H.W. Brands
Subject: Polarized America During the Revolution
Bio: Professor of History at University of Texas at Austin and author of Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution
Transcript:
Larry Bernstein:
Welcome to What Happens Next. My name is Larry Bernstein. What Happens Next is a podcast which covers economics, politics, and culture.
Today’s topic is Polarized America during the Revolution. Our speaker is H.W. Brands who is a Professor of History at University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of the book Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution.
There have been disagreements in our politics since the beginning. And if you think that the politics are polarized now, imagine what it was like during the American revolution, when the losers really did have to move to Canada.
Bill can you please begin with six minutes of opening remarks.
H. W. Brands:
I started teaching at the high school level. You hit the high points and overlook the complications. I've been living in Texas for the last 40 years they don't lead off with the failed history of the Confederate States of America. If you lose the war, you lose the historical advantage.
Now, once you have the basic outlines of the story, then you can investigate the complications. When you have 15 minutes to explain the American Revolution, you tell the story that the English colonies in North America got used to having things on their own during 150 years when they were largely left to their own devices by the government in London.
But following the French and Indian War, the government decides we got to raise some money and it's too expensive to run these colonies. And the colonists didn't like taxes more than anybody likes taxes. They had been used to having things their own way when all of a sudden, they were being told how to run their affairs by parliament. This institution seemed fine for Britain but wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the colonies. They got upset, felt righteous, rose up and demanded independence. They fought this war for eight years and at the end they won.
When told this way, the outcome seems to be inevitable. Historians explain the things that happened. We don't spend time on the things that didn't happen. The other reason for the emphasis is that we won because we were right. It's not the case in history that you win a war because you're right, you win a war because you got more guns or determination or you're more ruthless.
Larry Bernstein:
Why is the American Revolution viewed as a success and the French Revolution as a failure?
H. W. Brands:
One of the things that has made Americans think that our revolution should be the model for other countries is that there was no post-revolutionary bloodbath. Any student of the French Revolution is aware of the reign of terror and the guillotine. America didn't have anything like that. The reason is that the losers in the American Revolution left. They had someplace to go, and so they didn't have to stick around and deal with the aftermath.
Larry Bernstein:
Was the American Revolution primarily between Americans and the British or an internal fight between Americans?
H. W. Brands:
Americans against the British is a vast oversimplification. In the first place, they were all British.
You have to get Americans to start thinking they're Americans. Before the French and Indian War, nobody in the American colonies was in favor of American independence. Most of them were happy in the British Empire. Move forward a couple of years, the British Parliament passes the Stamp Act. This is the first direct tax on Americans. Some Americans are getting upset but almost none of them at this point are thinking, we got to get out of here. By July 4th, 1776, when the Continental Congress declares independence, it's not at all clear that there was a majority at that point.
When the American colonies declare their independence, people could differ over what the appropriate response to these British laws should be. Should we send a petition? Should we protest? Should we take up arms? But as soon as the Continental Congress declares independence, then you set up a situation where the people who disagree with you, they're not simply your opponents. They are the enemy. They are traitors.
The bitterest part of the war was not Americans against British, but Americans against Americans. I called my book on this subject, Our First Civil War.
Larry Bernstein:
Was there a great divide between the loyalists and the rebels?
H. W. Brands:
It wasn't all the rich folks lined up on one side and all the poor folks on the other side. It wasn't all the righteous were on one side and all the evil doers on the other side. In the case of the loyalists, these are the ones who say, we shouldn't break away from the British Empire. We should remain loyal. None of them said that Britain was perfect, or that the laws that Parliament had passed were wonderful laws. At the moment of separation at this July 4th, 1776 there was hardly an inch between the two groups.
There were radicals on each side, but the ones that were near the middle, you almost couldn't tell them apart. The only difference was that the Rebel Whigs, the Patriots, they had come to the conclusion that there is no way to mend the problem that we have with Britain. And the loyalist said, we can make this work. It's like a marriage that is having its rough patch. And one party in the marriage says come on, let's try a little harder. We can keep this thing together.
Larry Bernstein:
Were the British united against the Americans during the revolution?
H. W. Brands:
There was a division of opinion within Britain itself. There were people in Britain who said it's really stupid to go to war against Americans. If we give them what they want, we can have a good relationship with an independent United States. It turned out that those were far-sighted because the United States fought this war against Britain, and the United States won the first war.
They fought a second war of 1812. And for decades after that, Americans and the British were suspicious of each other, and by the 1890s until today, Britain and the United States have been the best of allies.
Larry Bernstein:
Let's start with the French and Indian War, and you open your book with our hero, George Washington at the center of the story. He's 23 years old. The number of people involved in the war. It's a couple of thousand. It's smaller than a skirmish in the US Civil War.
H. W. Brands:
When the Michigan fans rush the field in the Ohio State game, there are a whole lot more people involved in that conflict than in the American Revolutionary War.
It's crazy.
Larry Bernstein:
What was the French and Indian War between Britain and France all about?
H. W. Brands:
By the 18th century, the two contestants for control of North America in the middle latitudes had come down to Britain and France. The French controlled Canada and their powers stretched through the Great Lakes down the Mississippi River, and the British controlled the Atlantic seaboard.
The competition between Britain and France was not exclusively over North America. They competed in Europe and in South Asia. These were the world's two great powers. But as it emerged in North America, in the 1750s, the territory that was most contested between the two was the valley of the Ohio River.
Until then, the American British colonies had been on the ocean side of the mountains. But by the 1750s, some British American colonists had moved across the mountains into the Ohio Valley. And the French had been coming down to that same region from the Great Lakes from the north. Now it's striking because they have this global contest, and they were competing with each other in India and in the Atlantic, but they see real fighting over control of this one strategic spot.
Pittsburgh is located there now, and Three Rivers Stadiums where two rivers, the Allegheny and Monongahela come together to form the Ohio River. And that point where the stadium is located is called the Forks of the Ohio. It was the strategic spot in all of the upper Ohio Valley. Whoever controlled the forks of the Ohio River would control the fate of the interior of the North America. They decided to duke it out over that.
George Washington was sent by the Governor of Virginia. He gets in a skirmish with a French force. And it's called the French and Indian War because from the American and the British perspective, they were fighting against the French and the Indian allies of the French.
Larry Bernstein:
In the Revolutionary War, both sides took prisoners. And in the book, you describe a series of letters between Washington and General Gage. Washington complains that the British aren't taking proper care of the American prisoners. He requests that both sides behave like proper British gentlemen. What happened?
H. W. Brands:
In standard international law, war is understood as a contest between two sovereign powers. When France fought against Britain, that was a war. And there were certain protocols that were followed. The officers in one side addressed the officers on the other side, and they often had provisions for exchanging prisoners because prisoners were a drain. Usually the deal was, we've taken these prisoners and we'll give them to you, but they have to promise not to take up fighting again. And if they do take up fighting again, then we can kill them on the spot. They will have broken their parole. And we're all gentlemen here, and so we can count on them not to do this.
But the British did not acknowledge that the United States was a sovereign country. And from their perspective, George Washington and the others were traitors and needed to be treated like criminals, not like the officers of another country.
In this back and forth, Gage refuses to address Washington as General Washington but Mr. Washington because he wasn't a soldier. His commission came from this self-appointed Continental Congress.
Larry Bernstein:
This attitude reminds me of how Lincoln treated the confederacy.
H. W. Brands:
This was exactly the position Abraham Lincoln took toward the South during the Civil War. He refused to call it a war. It was a rebellion. Now, by the end of the conflict, just for shorthand, he would call it a war, but he never did acknowledge the legitimacy of the Confederacy.
After a while, even the British acknowledge this is actually a war. Because if you say it's a war, then you would have acknowledged the legitimacy of the independence of this new entity, whether the United States of America in 1776 or the Confederate States of America in 1865.
Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and the Confederates said, we are our generation's version of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. And they modeled the Declaration of the Confederate states of America on the Declaration of Independence of the United States. And Lincoln interestingly took what sounds like a very hairsplitting position on this. He said, you're right. You're doing exactly what Washington and the others did, but you're claiming to be doing something else.
Remember Washington and those guys had to win the war to get their independence. And that is the same for you; you got to defeat us. If the Confederate States of America defeated the United States of America in war, then we'll acknowledge your independence.
Larry Bernstein:
The history of the American Revolution is more complicated than the simple story we all heard in school. Let’s use the Boston Massacre as an example. Tell us why the American version of that event is misleading.
H. W. Brands:
By 1770 when the Boston Massacre takes place, there were some in Boston who were looking for an excuse to escalate the conflict against Britain. That mob in Boston on that freezing cold night protesting the presence of British troops in Boston that we don't want soldiers marching through a city in peace time.
These are young guys and the British soldiers are about the same age as the American protestors, and they're full of high spirits. The soldiers were not threatening. They weren't arresting people; they were just there. But the mere fact that they were there provoked the outrage of the protestors. They were going to make the position untenable for the soldiers. They surrounded them. They greatly outnumbered the soldiers, and the soldiers were ordered not to be the first to fire unless they were going to be killed.
It's unclear who fired the first shot. The British soldiers were being pelted with rocks and ice, and they had every reason to believe that their lives were in danger.
Paul Revere, who was one of the radicals came out with this finely etched poster. They called them broadsides that had block letters at the top -- Boston massacre. They wanted the British to overreact, and the British did.
The Boston massacre happened because there were people in Boston who wanted it to happen. And it certainly contributed to the rise of emotional opposition to the British in America because from that point on, they could say the British have killed us.
Larry Bernstein:
There was a global war between the English and the French. And the fighting in mid-1750s occurs in the Ohio Valley. Then the question arises, who should pay for this battle? The British Parliament said to the colonists, you got to pay your fair share for your own defense. How much? How should it be done? Who should decide? Tell us about this decision to make the locals pay for their own defense, and why that question led to a revolution.
H. W. Brands:
The colonists disputed that the British had paid for colonial defense. They said they didn't do this out of concern for our wellbeing. This was so there would be a well defended frontier of the British Empire. Yeah, they sent some troops. We did the fighting. We raised a lot of money. It was essentially a fair deal for both of us. And if there's a fundamental principle involved in all of this, it's that when the British told the Americans, you have to pay more for your defense, the Americans started asking themselves, well if that's true, what is in it for us to stay part of this empire?
Larry Bernstein:
There are different views within families about the American revolution. In your book, you used Benjamin Franklin's family as an example. Ben’s son had a very senior leadership role for the British in North America. Meanwhile while his dad Benjamin Franklin was in France insisting that Britain’s enemy join the American fight. What happened?
H. W. Brands:
In human relations, it's more common for the young to rebel against the old. In the Franklin family, the roles were reversed. This was because Benjamin Franklin was an unusually open-minded individual. Most of us arrive at our conclusions regarding the big questions of life when we're young adults. And then we find reasons to stick with them. But to see somebody change his mind about something big at the age of 65 or 70 that's unusual.
Benjamin Franklin was the biggest fan of the British Empire. The British Empire allowed him to flourish. He became a world figure. But eventually he concluded that the British government was being very badly misled. And it got personal with Franklin because he was insulted by the ruling group in Britain. Benjamin Franklin assumed that his son, William Franklin would join him in taking offense at this. Our family has been insulted.
Benjamin Franklin himself had been a rebel against his parents. And this idea of the younger generation of Franklin men insisting on making their own decisions, it was a generational thing.
William Franklin said, no, I'm not going to declare rebellion against Britain. Now, some of this certainly reflected the fact that he worked directly for the king. He was the Royal Governor of New Jersey. He liked his job, but it was also a matter of, I'm going to declare independence of my father. My father's not going to tell me what to do. William Franklin remains a loyalist.
Benjamin Franklin becomes a rebel. Father and son become estranged.
Larry Bernstein:
In the book you contrast John Adams with Benjamin Franklin in their personal behavior. John Adams thinks of himself as an idealized British citizen and then a revolutionary. He represented the British soldiers during the Boston Massacre as their legal counsel and defended them when others would not. And he's a bit of a pain in the ass. That musical 1776, one of the songs is Shut up John, which encourages him to sit down and stop mouthing off. Tell us about personal virtue among the establishment and this battle between Franklin and John Adams.
H. W. Brands:
Adams was consumed with a desire to be famous and to be recognized for his contributions to American life and history. He was also one of the last of the New England Puritans. Anything that smacked of unusual behavior between men and women offended him. It offended Abigail even more. The two played off of each other. And there was Adams’ jealousy of Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin was a generation older than John Adams and all the other revolutionary leaders. And Franklin was world famous before all these troubles began. His scientific accomplishments were celebrated around the world. If you ask, what if there hadn't been an American Revolution, would the world ever have heard of Thomas Jefferson? Quite possibly not. Would the world have ever heard of George Washington, even less likely. Would the world ever have heard of John Adams? No. He was a Boston Lord. The world would've heard of Benjamin Franklin because it already had. And so, Franklin goes to Paris and everybody loves him.
The French understood that Franklin was old enough to be harmless. He could flirt with any woman in Paris and nobody's going to take it seriously, and nobody did. These stories are circulated of Franklin and the ladies of Paris. Adams hears the stories and he's appalled. Then he gets to Paris and he discovers that Franklin doesn't show up at the office at seven o'clock in the morning the way Adams does. He sleeps till noon and wanders in and signs a few papers. Then he goes off to have lunch with one of his lady friends. Adams is thinking, I'm carrying the whole weight of this office here.
What Adams refused to recognize was that diplomacy in Paris didn't take place in the office at nine o'clock in the morning. It took place in the salons at two o'clock in the morning. Franklin understood that America depended on the goodwill of the wealthy people of Paris. They were the ones who supported the American cause before King Louis XVI agreed to a treaty. And even afterwards, they were the ones who were fronting the money that America needed. So, John Adams entirely misunderstood the nature of what Franklin was doing, and he was absolutely obsessed with his idea that Franklin was going to get all the credit and he was going to get none.
Larry Bernstein:
I want to focus on the importance of the American Revolution and why it matters to the history of the United States and the world.
H. W. Brands:
The American Revolution was the first of the large successful anti-colonial revolutions that would sweep across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Americans gave a model to the French for their own revolution against an old regime. They gave a model to the inhabitants of Spanish America in the first half of the 19th century.
They're also important in connecting the idea of national independence to an extension of liberty and equality. Now, equality is not a necessary attribute of national independence, but the way Thomas Jefferson phrased it was that all men are created equal, and that's the basis of this American Revolution.
What he was talking about that the Americans are equal to the British in terms of the legitimacy of the governments they want to establish for themselves.
Larry Bernstein:
What are you optimistic about as it relates to the revolution?
H. W. Brands:
In the summer of 2026, we're going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And there's a lot to celebrate.
There are lessons to take from American history. One is that we are always arguing. There are people who always think of the end is near. If you want American politics to come out being smooth and easy and everybody happy, don't hold your breath. It's not going to get much better than this.
We've been doing this for 250 years, we've survived. It hasn't killed us yet. It probably won't. America will continue for another 250 years.
If you look at other countries, the huge success story in world history of the last 200 years is the United States of America. And that's something really worth celebrating.
Larry Bernstein:
Thanks to Bill for joining us.
If you missed the last podcast, the topic was Happiness is a Naked Gun.
Our speaker was Darren Schwartz who is the What Happens Next Culture Critic.
We reviewed the recently released Naked Gun movie starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. In addition, Darren and I rewatched all three of the original Naked Gun films that starred Leslie Nielsen and enjoyed them even more.
I would now like to make a plug for next week’s podcast. The topic will be Persuading Women to have More Children. Our speaker is going to be Wolfgang Lutz who is a leading academic in the field of population and sustainable development. He is also a professor of demographics at the University of Vienna.
I want to learn about the rapid decline in fertility and what it means for the world.
You can find our previous episodes and transcripts on our website
whathappensnextin6minutes.com. Please follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thank you for joining us today, goodbye.
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