Dr. Gayle Olson-Raymer
History 420

Reviewing the event that led to the Constitution - the American Revolution

Introduction: Today, we begin our next unit of study in this class - Teaching the Constitution - a unit that is focused on understanding our Constitution and how to teach our founding document. The purpose of this unit is to discuss how to have a dynamic, exciting discussion about the dialog and debate among the Founding Fathers as they struggled to create a new nation between 1776 when they declared North America’s independence from Britain and 1787 when they signed the Constitution.

We have already discussed our first founding document - the Declaration of Independence. Today we are going to review the event that followed the release of the Declaration - the Revolutionary War.

Goal #1: To finish our discussion of Between the World and Me

Discussion topics:

1. Do you think that poor kids of all races have similar experiences at school?  If so, what do we do in our own classrooms to change this?
2. To respond to Coates' criticism about how the Civil Rights era is taught, what can we do to change this?
3. Were all white people complicit in slavery during its over 250 years of existence in the U.S.?  If so, does that make all of us complicit in racism?  If not, who was exempt?
4. Which parts of this book did you dislike or hate?  How and why?
5. Why were many of you so upset with Coates' response to 9/11?
6. Do you think there is any historical evidence for the harsh treatment of children by African American parents who are trying to protect them from the ugly realities of racism?  Examples?
7. Do you agree with Coates that all whites are privileged?  Why or why not? Is this the same idea as social currency - that the white elite provide poor whites a certain type of legitimacy in exchange for their poverty and powerlessness?
8. How can we give all our students passports to the world - a world that most will never visit but should, nonetheless, have some cultural understanding?
   
    

Two last things:

1. Could you look at the revised assignment at http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist420/Coates2017.html.  Please let me know what can be improved.
2. Would any of you consider reading - or if you have already read - Sherman Alexie's great book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?  It is available for free online and I can direct you to the PDF document.  It is quite short - maybe 100 pages.  I am considering assigning it to read next year with Coates' book and the documentary and would love some of your input.

Goal #2: To understand the assignment on teaching the Constitution

• You will each pick a partner as you will be working in pairs. Be sure each pair signs up on the sheet that will be passed around.
• Each of ten pairs will be assigned a certain Article(s) of the Constitution to read, discuss, ask and answer questions, and then, to create a one-day lesson plan that you will teach in a small group of five students.
  • Pair #1 and 6: Article 1, Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 - The Legislative Branch
    • Pair #1 - Elyse and Paige
    • Pair #6 - Patrick and Rodney
  • Pair #2 and 7: Article 1, Sections 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 - The Legislative Branch
    • Pair #2 - Mackenzie and Adam
    • Pair #7 - Darby and Kat
  • Pair #3 and 8: Article II, Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 - The Executive Branch
    • Pair #3 - Aaron and Ryan
    • Pair #8 - Christina and Matt
  • Pair #4 and 9: Article III - The Judicial Branch
    • Pair #4 - Evan and Julian
    • Pair #9 - Joey and Alejandra
  • Pair #5 and 10: Articles IV (States rights and responsibilities), Article V (Amendments), and Article VI ( Roles and Responsibilities of the U.S.)
    • Pair #5 - Michael and Taylor
    • Pair #10 - Amanda and Brandon
• On the day that the assignment is due, October 13, you will do the following:
  • The two pairs who worked on the same section of the Constitution will meet for 15 minutes to discuss their answers
  • Then you will work in four different groups - one person from each pair will work in a group of five while the other person from each pair will work with the second group of five. This way, every person in the group will learn about each Article of the Constitution.
• You will have one day during class time to either work together in the classroom, go to the library, or go to a computer lab. You must check in with your professor before going elsewhere to work. I will be available in the classroom for any assistance.

Goal #3: To review the major events leading to the American Revolution

Cold Call: 7th cold call on required reading - Discussion Goal #2 AND the Moyers and Weisberger article

• April - Congress opened American trade to all nations, except Britain, and instructed colonies to create official state governments.
• June - the staunch Loyalists and anti-independence moderates withdrew from the Continental Congress, leaving the Patriots completely in charge and unchallenged.  Congress then appointed a committee, led by Jefferson, which drafted the Declaration of Independence, stating that the King had "a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having a direct object of the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states."  "Injuries" included dissolving colonial government, con-trolling judges by limiting trial by jury, sending armies of occupation, cutting off colonial trade with other parts of the world, and taxing without colonial consent. Declaration adopted July 4th.  War begins!   During the first two years of the war, Britain mounted large-scale offensives against the Continental army commanded by George Washington and defeated the rebel forces in nearly every battle.

So we have learned many of the facts of the Revolution and the Revolutionary War. But over the years, these facts have been confused with a mythological story of the war. The story goes something like this:

In 1776, all the colonists rose up to rebel against the horrible burden of unfair taxes the British had imposed upon them for over a hundred years and against the rule of a tyrannical king. During the long war that followed, American patriots united to fight the British, citizen soldiers shivered in the cold, and won the war single handedly against the most powerful army in the world. The victorious Americans immediately created a democracy and everyone lived happily ever after.

Except for the part about shivering in the cold, this story is largely mythological. But before we get into the actual myths, there are several important things to discuss about the American colonists and their relationship with the Mother Country prior to the War:

Now, to the myths:

• Myth #1: The Boston Tea Party was a colonial revolt against taxation. We all know that on December 16, 1773, several dozen men dressed up as Mohawk Indians and cut open 340 chests of tea belonging to the East India Company and dumped the contents in Boston’s harbor.
  • Revolutionary Era Americans, though, didn’t celebrate the event. This might seem strange, since they were certainly the celebrating sort. They staged festive ceremonies to commemorate anniversaries - the first Stamp Act protest, the Act’s repeal, the Boston Massacre, the Declaration of Independence - but the "action against tea" or the "destruction of the tea" (as they variously called it) went unheralded in public ritual.
  • For a half century, Americans shunned the tale, and certainly did not call it a Tea Party. At first, they didn’t dare. Anyone who had anything to do with the event could face prosecution, or at least a lawsuit. Privately, some people knew who was behind those Indian disguises, but publicly, nobody spoke a word.
  • Moreover, many of those who had opposed imperial policies viewed the destruction of tea as an act of vandalism that put the Revolution in a bad light.
  • Americans also downplayed the tea action because of its devastating impact. That single act precipitated a harsh retaliation from the British, which in turn led to a long and ugly war.

  So what was the Boston Tea Party and does it have any relationship to the current Tea Party Movement? To answer the question, we are going to examine realities:

  Reality: The dispute was a protest against huge corporate tax cuts for the British East India Company; it was not about a tax decrease for the colonists.

  • In 1772, the East India Company was hard hit by the collapse of speculative banking schemes throughout Europe, and its stock tumbled. Goods accumulated in warehouses, unsold, and Company directors lobbied the British government for laws that would make it easy for them to put their small business competitors out of business.
  • Most of the members of the British government and royalty (including the king) were stockholders in the East India Company, so it was easy to get laws passed in its interests. Among the Company's biggest problems were colonial entrepreneurs, who ran their own small ships to bring tea and other goods directly into America without routing them through Britain or through the Company.
  • Members of Parliament — like American congressmen today — staged committee hearings in which they grandstanded against greedy company officials, who had returned from India with huge fortunes and declared large dividends despite the company’s overwhelming debts. Meanwhile, they tried to figure out how to get the company, and the empire, out of the mess.
  • As MPs debated the advisability of a government takeover, they also discussed schemes for unloading the company’s 18 million pounds of surplus of tea. The European market was already saturated, but the American market was not. In theory, the East India Company could sell many tons of tea there if taxes on the shipments were lowered.
  • Under the 1773 Tea Act, the East India Company could deliver its product straight to American consumers, untouched by middlemen and almost untaxed, save for a modest American import duty. This corporate tax cut threatened to decimate small colonial tea shops by helping the East India Company.

    The bottom line: For Americans, the fundamental issue was self-governance - whoever levied taxes got to call the shots, including how to spend the money. Parliament insisted on taxing colonists to support and control the colonial administration. Colonists countered that they were more than willing to tax - and rule - themselves. No more "taxation without representation" was their rallying cry, not "down with high taxes."

Reality: Most of the colonial tax burden came not from Parliament, but from taxes and poll taxes assessed by their own colonial assemblies, as well as long-standing import duties on sugar, molasses and wine. The tea tax was a relic of the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767, which also placed import duties on paint, paper, lead, and glass.

• At three pence per pound, the tax on tea was barely felt by American consumers, who also had access to the smuggled competition.
• Still, the tea tax had symbolic importance of the growing rift in colonial society. Common folk might enjoy a sip or two of tea, but participating in the ritual of teatime—with an elaborate array of fancy crockery and silver utensils—was prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of Americans. So calls for a continued boycott of tea dovetailed nicely with lower-class resentments.
• Moreover, the consumption of tea was deemed suspect, even sinful, to a large segment on the American public. “That bainfull weed,” as Abigail Adams called it, was an artificial stimulant, what we would call today a recreational drug. One concerned partriot writer, in a Virginia newspaper, claimed that ever since tea had been introduced into western society, “our race is dwindled and become puny, weak, and disordered to such a degree, that were it to prevail a century more we should be reduced to mere pigmies.”
• Pointing to his medical expertise, Boston’s Dr. Thomas Young declared authoritatively that tea was not just a “pernicious drug,” as some assumed, but a “slow poison, and has the corrosive effect upon those who handle it. I have left it off since it became political poison, and have since gained in firmness of constitution. My substitute is camomile flowers.”

The bottom line: Tea drinking was something the colonists enjoyed, but not equally. Common folk enjoyed tea, but were not involved in the upper class ritual of tea drinking with elaborate tea trays and utensils.

Reality: Dumping the tea in the harbor was not the common rallying cry for independence; rather, the slogan “liberty and property” was the most common rallying cry, shouted at least as often as “taxation without representation.” George Washington, among many others, chided Bostonians for “their conduct in destroying tea.” Benjamin Franklin was hardly alone when he argued the East India Company should be compensated for the ruined tea.

• It was not the destruction of tea that united Americans, but the punishments administered several months later through a series of laws called the Coercive Acts by Parliament and the Intolerable Acts by the colonists.
• Parliament closed the port of Boston and revoked the Massachusetts Charter, denying citizens the rights they had enjoyed for a century-and-one-half.
• The goal of the Coercive Acts was to isolate radicals in Massachusetts, but instead the 13 colonies formed the Continental Congress and agreed to mount a general boycott of British goods.
• In the 1820s, Americans a new generation of chroniclers toned down the truly revolutionary aspects of the action against tea and played up the carnival atmosphere. More than 50 years after the event was over, the event was informally christened the Boston Tea Party.

The bottom line: It was not the destruction of tea that united Americans, but the punishments administered several months later through a series of laws called the Coercive Acts by Parliament and the Intolerable Acts by the colonists.

In short ...

• The Boston Tea Party occurred in response to a corporate tax break that lowered the price of tea in America.
• It was not a “party” conducted in a carnival atmosphere – it was an illegal act of vandalism committed against property owners.
• It did not unite all Americans – many of whom were repulsed by the property crime; it was the Coercive/Intolerable Acts that finally united enough Americans to support the war effort.

• Myth #2: The rule of King George III was tyrannical. It is important to deconstruct the word "tyranny" for students so they can understand both the Declaration of Independence and early colonial thought. But this myth can easily be debunked by using several pieces of evidence.

  • In the years before the Revolutionary War, we have learned that the colonists rebelled against the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Townsend Acts. But ...
    • Did the British government retaliate? Only mildly. When Americans protested, the British responded by either revising or repealing the hated acts.
    • Did they arrest the ringleaders of resistance? No.
    • Did they close down the newspapers that carried diatribes and learned discourses against British policies? No.
    • Did they restructure the colonial governments? No.
    • Did they arrest the men who met in illegal political bodies such as the Stamp Act Congress and the Continental Congress, or declare them ineligible to serve in local offices? No.
    • Instead, their response was to ignore petitions, refuse to engage in negotiations or discussions - and to generally display a bewilderment at the colonists' failure to understand how an empire worked. Not until thousands of dollars worth of property was destroyed in Boston harbor did the government retaliate.
  • With our 21st Century minds, it is amazing to reflect upon how patient and tolerant British officials remained over the turbulent 1760s and 70s.
    • It was not until 1775, when British troops marched toward Lexington and Concord, that orders were given to arrest the two men considered to be prime ringleaders of rebellion, Samuel Adams and John Hancock.
    • Patrick Henry was not arrested for declaring "give me liberty or give me death."
    • Common Sense was not confiscated nor was the press that printed it shut down.

  Understanding the reality - King George acted not as a tyrant, but rather as an imperial ruler who was struggling to hold his empire together. This more factual rendition does not detract from the story, but rather can enrich it by emphasizing that the colonists, despite having strong social, economic, and political ties with the Mother Country, fervently desired independence and did not need the excuse of combating tyranny to do so.

• Myth #3: All Americans united in a patriotic defense of independence. Did all Americans - north and south, white, Indian, slave, female and male, rich and poor - greet the Declaration of Independence with uniform enthusiasm?

  • As John Adams famously said "one third supported the war, one third opposed it, and one third had no opinion."
  • But it is far more likely - according to Revolutionary War historian Carol Berkin - that at the beginning of the struggle, more than one third of the colonists hoped desperately to remain neutral in a battle between England and rebellious Americans. Their assumption was that, no matter who was in power, they would have to pay taxes - so why risk their lives over who that would be?
  • In fact, in 1779, there were more Americans fighting with the British than with Washington: 21 regiments of Loyalists consisting of between 6500-8000 men, compared with Washington's field army of 3488.
  • About 100,000 Loyalists fled America when the war broke out. The vast majority lost all their property and were not able to return after the war.
  • Many a farmer equipped his home with two flags, the British and the American, and prepared to raise the appropriate one as an army marched by. As the war progressed many of these neutral colonists did join the American cause, but this, several historians have shown (John Shy and Charles Royster), was not an ideological or political choice: the British army behaved so badly everywhere it went, looting, raping, destroying, that it literally drove many colonists into the revolutionary camp.

  Understanding the reality - Not all British colonists embraced Independence and the Revolution. This more factual rendition does not detract from the story, but rather tells us that Americans have always chosen their own course as individuals. In so doing, some chose to support the British and some chose to support the American revolutionaries - and those choices and the privilege to make them are what continues to make America a unique nation.

• Myth #4: Americans won the war single handedly. Did we really win the war without any help? In reality, Americans armed themselves and outfitted their troops with money borrowed from France, Holland and Spain. In particular, the entrance of France into the war dramatically influenced the war and its outcome:

  • The recognition of the United States by France transformed a rebellion into a war of national liberation.
  • The entrance of France into the war forced the English to fight on two fronts rather than one.
  • The French navy provided the vital strategic and tactical support for the American effort. The 37 French ships-of-the-line played a crucial role in trapping the 8700-strong British army and winning the fight.
  • At Yorktown, Frenchmen outnumbered Americans almost three to one. Washington had 11,000 men engaged in the battle, while the French had at least 29,000 soldiers and sailors.
  Understanding the reality - While the French, Dutch, and Spanish contributed arms and money to the American cause, the French intervention helped us win the war. This more factual rendition does not detract from the story, but rather adds a global dimension to the struggle and it requires us to remember that winning wars usually requires the help of allies.

• Myth #5: The victorious Americans immediately created a democracy. So did the Founders support and/or create a democracy upon winning the war? No, because a democracy would have appalled all but the most radical of the revolutionary leadership. To men like John Adams, Ben Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, democracy equated to "mob rule." Indeed, Jefferson wrote "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Instead, the Founders created a republic.

  • A democracy is governed by the majority; if a majority wants to vote in a dictator, it may. A republic is governed by elected representatives who are bound by charters which define and limit governmental responsibilities and powers; the charter itself, as well as the willingness of the people to abide by it is what keeps people free.

  

  • Remember, these were men of the 18th century not the 21st. They believed that an active political voice was a privilege not a right; it belonged only to adult white males who had "a stake in society" and that stake was property.
  • Their logic was simple: only a citizen who had something to lose could be counted on to have a political voice by voting for candidates, making or administering laws, or solving disputes responsibly and without destructive whim or passions. Thus, what they really created was a democratic republic whereby the majority of Americans elect representatives who must govern us via the definitions and limitations in the U.S. Constitution.

  Understanding the reality - The Founders created a republic, not a democracy. This more factual rendition does not detract from the story, but rather tells us that the framers of our government were men of the late 18th Century and as men of their time, they created the groundwork for the ongoing, evolutionary struggle to create a more democratic form of government in which all Americans could participate.

Methods Discussion: A great way to assess what students learned during a class discussion is to ask them to write an Exit Slip.

Directions: 

1. Write your name on a piece of paper and write "Exit Slip" under your name.
2. Take no more than 3 minutes to write down your answer to the following question: What is the single most important point you think your students should understand about the American Revolution?
3. Be sure to keep your "Exit Slip." It will go into your Portfolio.