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.
