The American Revolution Short introduction

Political Philosophy

Viriato Soromenho-Marques

26/27 09 2019

Timeline

1757-1763: The French-Indian Wars

1763-1767: The Stamp Act crisis.

1774: Thomas Jefferson, A summary view of the rights of British America (The logic of tradition)

1775: The war starts.

Feb. 1776 –Thomas Paine, Common Sense de Paine (the logic of reason and natural right).

Timeline

04 07 1776: The Declaration of Independence.

1781: The Articles of Confederation.

1783: Paris Peace Treaty with the UK.

1787: Philadelphia Constitutional Convention.

1777-1788: The ratification process of the new federal Convention. Debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

15 12 1791: First 10 Amendments to the Constitution (Bill of Rights).

On the Concept of Revolution

> Copernicus (1473-1543), De revolutionibus orbium coelestium [Da Revolução dos Orbes Celestes] (1543).

ARENDT, Hannah, On Revolution, New

York, Viking Press, 1963, 343 pp.

“Restoration” (1688) or “Assault to the

sky” (Angriff auf den Himmel): 1871, 1917.

Two Revolutions

The triple meaning of the American

Revolution: a) anticolonial;

republican; federal.

Differences and similarities between

1776 and 1789.

A long debate from Burke to Paine

passing by Pierre Victor Malouet

(1740-1814)

Malouet: Against The Declaration of Rights….

“[...] la société américaine nouvellement formé, est composée en totalité, de propriétaires déjà accoutumés à l'égalité, étrangers au luxe ainsi qu'à l'indigence, connaissant à peine le joug des impôts, des préjugés qui nous dominent, n'ayant trouvé sur la terre aucune trace de féodalité. De tels hommes étaient sans doute préparés à recevoir la liberté dans toute son énergie, car leurs goûts, leurs moeurs, leur position les appelaient à la démocratie".

The “American Spirit”…

BURKE, Edmund, "Speech on Moving Resolutions for Conciliation with America (March 22, 1775)", The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke in Twelve Volumes, London, John C. Nimmo, 1887, pp. 81-186.

"Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found".

“ (…) it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion"

…According to Edmund Burke

"Then, Sir, from these six capital sources, of descent, of form of government, of religion in the northern provinces, of manners in the southern, of education, of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government, -- from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up".

Burke: A “federal empire” ?

"If we have a government in America, it is founded upon conquest, since they set up their independence; and as they enjoy the right de facto, and we alone de jure, we must and ought to treat with them on the terms of a federal union".

Burke, “Debate in the Commons on Mr. Fox’s Motion”, Dec. 5, 1777.

American Political Cultures

ELAZAR, Daniel, American Federalism. A View From the States, New York, Harper, 1984, pp.109-149.

Questions and answers: what is the essence of politics, the limits of government action, and who shall/ought to act politically.

Daniel Elazar: 1/3, Midwest and West

"The individualistic political culture emphasizes the conception of the democratic order as a marketplace. In this view, government is instituted for strictly utilitarian reasons, to handle those functions demanded by the people it is created to serve. In general, government action is to be restricted to those aeas, primarily in the economic realm, that encourage private initiative and widespread access to the marketplace." (115).

Daniel Elazar: 2/3, New England

"The moralistic political culture emphasizes the commonwealth conception as the basis for democratic government. Politics, to the moralistic political culture is considered one of the great activities of humanity in its search for the good society -- a struggle for power, it is true, but also an effort to exercise power for the betterment of the commonwealth.(...) Good government, then, is measured by the degree to which it promotes the public good and in terms of the honesty, selflessness, and commitment to the public welfare of those who govern." (117).

Daniel Elazar: 3/3, Southern States

"The traditionalistic political culture is rooted in an ambivalent attitude toward the marketplace coupled with a paternalistic and elitist conception of the commonwealth. It reflects an older, pre-commercial attitude that accepts a substantially hierarchical society as part of the ordered nature of things, authorizing and expecting those at the top of the social structure to take a special and dominant role in government." (118).

Jefferson: On Slavery (1776)

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither.” (suppressed text from the Declaration, Jefferson, 1977: 238)

Jefferson: On Slavery (1776)

Letter to John Holmes, 22 04 1820:

“But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”

(cit. por Kaminski, 1995: 264).

On the Declaration of Independence

Written like a legal text to be presented in the ideal Court of peoples.

Humans rights used as reason for nation-building. Lon-run consequences for international relations.

King George III works like the face of the enemy.

A short synthesis of liberal philosophical ideas developed in the Enlightenment Period.