← History As It Happens
History As It Happens
1775 Independence Days
00:40:37
The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution's opening battles came and went with little fanfare. Colonial militia engaged British regulars at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. The Revolutionary War was underway. King George III would soon...
Loading summary
Transcript64 lines
- [00:02]
Lindsay Chervinsky
I say this every election cycle and.
- [00:04]
Unknown Host
I'll say it again.
- [00:05]
Lindsay Chervinsky
The 2024 political field was intense. So don't get left behind in 2025. If you're running for office, the first thing on your to do list should be securing your name on the web with the your name.vote domain from GoDaddy.com you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait. Get yours today.
- [00:28]
Unknown Host
This is history as it happens and it is the spring of 1775. The American Revolution begins. In an essay for the Bulwark, historian Lindsay Chervinsky writes at 10pm On April 18, 1775, 700 soldiers gathered at the water's edge west of the Boston Common. They climbed into boats waiting at the dock, then pushed off into the harbor. They held torches to show the way as the oars dipped in and out of the water behind them, Boston was mostly dark. The torches and lamps in the windows of homes and shops had been extinguished for the night, except for two lanterns hanging in the steeple of the Old North Church. Around midnight, the soldiers disembarked in Cambridge. After resting and reorganizing their supplies, they began the 17 mile trek to Lexington. As they marched, their path dimly lit by torches, they heard the clanging of bells, the firing of alarm guns and drums, and through the trees the British soldiers spotted large bonfires in the distance. Their arrival was not quite the surprise they had hoped. On the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, we have an opportunity to revisit the lessons of the American Revolution and why it still matters today. Lindsey Chervinsky riding in the bulwark.com and Lindsay will be here in a moment to talk about why it still matters today. One can only imagine what was going through the minds of the Minutemen as they assembled on the Lexington Green that morning and heard the intimidating British columns advancing. Maybe it sounded something like this From a forgotten 1988 made for TV movie April Morning Lay down your arms.
- [02:28]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Disperse.
- [02:29]
Unknown Host
Get off the King's green.
- [02:30]
Lindsay Chervinsky
We are here to talk. Talk of what? This is our green.
- [02:33]
Unknown Host
Lay down your arms and there will be no trouble. Disperse at once in the King's name. We are gathered here peacefully and who fired the shot heard round the world? Well, in this movie it was a colonist hiding behind a stone wal so it's too bad there aren't as many good movies about the American Revolution as there are, say, about the Second World War. But anyway, did you notice the anniversary the opening battles of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord in 1775. I mean, everyone is looking forward to next year, right? The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the birth of our nation. And you can bet there'll be TV specials, maybe some movies, music. It'll be in our pop culture. But July 4, 1776, wasn't only a starting point. It was also the result of a radicalizing revolutionary process underway for at least a couple of years, if not longer. From rebellion to war to formal independence. Because well before Jefferson took his mighty pen to parchment in Philadelphia and before shots were fired in Massachusetts, royal authority had evaporated in the American colonies. It was a transformation that took place in the minds as well as the day to day lives of the American Revolutionaries in 1774 and 75. Powerful ideas about rights, natural law and the existing order, not only mere material interests motivated once loyal colonists to break from the mother country and to do so violently. Historian Lindsay Chervinsky is the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, and she is the author of Making the Presidency John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic, published in 2024. Our conversation next.
- [04:33]
Lindsay Chervinsky
History is defined by the names that stand the test of time. Names that inspire, unite and lead. Now it's your turn to create a lasting legacy with a dot vote domain. Whether you're running for office, driving change, or rallying support, a dot vote domain ensures your name is as memorable as those in the history books. Visit GoDaddy.com, type in your name, dot vote and secure a web address that stands out. Claim your place in history with Dot vote.
- [05:03]
Unknown Host
Hello and welcome. Welcome back, Lindsay Travinsky.
- [05:07]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Thank you for having me back.
- [05:08]
Unknown Host
How did your book tour go?
- [05:10]
Lindsay Chervinsky
It was good. It was a little bit chaotic in that I was very new to my job at the George Washington Presidential Library and so I was really doing two full time jobs at once as a general life planning mechanism. I don't recommend that, but it was so amazing to be able to actually meet with readers. My first book came out three weeks into the pandemic and so having the opportunity to actually do the things I wanted to do was just such a delight.
- [05:38]
Unknown Host
Well, congratulations. Your second book on the founding era, Right. First one was about the Cabinet, George Washington, this one about John Adams. When I was still with the Washington Times last year and I came out to Mount Vernon to see your beautiful workplace. We did a couple of podcasts, we did a video, and we, I'm going to say we because the credit is really all yours. We won an award A multimedia award from the Virginia Press Association. We came in third. We got the bronze medal in the multimedia category, so. So there you go.
- [06:09]
Lindsay Chervinsky
I know. It was such a surprise. I didn't. It wasn't even on my radar. And so I am delighted that our work was so well received.
- [06:17]
Unknown Host
Yeah, I didn't know about it either. I didn't know that my work, because I wasn't at the company anymore, had been entered into the contest. 1. Anyway, so I've been big into anniversaries lately. I just did a three part series on the fall of Saigon, one anniversary. Didn't get a lot of love. It came and went, which is a little surprising. Came and went without a lot of notice, considering what's going to happen next year and how much we value Revolutionary War, American independence, the Founding Fathers and our popular culture. And that is the start of the Revolutionary War. Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775. It was actually April, if I'm not mistaken. You live in this era, Lindsay. This is your area of expertise, early America. But whenever I go back to this period, and I probably should do more shows about early American history, I'm always surprised at a couple of things. How much I've forgotten, how much I haven't retained, and just how complex and fascinating and interesting the story is. So this is a very long opening question, but I want your general thoughts on this. I think a lot of people tend to see the formal Declaration of Independence, we'll celebrate that next year, as a starting point, because it was. But it was also the culmination of a series of events and a chronology, interrelated events where we had virtual independence before formal independence. And 1775 is a huge part of that.
- [07:42]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yeah, absolutely. You know, my radical hot take is that the Declaration of Independence is sort of overrated in a domestic context because, as you said, the war had been going on for 15 months at that point. And while the Declaration does assert sovereignty and asserts independence, Congress had already done something that in effect did that, which was to create the Continental army, which they did in the late spring of 1775 and appointed Washington as commander in chief of those forces. And so even if you don't have a nation yet, if you say you have a nation's forces, you're kind of putting the cart before the horse a little bit. And with that in mind, it's important. And I know you've discussed this on previous conversations, but the Declaration was really an international facing document. It was designed to convince other monarchies that the United States was Not trying to topple all monarchies, but rather just the one. And they had a very good reason to do so, and therefore would be a reliable ally. And so in particular, France trying to get France to recognize the United States and make an alliance with them against Great Britain. So, you know, while 1776, I think, in our American memory is really important, and surely we will celebrate that next year. And the words of the Declaration have had a very long impact on American history because it is the aspirational ideas for which each generation tries to get us a little bit closer to achieving in the actual practice of what it meant to try and win an independent Nation. I think 1775 is much more important.
- [09:14]
Unknown Host
The soaring, inspirational opening lines from Jefferson's pen. Fundamental human equality captured in those sentences. And it's just easier to be able to pinpoint a single day and say, there, that's what we should celebrate. It is difficult, is it not, as a historian, and this is debated among scholars, to find a single point, or even two or even three points, where crown authority broke down for good and an irrevocable break had taken place. I mean, some states were ahead of others, right, in this process.
- [09:46]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Trying to pinpoint a moment at which there is no going back is hard in any conflict, and historians generally resist to that notion because they don't want things to seem inevitable. Very few things in human history are inevitable, and it takes away a lot of the agency and the contingency of the moment. If you do that for me, I think that Lexington and Concord is the moment at which there is no turning back because violence had broken out and blood had been spilled. Now, that being said, if that were to have happened a century later, Great Britain did not yet have the mental infrastructure to think about different ways to govern colonies. And so I think if the American Revolutionand I'm happy to explain that more. But if the American Revolution had taken place in a different century, I don't know that that moment would be the one that you can't come back from. But given the political realities of the 18th century and the constitutional ideas at play, I do think that's the moment. There's just no way to really overcome the death and destruction we as people.
- [10:49]
Unknown Host
In our everyday lives. We're ambivalent about things. We change our mind, and we're in a situation, maybe a relationship with another person or another country. There are two agents here or multiple agents, right? So we have to remember there are actions and reactions here going both ways in this relationship between the colonists and Britain and We have to remember just how obstinate and stupid the British were, how heavy handed they were. That was a big part of this, that driving the colonists away from them. I mean, you alluded to that in your previous answer.
- [11:21]
Lindsay Chervinsky
There are two limitations for British forces at play. One is that British officials fundamentally saw the colonies and colonists as something different than the colonists saw themselves. So colonists saw themselves as equal citizens, but just in a different place. They were not second class citizens citizens, which is how the British officials saw them. And so when you are speaking about two fundamentally opposing views of citizenship and belonging, it's really hard to negotiate those things. So I think that's the first limitation that, you know, many of the British officials really did look down on Americans as, you know, less sophisticated and so therefore not as deserving of the same rights or not as capable of defending or winning those rights. The second piece, and I alluded to this earlier, was the structure of the British Empire at the time. So now the British Empire in much of the 20th century and then today is a much looser confederation where Canada and Australia and other aspects of the British system have a lot of their own independence. They kind of govern themselves and are loosely under an umbrella of a British family. You know, how much power they have to govern themselves has changed over time. But that idea that it would be possible to grant sovereignty and still retain a connection was not one that had developed yet. And so you were fundamentally at a place where colonists were demanding representation in Parliament. They couldn't do that functionally with the lack of technology and how slow it was to travel back and forth. And British officials didn't yet have the constitutional framework to envision how that might be possible.
- [12:59]
Unknown Host
The United States might have received its independence, as you say, at some point down the road without a war. Canada, Australia, other parts of the former British Empire have as well. But in those days, parliamentary sovereignty that was non negotiable. There were big constitutional ideas at play here, not just more materialist or day to day pragmatic concerns about not wanting to pay high taxes that were imposed on us from afar. So I don't want to overdo the vagueness here. When did the rebellion begin? When did the revolution begin? It did begin when the battle started. And as you say, George Washington was appointed the General of the Continental army or the Commander in chief of the Continental army, but trying to figure out when crown authority breaks down in different places and to what extent, you know, how many people in say Virginia versus New York are ready to say, okay, that's it. We're going our own way here. Maybe the end of 1773, early 1774, is a good place to start. Boston Tea Party, December 1773. And then it's the British response to that which arrives in the May. May of 1774. Right. The coercive Acts. Do you think that's a good place to begin?
- [14:14]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yeah, I do. You know, when I'm providing context to this story, I always start with the Seven Years War, because that's what really laid the groundwork for the expanded British territories, the increased debt, the need to raise money, which provoked these fiscal measures and the establishment of regular forces, British regulars on American soil. So if we're talking about the tensions, that's really. I see as the starting point for them. But if we're looking at the moment when royal authority breaks down, it does depend on the place and the time. Certainly, I think Virginia and Massachusetts were leading the way in their own various spheres. And I think sometimes the Virginia part of that story gets a little bit overshadowed by Massachusetts because Massachusetts rebels were particularly good at colorful demonstrations, including the Boston Tea Party. Although there were tea Parties up and down the North American coast that emulated the same actions. You know, in terms of Boston, by the time you have the Boston Tea Party, royal authority has basically crumbled. You could actually even put it earlier because the Stamp act and the resistance to the Stamp act in Massachusetts led to the destruction of the tax collectors homes, the destruction of the royal governor's home, and very little repercussion of that. And so if you have that type of destruction and you have no legal way to redress that violence, one could argue that royal authority had broken down. But I do think the Boston Tea Party and the coercive acts that closed the Boston port were basically an acknowledgment that regular authority no longer existed. And for the south, in Virginia in particular, Patrick Henry, during the Stamp act, portion of the resistance, and this is much earlier, was already sort of talking about some of the ideas that we would see in 1775 and 1776. But they weren't as widespread. I think most historians put the tipping point of collective enthusiasm for the independence around the coercive Acts, which were passed in response to the Boston Tea Party and basically punished all of Massachusetts for the actions of a handful. And this is particularly important because under the British constitutional system, Britons were very proud of their judicial rights. They were very proud of what they saw as the right to due process. And so the coercive Acts basically destroyed that, destroyed what they thought of as their constitutional liberties in the colonies.
- [16:41]
Unknown Host
This was a unifying moment where the people in Virginia didn't just see themselves as Virginians separate from these other provincials up north. Because if the British could close a city in Massachusetts, it could close an entire city, port city in Virginia. That was an act of collective punishment, as we would put it today, which is a war crime. Why was the British. You alluded to this a little bit already, but the British response was so severe after the Boston Tea Party. Was it? Because that was like the final straw. Okay, enough is enough. We're gonna really come down hard and put them back in their place. Cause this is also when the British start sending troops to Massachusetts. Right? Thomas Gage, he's a military man. Without British troops, we would never have a battle at Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775.
- [17:28]
Lindsay Chervinsky
I think there are two reasons for the harsh response. One, there had been a series of protests that were less violent against the stamp tax and the sugar tax and some of the other financial measures. And while Parliament had made concessions, they had also asserted that Parliament did have the right to pass taxes. And so the ongoing presence of resistance convinced many in Parliament that the effort to negotiate, the effort to moderate, had failed and that no amount that they gave was going to be sufficient. And so they had to assert their authority. They had to assert Parliament's right to pass taxes to enforce them and to enforce what they saw as the rule of law. The second piece was a British strategy. They really thought that Massachusetts was the cause of most of the discontent and that most of the rabble rousers were based in Boston. If they could separate Massachusetts or New England, but mostly Massachusetts, from the rest of the colonies, then any resistance elsewhere would die off. That backfired spectacular, spectacularly. You know, in some ways, I don't blame them for this strategy because the colonies didn't have much relationship with one another. And one of my favorite statistics is when the delegates to the Continental Congress arrived in Philadelphia, more of them had been to London than had been to Philadelphia. So they saw themselves in relationship with London. They did not see themselves in relationship with each other. I think the British were not totally wrong to think that there wouldn't be this mass, unified action. But the purpose of due process is if one person doesn't have due process, no one has due process.
- [19:07]
Unknown Host
That's interesting, because it seems the British always overestimated the degree of loyalists or loyalty to the crown in the colonies. Of course, their actions alienated people who otherwise might not want to go to war with the mother country. But they were so heavy handed about things and King George never visited the colonies. And of course we all know that. But looking back on it doesn't make any sense. Andrew Roberts, who wrote a favorable biography of King George iii, a very long book, very good book. I'm sure some historians have bones to pick with some of what he posits in there, but he does make one point that is convincing that King George should have permanently moved to the colonies. He was German anyway, so you have to stay.
- [19:47]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yeah, you know, you get at two interesting points that I think are worth exploring. The first is that in any sort of war, especially if the war is over territory where people are living, you have to also fight for the hearts and minds. And this was something that Washington was actually quite attuned to. He was very strict with his soldiers about what they could do with local populations, imperfectly, of course, because any army is going to misbehave. But he imposed very violent punishments for those who were caught looting or destroying property. And he, he went to extreme efforts to try not to seize food and supplies from local communities if he could help it. And that was largely because you had to try and win over the undecideds the independence, if you will. The second piece is we now know this because we've seen many centuries worth of independence movements and rebellions. But if you're going to have a local population that is declaring independence, the force, the size of the force that you need from the external military to come in and impose order. We saw this in India and Vietnam and any other nation that's tried to declare independence is so overwhelming. And this was a new type of war. So the British hadn't yet learned that lesson and were also quite distracted with the French.
- [21:07]
Unknown Host
The number of troops they had to patrol, if you will, just the Eastern seaboard was inadequate to the task. They needed loyalists to help and there weren't enough of them. So how important was Thomas Jefferson's Summary View of the Rights of British America, which is published in Virginia, 1774, well before formal independence and before Lexington and Concord.
- [21:33]
Lindsay Chervinsky
I think it was important in two ways. One, it built off of George Mason's publication Virginia Declaration of Rights, if I'm remembering the title correctly, which was, I think, published the year before, before. So it starts to build this dialogue of what colonial rights or American rights should be. And the more that that dialogue is in, the political discourse is sort of in the water, the more likely you're going to have people who are supporting independence because with this concept, you had to give people time to wrap their minds around what they were contemplating doing. This was an enormous step, and people could not do it gradually. So any publication, any measure that starts to move things along, that gets people comfortable with these ideas is going to move the project forward. I should say it was largely focused on trying to convince Virginia to pursue independence and Virginia delegates who are going to be representing the state in the Continental Congress. The second piece is that it serves as a draft for the eventual Declaration of Independence. There's a lot of similarity in both content and style, and is one of the reasons he was able to produce the eventual declaration as quickly as he was.
- [22:42]
Unknown Host
It's one thing to gripe about taxes. It's another thing to actively protest and resist taxation. Another thing to get into a skirmish with your musket, with British redcoats who've invaded your town, and then another thing to say, okay, no more reconciliation at all. We're going full for a break and create our own country. So on that note, I just want to share something that T.H. breen wrote in a review of Mary Beth Norton's book on 1774. The interpretive challenge turns on how we define the moment of transition. Scattered protests, even if they involve violence, do not generally signal the start of a revolution. Unhappy people usually find ways to back down. And impassioned rhetoric about alleged political wrongs usually yields little more than a return to the status quo. Genuine revolutionary change requires widespread recognition that the regime in power is vulnerable. In this situation, emboldened and discontented people forge new solidarities. They find ways to communicate their grievances to strangers who live in distant places. So would you say that 1774, 1775 were getting the inklings of American nationalism, of an American nation, of people deserving of the same rights of other nations in the world?
- [24:03]
Lindsay Chervinsky
They're certainly starting to get there. One of the key differences between 1774, 1775 and the years prior is that there had been what we'd think of as sort of coastal or continental or we would eventually call national action. So some of the efforts to resist the Stamp act, and then none, importation agreements and things like that, were efforts across the country. And there was a Stamp Act Congress in which the states did send, or the colonies at the time did send representatives to coordinate their action. But that was very focused on responding to one thing and to requesting rights in regards to one thing. It wasn't yet designed to contemplate a new nation. And the difference with 1774 and 1770, 1775, is. They're not calling it the Resistance Congress. They're not calling it the Resistance to the TEA Act Congress. They're calling it the Continental Congress. And they are starting to think about the responsibilities of a sovereign nation. You know, military force is one of the few rights of a sovereign nation that you cannot have for states. And so the concept of what is it that a sovereign nation does? It sends representatives abroad. It is in charge of military force. It manages economic relationships. They're starting to think about those things in a way that is essential if they're actually going to form a new country.
- [25:26]
Unknown Host
The First Continental Congress meets September 5 to October 26, 1774. And then the Second Continental Congress convenes on May 10, 1775, after Lexington in Concord. And it stays in session, if you will, because it's got to manage the war from here on out. So you wrote this short essay for the Bulwark, and I will make sure to share a link to it in my weekly newsletter. People can also find it at your substack. I believe your substack is imperfect union, right?
- [25:55]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yes.
- [25:56]
Unknown Host
So take us through the first one here, and then we'll get to Concord afterward. Lexington, the British leave. The British troops, they leave Boston. Why are they going to Lexington? And how do they wind up getting into a battle that is the beginning of the end of the British in North America?
- [26:13]
Lindsay Chervinsky
British forces in Boston are starting to get word and inkling that the resistance measures are growing, especially in the Massachusetts countryside. And so their march out to Lexington and Concord is a preventative measure. They're trying to seize. They're not trying to engage in battle. They're not trying to engage in war. They're trying to seize military stores that they believed were in Concord and prevent them from being used by rebels, should a war actually emerge. When word of this action got out, and it primarily got out through the coordination of the Sons of Liberty, led by. At least this portion of it was led by Joseph Warren, who sent out a number of messengers, of course, most famously being Paul Revere. And they had a series of warning systems that had actually been developed during wars with Native American nations, where you would have a series of bonfires, bells, trumpets, and then riders going from home to home and town to town to get the militia ready to defend the home and the village. And these militia were called minutemen because the idea was you could be ready to go in a minute. And so the minutemen, as they were receiving these warnings, a number of them gathered in Lexington in a tavern and they spent the night in the tavern waiting to see what might happen. So the Boston regulars, they actually rode across Boston Harbor. They then marched to Lexington and arrived as the sun was rising that morning. They were not trying to get into battle. They were not trying to, you know, engage in warfare. And so that initial gunfire was very much by accident because they had instructed the militia to disperse and orders had been given, given to disperse. And yet that is not what happened.
- [28:00]
Unknown Host
So given what we've been discussing, this means that by this point, the colonists, or at least some of them in this area, this was an accidental battle that wasn't supposed to be a big battle or even a small battle that day. But they're still ready to confront the British military, the most powerful military in the world. So this tells you that people are rebelling.
- [28:20]
Lindsay Chervinsky
This is where in Massachusetts, I think, did lead the way in some fashion, because a lot of these militiamen, a lot of the minutemen, they had been in the mindset of resistance and revolution for, at this point, a decade at least, because they had been resisting sugar tax and the stamp tax and the tea tax, and had developed networks of communication, had developed cooperation efforts to create their own supplies to, you know, what we would consider to be buy American. The willingness to resist with arms doesn't happen on day one. It happens after a decade's worth of effort to build up that sentiment.
- [28:59]
Unknown Host
So no one knows who fired the first shot?
- [29:01]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Correct. There are a couple of different theories. One was that someone on either the British side or the American side was nervous and recognized the import of this moment and their finger slipped and pulled the trigger by accident. The other was that one of the militia commanders did order fire, but it kind of got lost in the jumble and fire started. And the third is that it was actually an onlooker who was kind of tucked behind a stone wall in the trees, who was eager for the war to start and thought they would take things into their own hands.
- [29:33]
Unknown Host
The shot heard round the world, as we all learn in our first grade history classes or whenever we're taught that as children. So how does the Battle of Lexington end? It probably just lasted a few minutes, I'm assuming. And then what happens after that? We get the Battle of Concord, or it's the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The British are retreating, trying to get back to Boston, and they're attacked along a road.
- [29:56]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Yes. So after the initial round of volleys in Lexington, the militia retreat, they take care of their wounded and their dead, and the British regroup and march on to Concord, where they do dump a number of cannons and other materials into a local pond. Interestingly, most of them were actually recovered and were totally fine and were used in the war. So it wasn't a particularly effective preventative measure. But as they were getting ready to return to Boston, hundreds of militia had gathered up on a hill outside of Concord and marched on the British troops. And British opened fire against these troops. And while the militia initially scattered, they then lined up in the trees along the walls on the road back to Boston. And so as the British were marching, they had a 12 mile march. And this was after marching from Boston out to Concord. So 24 miles in 12 hours. They hadn't really slept, they hadn't really had much to eat or drink. And all of this gunfire was coming from people that they could not see. I highly encourage listeners to actually go to Lexington and Concord and walk the road because it gives you such a vivid depiction of what that experience. Experience must have felt like, and it must have been terrifying. And so the British fled and were basically picked off as they made their way back to Boston.
- [31:17]
Unknown Host
This is like 18th century guerrilla warfare.
- [31:19]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Very much so.
- [31:21]
Unknown Host
So also around this time, maybe even more important than these two battles, in a certain sense, the Continental Congress creates the Continental Association. And the 11th article of the Continental association, according to T.H. breen, transforms the entire character of this burgeoning resistance movement. This was a way for colonists to police each other and to compel their fellow Americans not to buy British imports. Right. How important is all of this on this road to outright rebellion?
- [31:56]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Well, it is certainly important because the Continental Congress is thinking about who has the right to use force. And that had previously been the jurisdiction of the monarchy and the royal governors, and now they were claiming it for themselves. It is also essential for the character of the Revolution. You know, there is a misattributed quote to John Adams. He did say this, but he actually said this about the American response to the French Revolution. He said that one third Americans supported the French Revolution, one third were opposed. Opposed, and one third were indifferent. It's often attributed to him talking about the American Revolution. And while that's not what he meant, I do think it's actually roughly a good ballpark, because there were some Americans who were very ardent patriots, there were some who were very ardent loyalists, but there were a huge chunk that were just trying to survive and keep their head down and take care of their families, stay out of the crosshairs of whatever military force was closest to them. And so that compulsion by Congress to be able to actually enforce participation was essential for that one third who were independent or even for the loyalist population.
- [33:06]
Unknown Host
Yeah. It showed that there needed to be some central authority. Right. To get people to fall in line. The people who were going around making sure that, I don't know, merchants weren't buying British imports. This could get rough sometimes, right?
- [33:19]
Lindsay Chervinsky
It could. You know, the John Adams miniseries on HBO does a lot of things right. And one of the things it does right is the c seen on tarring and feathering. It is a very violent, very painful, quite awful practice. And it was one that was used regularly. People were intimidated with, you know, words and violence. Houses were destroyed, businesses were destroyed. And that intimidation would often start off in much more subtle ways and then escalate. But the revolution was very much a civil war and often manifested in that way.
- [33:50]
Unknown Host
You might say the colonial or continental association legitimized this type of behavior. So it wasn't seen as lawless like the Tea Party was lawless. This other stuff was done. Well, I don't know if the Continental Congress would have approved of tarring and feathering, but you get my point. Yet despite all this internecine violence, the American Revolution never devolved or deteriorated into something like the French Revolution. We weren't another Cambodia either, of the 20th century. Why do you think that is?
- [34:19]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Well, I think there are two factors. One, the political culture of the United States before and after the revolution was relatively similar. So we borrowed much of common law from England. We continued to use common law until we had passed our own laws superseding them. We retained sort of the same voting practices. And in a lot of ways, our political parties reflected the tradition from which we. We had come. And while we wouldn't necessarily recognize 18th century America as democratic, it was far more democratic and participatory than most other regimes at the time. And that expectation of participation without resorting to violence was essential in continuing and creating a new nation that could sustain itself. The second piece is that the revolution itself, not necessarily what it produced for the world, but the revolution itself was quite conservative for the most part. The people who were in charge were the same people in charge afterwards. You know, George Washington was in the House of Burgesses before the revolution. He was the president afterwards. And a lot of the people who were in positions of authority retained that authority. We didn't have the wholesale destruction of an entire class of people by taking baby steps. By moving our republic alongside slowly, it's less likely to devolve into excess, which is what happened with the French Revolution.
- [35:41]
Unknown Host
TH Breen, who I mentioned before, actually wrote a book about this. It's really fascinating subject as to why the American Revolution didn't go the way of some of these other horrible revolutions, as violent as it was. Last question.
- [35:53]
Lindsay Chervinsky
You know, it's funny, I listened to your episode that you did in 2023 with Jack Rao, and it was amusing to me because it felt a little bit like being back in grouchy graduate school because there was a major historiographical debate in the, I would say, starting in kind of the 90s into the early aughts. And you had one group of historians, Gordon Wood, saying that it was a radical revolution and another saying what was radical about it. You know, there was much that stayed the same. And so it was delightful to be back in that world again.
- [36:21]
Unknown Host
Yeah, the way the scholarship changes about this is fascinating to me. I tend to still be in the Gordon Wood corner as far as at the time, a society founded on the principle of fundamental human equality. That is a radical idea. So, last question here, Lindsey Chervinsky. Even after the battles of Lexington and Concord, even after Bunker Hill, if I'm getting my timeline right, the Continental Congress, which does have moderates or reconcilers, there are still plenty of people at this time who want to try to avoid all out war and to break with the mother country. The Continental Congress sends an olive branch petition to London, to the King, to Parliament. This is around the time the King says, to hell with you all, you're all in open rebellion and we're going to crush you. I think that's actually a response to the olive branch petition. Yeah. What is in the olive branch petition were the American terms something the British would ever have conceded to?
- [37:20]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Probably not in the 18th century. So the olive branch petition, I think is doing two things. One, it is very much a internal focused document of trying to convince people in the Continental Congress that there is nothing they could do to stop this rebellion. And this is a very common negotiating tactic where you'll do things that you don't think are going to succeed just to try and get people on your side. And so there was very much a political element of that. The second piece was there was still an element of the American population that believed that Parliament was corrupt and the British Cabinet was the source of all cronyism and lack of transparency. But the King, the King was the person that represented all colonists and all Britons and he could come to their aid. And so there it was, one last ditch attempt, which is actually a very sort of, in some Ways. It was a very antiquated way of looking at the British constitution because it was recognizing the king that had a lot more political power than I think he did. But it was one last ditch attempt to say, can we make this work? We would like to keep the king. We would just like our own legislature. Obviously, the answer to that was no, you're in open rebellion. And the king's response, I believe, did push over a significant portion of those holding out on independence.
- [38:38]
Unknown Host
Yeah, because the reconcilers are offering or thinking about terms that are not the status quo ante. They don't want to go back to the old way of doing it. So in a way, they're not really reconciling insofar as they're. They're trying to form some kind of new order. They became radical, I guess, too.
- [38:54]
Lindsay Chervinsky
What's interesting is even those who had been reconcilers, they weren't necessarily always the most radical voices. But John Dickinson is a really good example where he was really holding out hope as long as possible. But then once the Declaration of Independence was declared, he got on board and he was a very active participant in Congress and in the new nation going forward.
- [39:14]
Unknown Host
Some kind of autonomy short of independence. Is guessing what I was trying to say. The British were in no mood for that. Well, Lindsay, I have to thank you for your generosity and your insights here. And I'm sure Mount Vernon's gonna have a lot of great stuff next year for the 250th. You guys doing anything special for the start of the Revolutionary War this year?
- [39:33]
Lindsay Chervinsky
This episode is coming out on Friday.
- [39:35]
Unknown Host
Yes.
- [39:36]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Okay. And so starting tomorrow, we have Revolutionary War weekend. So we have really amazing tent encampment. And that will show you what it's like to actually have been in the army, what the lodgings would have been like, what the clothing would have been like, what the beds and the food and the materials would have been like. And we will be offering a series of events and programs coming up over the next year to commemorate the anniversaries and Washington's participation, culminating in the grand opening of a brand new exhibit on Washington on July 2nd. 2nd. July 3rd. July. We'll say July 2026.
- [40:13]
Unknown Host
And then go to the Mount Vernon website, check out these dates. Okay, so that's Saturday, May 3rd is the encampment. So anyone listening to this on Friday, May 2nd, get to Mount Vernon tomorrow. You know, the last time you did one of those tent encampments, I wanted to go and it rained, so I stayed home.
- [40:28]
Lindsay Chervinsky
Oh, no. Well, ours is now up every weekend, starting now, all the way through, I believe, through the summer. So please feel free. I mean, Revolutionary War weekend is an extra fun time to go, but it will be there even if you are unavailable this weekend.
- [40:42]
Unknown Host
All right. I want to watch you fire a musket.
- [40:45]
Lindsay Chervinsky
I would like to fire a musket, too. I'll have to put in that request.
- [41:04]
Unknown Host
On the next episode of History As It Happens, we'll return to the 20th century and we'll speak with the acclaimed filmmaker and historian Lawrence Reese about his new book, the Nazi Mind. That is next on History As It Happens. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter every Friday. Sign up free at history as it happens.com SA.