reward in God's own time, and with His divine graces extended.
Within your application of "Just War" is the trap of eternal slavery in the Kingdom of Man.
Sorry, son, I ain't buyin' your snake oil. It's just dope in a bottle, and a sure trip to the gutter.
Regards,
The Mighty Fahvaag
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.27.10 @ 9:19AM
Fahvaag,
Man, you are patient with this Keown idiot!
This is your finest post to date. Splendid!
I have copied it to my docs.
Conquistador| 8.27.10 @ 10:13AM
All of the ad hominems notwithstanding, the complaints against Keown's thesis should be redirected at the 'just war' thesis itself. There's no evidence he's a Leftist, just a (British) academic applying a silly theory to our past. One thing is certain-if the revolution of 1775 was just, the one in 1860 was doubly so. The Confederacy had all of the same complaints as the Founding Fathers and the actual precedent of the revolution as well. I wonder how many of those leaping to defend the Founders from criticism are as fervent in their defense of the 'just rebels' of 1860.
David March| 8.27.10 @ 10:16AM
The question that is missing in this theory is not whether the Americans had a right to revolution, but whether or not the British Crown had a right to make ‘Just War’ on its own subjects.
Which General was it who said to King George, ‘Give me two Regiments, Majesty and I will raze the colonies from end to end?’
The Just War theory, is just a theory by some Catholic Theologians attempting to restrict and reduce conflict in the world. A noble effort but one that is doomed when placed in any practical context.
Its up there with the ‘no two liberal democracies have ever made war on each other.’ A theory when investigated doesn’t pass the smell test.
Evanston2| 8.27.10 @ 1:20PM
As you say, Just War theory applies strictly to Roman Catholics -- whether priests, etc. will bless their participation in a war. To apply it to non-Catholics is, at best, "noble" but more accurately is a natural extension of the Roman propensity to ignore the Bible and create a religion of men.
Evanston2| 8.27.10 @ 1:22PM
David M, I forgot to ask, which "two liberal democracies" have made war on each other? I'm not disputing your statement, just no examples come to mind.
Tim*| 8.27.10 @ 10:40AM
" WHO DECIDES?
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Finally, the Catechism identifies those who have the burden of evaluating the conditions for whether a particular war is just: "those who have responsibility for the common good." In modern nation-states, this means the government.
Governments are privy to information gathered by intelligence services and other means that the general public does not possess. Because the public is not in possession of this information, the public is not in as advantaged a position to determine whether the conditions are met. As a result, the public must in significant measure be prepared to trust its leaders to make the right decision.
There may not be a guarantee that the government will do so, but, except in the case of fundamentally evil regimes, it is more likely that the government would arrive at an appropriate course of action than would the general public.
This is not to say that the public has no voice in such matters. Particularly in democracies, it does. The public elects its leaders and, through public debate, helps guide its leaders' decisions. Nevertheless, the general public does not bear ultimate responsibility for the decision to go to war. That belongs "to the prudential judgment" of its political leaders. They must evaluate the situation and make their best judgment whether the conditions for just war have been fulfilled."
Petronius| 8.27.10 @ 11:06AM
MF
Good stuff. Small mention of the Greate Civil Warre; (about money etc.) remains part of our own polity. The elements Our Revolution have in common besides taxation were the intended purpose for it's expenditure; raising of the Raj in India. In 1640 the Crown levied excise taxes in the form of "ship money" upon the mercantile class who had enough clout in the Commons to force the issue. With the Kingdom bankrupt, warre followed. King Charles was tried, convicted, and beheaded as a Tyrant. Jefferson made the same charge to King George. There is the primary truth. Both monarchs violated Their Coronation Oaths to uphold the laws of the Kingdom as laid down in Magna Carta. And we are witnessing exactly the same effrontery towards Our Constitution today by President (and self ordained despot) Obama. His disdain for Our Rights, confiscation of our earnings and assets, profligacy, and betrayal in face of our enemies is catastrophic. Yet he will not be deposed as he ought because he commands a host of parasitic supplicants who will be sustained by our over taxation to vote for him again. King Henry V would say the same of him that He spake to Grey. Scroop, and Masham at the Red Lion before sentencing them to be hanged, drawn, and quartered before the Bargate of Southampton. Is there one among us who would say the same?
CalMark| 8.27.10 @ 11:46AM
Mr. Professor Professional America-Hater Keown,
Enough pseudo-intellectual America-bashing and America-hating babble. The rebuttal was brief and concise. Your response is long, tortuous, and unreadable, which means you're defending an incorrect and immoral conclusion
If you think the American Revolution was unjust, leave the USA forever. It's hypocritical (the ultimate sin for people like you) to live in a country whose founding principles you regard as immoral.
And take some--preferably lots--of your fellow America-haters with you. None of you will be missed.
Patrick| 8.29.10 @ 9:51PM
Actually, liberalism does not view hypocrisy as a sin at all, merely an effective taunt against conservatives who actually care about honesty and virtue.
If you doubt me, look at the Health Care law that was ramrodded through.
Chinahand206| 8.27.10 @ 11:57AM
Mr. Keown:
I hear England is very pretty this time of year. Go!
Copperhead| 8.27.10 @ 1:31PM
Rather pointless to go over all this considering the United States has been around for over 200 years. The question we need to consider these days is how to defend her. Will THAT be just? For some, I doubt it.
Old Soldier| 8.27.10 @ 1:39PM
This just in:
The Spartans unjustly fought the Persians at Thermopylae and Plataea. Xerxes offered them their freedom after all.
Don't even get me started about the terrible Christian Spanish and French fighting against the enlightened Moors. They should have agreed to live peaceably in dhimintude.
Bydand76| 8.27.10 @ 2:28PM
Yes,
Scotland and Ireland should have never rose up against English tyranny either.
The Polish Jews should have stayed in the ghetto's when the Nazi's came to exterminate them.
Tibet should have invited China to take over their country too.
The Hungarians & Czechoslovakians should have never rebelled against Soviet oppresion.
and the list goes on and on.........
Pro Libertate!
A.M. Mallett| 8.27.10 @ 1:41PM
What in Hael are you doing on this site???
Jim| 8.27.10 @ 2:23PM
Neither side in the American war concerned itself much with debating dogmas like Just War. The revolution is more rightly seen as a Tory-Whig conflict. The high church Anglican insistence on the divine right of kings to rule had brought disastrous civil war to England in the 17th century. Though divine right had been demolished in the home islands by the time of George III, he and his friends tried to impose a similar governing philosophy upon their colonies in the 18th century, with predictable results. The colonists were deeply influenced by Whig philosophers emphasizing the limits of power. The colonists, not unreasonably, asked: must hard-pressed subjects always follow hereditary leaders, however absurd their policies, feeble their minds, and distant their capitals?
Patrick| 8.29.10 @ 9:56PM
Not to burst your bubble, but there was a strong movement to crown George Washington as king of America. Fortunately he had more integrity than the current regime.
Anthony A| 8.27.10 @ 4:28PM
We freedom loving Americans could never bow down to a King or Queen(except maybe Obama), other than that, let's get that Oceana thing going.
Michele San Pietro| 8.27.10 @ 5:38PM
Now, the American revolution wasn't a civil war. Whoever says this doesn't know what he's talking about. The American revolution was a liberation war, point.
Kevin| 8.27.10 @ 9:20PM
The colonies broke free of imperial British rule. They did not start a war. The British made war upon the upstart colonies for daring to throw off the yoke of empire. Does that make the British war on the colonies just?
Guy| 8.28.10 @ 12:50AM
I'm a British immigrant to the US (became a US citizen in 2007) and I read this with interest.
Mr Tooley's question is whether this was a just war. Clearly, the colonists felt that they could not achieve the political settlement they desired without resorting to arms. They were not bloodthirsty monsters, they desired political self-determination, and they felt that the British government would never accede to these demands.
Would the British Government have given them full self-governing dominion status through negotiation? Possibly, with hindisght and analysis and hypothesising, we can say "yes" but the fact is the colonists honestly believed that the answer was "no" and so they resorted to armed conflict.
The conduct of both armies was pretty civilized, on the whole, and there was little demonizing of the other side because it was patently obvious that this really was a civil war, a ware fought between British.
Maybe only a minority supported the revolution, but the majority who did NOT did not feel sufficiently strongly to fight back, implying that their support for the monarchy and current settlement was weak.
Overall, I feel that America and the world benefitted from the revolution. Britain would do well to look at America and try to emulate some of her most salient features, such as her belief in individual accountability, her constitution and her faith in God. Sadly, British society has been contaminated by socialism and atheism, in part because the control of the government by the people is less strong than in America, which allows the elites to "shape" society to their own ends.
That's why I became and American and raise my children as Americans.
Frank| 8.28.10 @ 2:38AM
Sir,
I have but one word to offer you.
Welcome!
Frank White
Albuquerque, NM
Yosemeti Sam| 8.28.10 @ 1:21AM
Unjust Revolutions - aka unjust wars.
Enough already - the surfeit of historian polemics.
Wars will always be a circumstance of CHOICE.
Resist aggression/oppression - or submit to it!
So, cut the convoluted polemical knot(s) - the Alexander way:
By decisive blow(s):
Plain and simple:
Via the Conanism precept - not to be confused with the Leftoid onanism precepts -
" To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."
So, to this K character historian:
" ... thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
Acts of the Apostles ch. 26, v. 24 ...."
Yo - El Cid!
Samuel Adams| 8.28.10 @ 2:44AM
SAM ADAMS IS MORE THAN JUST A GREAT YANKEE BEER! TAX HATER SAMUEL ADAMS, ON A ROLL AND ARMED TO THE TEETH, AUGUST, 1776……
"You darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives and religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check.
"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, and supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom – go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
“Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances?”
“It does not take a majority to prevail….but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.”
“The Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
John Locke| 8.28.10 @ 2:50AM
The First American Revolution was a just War For Independence, and did not need majority approval to proceed. All that was required for the triumph of good was the certainty that justice was on the side of the rebels. I refer to the unalienable and perfectly-natural and universally-valid human rights of life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of personal happiness.
The first article of private property is "the self" and all other rights are derivatives of and flow from these cardinal rights. These rights ----The Rights of Man ---- are the gift of nature or of nature's god ---- and they belong to all human beings, everywhere.
Famously, the Tories and royalists derided the libertarian rhetoric of the American rebels --- and my own Tory ancestors were chased out of Salem, Massachusetts and made for Nova Scotia in great haste --- their descendants sneaking back into New England more than a century later.
Tom Pain in the butt| 8.28.10 @ 5:21PM
Biggest laugh the far right ever created.
Freedom Fires, as a supposedly dig at the Francois.
Without the help of LaFayette and his navy, keeping the British Ships of the Line tied up in battle, Washington could never have cornered Cornwallis at Yorktown.
All these so called edumacated fools who blog, yet do not know 7th grade history.
RWinks| 8.29.10 @ 5:13PM
Too bad your education ended in the 7th grade. Even if Cornwallis had escaped to New York, it would only have prolonged the War another year or so. The British were tired of the endless expense to no purpose and were ready to negotiate peace.
Osamas Pajamas| 8.30.10 @ 2:02AM
The colonists were indebted to Lafayette and his forces, and the French were indebted to American forces in WWI and WWII. But then the French fell into decline, such that now they appear to be putrid American Democrats [socialists].
John Navratil| 8.28.10 @ 7:37PM
I see lots of debate of "Just War" here. I ask, simply, if this was America's first civil war, where were the combatants? When did colonist engage colonist? I'm no serious student of history, but if there were a civil WAR there ought to have been a battle somewhere.
It's one thing to observe that George III supporters move to Canada. It another to observe that not everyone, perhaps only a few, actively supported the revolution. But where were those fighting to maintain the status quo?
Geof| 8.28.10 @ 9:43PM
EXCELLENT! The Nub of the question. Great thinking, John.
Mayte| 8.29.10 @ 3:38PM
I agree, John. Excellent observation. But there were some colonists that joined the British or fled. There were some who were involved in 'street fights', no real battles. I recall reading the history of North Carolina. There were no "official" battles but there were constant fights and crimes committed by one against the other --royalist vs. colonist (American)-- and much chaos. After reading the history of NC, I thought: Heck it was worse than Iraq for the years preceding the Revolution and through the actual Civil War, with some years of relative calm in between. Regardless, this does not matter since the fight for liberty is ALWAYS worth fighting for and ALWAYS just.
Geof| 8.28.10 @ 9:40PM
"Lexington and Concord... an attempt by the authorities to stem armed conflict in a situation of open rebellion"
18 Americans fell before firing their first shot. And the Americans were in the wrong because of....?
Old Bull| 8.29.10 @ 4:24AM
I'm sure I missed it, so someone please point me to the place where the learned author establishes that his thesis has any degree of relevance to today? Are we supposed to pay reparations to the British crown? Apply for membership in the Commonwealth? Replace the Stars and Stripes with the Union Jack? Or is this just angels dancing on the head of a pin?
Osamas Pajamas| 8.30.10 @ 2:04AM
I smell a rat. I think the author wants to ruin the American view of the First American Revolution so that it will not serve as a good example and precedent for a Second American Revolution.
SX56| 8.29.10 @ 8:09AM
MTF “I am a practicing member of "that church" - that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Son of God, and defeated death by rising from the dead. Within the context of that act, issues of the Kingdom of Man were left to the Kingdom of Man. We cannot impose the Kingdom of God within the bounds and limitations of the Kingdom of Man (our world).”
As am I, but congratulations to the majority. The non-applicable status of biblical adherents to civil response is not one I am particularly fond of outside of the measure of faith individually allotted to each person. And that as far as it goes. Doctrinally, stealing for support, feeble. Enormously outweighed on several passages to be that salt for whomever, wherever. For instance; That not only is “laying down” one’s life, living and dying “by the sword” a matter of “driving out” by physical acts, but also bringing about the Romans 13 “ruler” by God’s choice, His very clear and perfect will.
bobmontgomery| 8.29.10 @ 2:45PM
What Ken said in first post. Unless this is a clue to new tack in war gainst America by the Progs, this is quite uninteresting.
Mayte| 8.29.10 @ 3:32PM
Of course, it is obvious that this was a civil war. There were colonists for the crown and there were colonists for liberty. That was similar then to now: there are Americans for Statism and socialism and the "protect-me-big-government" attitude and there are other Americans for individual liberty and freedom. This has nothing to do with the war being unjust, unless you mean that it was unjust for the British to do all that they did against the colonies. It was a cause worth fighting for, as liberty always is. Your thesis must be super boring.
Kevin Gutzman | 8.30.10 @ 10:48AM
Mr. Keown says, "No one has even begun to show that the British exercised, or intended to exercise, 'unlimited license' over the colonies." Surely he jests. The British theory of Parliamentary Sovereignty, which he rightly has Burke espousing, said that Parliament could legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." So wrote Blackstone in 1765, and so said Parliament in the Declaratory Act of 1766.
The colonists dubbed this "slavery," which it was. The only rights remaining to people subject to an unlimited overseas body into whose deliberations they had no input whatsoever are the right to submit and the right to die. If that isn't injustice, what is?
For full elaboration of the Americans' response, see chapter one of my _Virginia's American Revolution_, or Thomas Jefferson's 1774 "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." Some take Keown's position. Then there are Americans.
(By the by, Adams's statement about the relative popularity of the Patriot and the Loyalist appeals doesn't mean what Keown takes it to mean, as any expert knows.)
Charles Martel| 8.30.10 @ 2:29PM
How could the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War be considered "unjust"? After all, we won.
Case closed.
+++
Le Cracquere| 8.30.10 @ 9:48PM
Heh ... cute.
I don't think I buy Keown's argument, but I'm rather glad to see it printed. Even if the American Revolution was justified, the utter lack of argument about its justness, the total absence of discussion about its wisdom or advisability has always struck me as a little weird ... and suspicious. It may seem paradoxical, but it seems as if such a righteous cause could BEAR a little more scrutiny than it's ever received on this side of the pond.
Too many of Keown's opponents in this comments strengthen that unease: they'd rather see him shut up and go back to England than refute him. Maybe he can be refuted, but doing so is more complex than we Americans commonly assume. And that makes me think that we should consider valid arguments against the Founding and treat them more seriously. Many of these knee-jerk reactions against Keown aren't a good sign about us.
Michele San Pietro| 8.30.10 @ 5:54PM
In actual fact, not all wars are won by the best side, but the American revolution definitely was. It's silly to throw mud against it like Mr. Tooley does.
Bob Newton| 8.30.10 @ 8:38PM
So we now learn that it is John Keown who has taken up the mantle left by Howard Zinn as a Marxist revisionist historian. I expect to see him next at the Puffington Host or the Democratic Underground. Or, perhaps, as the American History czar of the Obama administration.
Mr. Keown, you asserted that the Revolution was "unjust" - it is not the job of your critics to prove it was just. It is your job to prove your assertion. And you have failed to do so. I can't believe you're even a professor at any school considering the adolescent level of your arguments. (Of course, that is obviously why you have a distinguished position at a Leftist institution.)
Michele San Pietro| 8.31.10 @ 5:51PM
I apologize for my mix-up. Of course, I didn't mean Mr. Tooley, but Mr. Keown.
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