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Independence Day!
Well, that was yesterday. I remember back in 1997 talking to a Czech guy who was confused as to why Americans would have a holiday commemorating Independence Day. The real point, though, is this: Not be an left-wing America-hater about it all, or to deny that our Founders had some legitimate grievances* but in retrospect wouldn't America and the world both be better off if the USA had remained more closely associated with the British Empire and her Commonwealth? After all, if the erstwhile "greatest generation" had gotten in on the Hitler-fighting action at the same time as Canada and Australia did, a whole lot of trouble could have been avoided. See also World War One.
In that light, it seems to me that while the Revolution should not be condemned, it is something to be regretted: a failure of Imperial policy and an inability of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to work out some thorny governance and burden-sharing issues. Not much of an occassion for fireworks.
But if fireworks we are meant to have (and apparently we are) then must they really be accompanied by the 1812 Overture? The United States, after all, was on the other side of that particular war,** which I think renders it pretty unsuitable for patriotic occassions.
* Favorite grievance: "[A]bolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies," which I believe refers to being too nice to the Catholic Church in Québec.
** I always wonder why they don't teach the War of 1812 as being a (rather small) part of the Napoleonic Wars in American history classes, and wonder if French or British or Russian schools do it differently.
July 5, 2004 | Permalink
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» Was the American Revolution a Good Thing? from Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)
Matthew Yglesias runs into a Czech who believes that the American Revolution was a Bad Thing: matthew: Independence Day!: Well, that was yesterday. I remember back in 1997 talking to a Czech guy who was confused as to why Americans would have a holiday... [Read More]
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Comments
Remember all that stuff in the musical 1776 about how Adams and Jefferson were forced to swallow slavery as part of the great bargain of getting the southern states to sign the DOI? Next time you watch that, bear in mind that the British Empire abolished their slave trade in 1807, and slavery itself throughout their Empire in 1833.
(Hey, don't italics tags work on this new site? Pretend I italicized "1776" up there.)
Posted by: DonBoy | Jul 5, 2004 11:01:50 AM
They do teach this aspect of the War of 1812 in AP US History, as implemented at my daughter's California school (she just took this class last year.)
Posted by: cafl | Jul 5, 2004 11:05:59 AM
I understand that the 1812 Overture is in commemoration of Napoleon's defeat at Moscow in 1812 and has nothing to do with the War of 1812.
Posted by: Gus | Jul 5, 2004 11:20:00 AM
I also was wondering why we celebrate our Independence Day by playing the Russian national anthem.
Posted by: Hugh Gordon | Jul 5, 2004 11:41:45 AM
The 1812 overture commemorates the defeat of Napolean, enemy of Britain. The US was also an enemy of Britian in 1812, and was also defeated (yes, defeated. By the UK and Canada. Suck it up.). The US and Napoleon had a cozy-cozy relationship, proven by Nappy's cession of Louisiana to the slave-rapist Jefferson. So a defeat of Nappy can be seen as a defeat of an American quasi-ally and co-belligerant.
(Is this offensive enough for a comment on an Independence day post? If there are some Americans still not outraged, I can try harder.)
Posted by: Ikram | Jul 5, 2004 11:44:08 AM
Jefferson's scare-mongering about the lenient treatment French Catholics had received under British rule is my favorite grievance too, Matt. Whenever I teach American political thought, this particular "complaint" always creates the most bemusement among my students.
Posted by: Russell Arben Fox | Jul 5, 2004 11:51:56 AM
I was going to respond that the piece was specifically written to celebrate Napoleon's defeat in Russia and more generally the defeat of tyranny. But who are we kidding?
We use it because it's the only traditional piece of music that, in addition to a PERcussion section (ie, drums), also has a CONcussion section (ie, cannons). Thus we honor that all-American pasttime (c'mon, you know it's fun) of blowing up stuff real good.
Posted by: SV | Jul 5, 2004 11:53:14 AM
It's just a brilliant grievance. Among other things, it's mighty odd to complain about the regulations in another country in the text of a document extolling the virtues of self-determination.Ikram's picked up what I was getting at with regard to the song -- "1812" is praising the enemy of our friend and the friend of our enemy, it's totally inappropriate as a piece of American patriotism.
Posted by: Matthew Yglesias | Jul 5, 2004 11:54:37 AM
"After all, if the erstwhile "greatest generation" had gotten in on the Hitler-fighting action at the same time as Canada and Australia did, a whole lot of trouble could have been avoided. See also World War One."
This is where I really go off the deep-end, so to speak. My big historical/political pet peeve. What shakes me to the core.
The big anniversery for D-Day was a few weeks ago. It was a time for celebration. Or was it?
I'll put it simply. That Hitler got to the water's edge, and the isolationism shown in the US at the time, is an embarassment. D-Day wasn't a time for heroes..well yeah it was. But why doesn't anybody say the key words...it never should have happened. What if D-Day had of failed? It could have. What if there wasn't the personal heroism of that day and it became a rout? That may have been the end of WWII. It forced the Allies into a tremendous risk.
Anyway, sorry about the rant. Like I said, that just gets under my skin.
Posted by: Karmakin | Jul 5, 2004 12:01:44 PM
I like the contrarian spirit of Matt's post, but it assumes that the generation of 1776 should have been able to correctly predict the path of future English democracy and future British attitudes towards the English-speaking colonies.
The American idea of popular representative democracy deserves celebration. Yeah, we could celebrate "Constitution Day" instead, but that's a nitpick.
The fact that the British got to a similar place awhile later is nice, but in 1776 it was hardly obvious that the British were heading in that direction for their colonial subjects (and indeed without the American revolution the history of Canada and Australia might be quite different.)
Posted by: Prof Dumb | Jul 5, 2004 12:20:16 PM
"What if D-Day had of failed? It could have. What if there wasn't the personal heroism of that day and it became a rout? That may have been the end of WWII."
No, the war would have ended with a German defeat, anyway--the Soviets were winning on the Eastern Front well before D-Day. But possible consequences include: (1) greater Soviet control of post-war Europe, and/or (2) use of the first nuclear bomb on Berlin rather than Hiroshima
Posted by: rea | Jul 5, 2004 12:28:54 PM
Matt continues with sci-fi Monday, following his post on Spiderman with a sci-fi question: what if we just changed history a little.
What if we took Canada's route to independence from Great Britain? What if we joined WWII earlier?
Even if we NEVER joined England in fighting Hitler, we would have developed the A-bomb before Hitler, and... case close.
But all these what-if questions are sci-fi. I saw "Back To The Future", small differences, butterfly effect, and all that.
What if Chamberlain hadn't appeased Hitler in Munich 1938? Well, then, Hitler would have kept is pact with Stalin, there would have been no Russian front and, though weaker, Hitler would have easily have beaten the rest of Europe and the Commies and Nazis would have split Europe in two. Like the current situation? Then it's unwise to wish for a different past. Things could be worse in unpredictable ways.
Posted by: epistemology | Jul 5, 2004 12:38:03 PM
Isn't the current relationship between the English speaking countries broadly where we would have got to anyway if there had been a more enlightened Imperial policy at the time, but for the fact that the US is a republic rather than a constitutional monarchy?
As regards D-Day....if the US had not got involved, or the invasion had failed, I think the most likely outcome would have been a German defeat and the Iron Curtain running down the English Channel.
What really saved Britain in the short term post Battle of Britain was the diversion of German forces to the Eastern Front, not American Intervention.
Posted by: Martin | Jul 5, 2004 12:38:35 PM
And while we're talking about the sex-slave raping Jefferson and overtures: if it weren't for Toussaint L'Overture and the Haitian slave revolt, Napoleon would never have sold us the Louisiana Purchase and this country may never have achieved its current predominance. Yet another case (along with medical marijuana, assisted suicide, 2000 presidential elections, etc) of strong state-rights advocates compromising their positions when expedient.
Posted by: epistemology | Jul 5, 2004 12:45:12 PM
Matt would deny us the senior year perk of watching Mr. Feeny-as-John-Adams on VHS after AP exams.
And that's just not right.
Posted by: SamAm | Jul 5, 2004 1:35:21 PM
"But if fireworks we are meant to have (and apparently we are) then must they really be accompanied by the 1812 Overture"
Well, we just need to find some other orchestral piece scored for cannon fusilade finale. Hmmm...
maybe we could work cannons into some old Kiss or Queen song.
"We will, We will, Rock (Boom!) you"
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 5, 2004 2:36:04 PM
The post assumes that we would have developed as basically the same kind of democracy without the Revolution, just more gradually. Its not clear that's true. Check out Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution for the changes wrought in the social order. You can point to Canada and say that our development might have been the same, but that assumes Canada developed free from the influence of the American revolutionary tradition, when in fact how Great Britain allowed its settler colonies to develop was decisively influenced by the negative lesson of the American revolution. I.e., "denying self-government only leads to trouble." All in all, I think our historical course would have been massively more aristocratic and elitist and our economy much more restrained if we had remained under Britain's sway.
Posted by: rd | Jul 5, 2004 3:07:02 PM
bob wrote:
'"But if fireworks we are meant to have (and apparently we are) then must they really be accompanied by the 1812 Overture"
Well, we just need to find some other orchestral piece scored for cannon fusilade finale. Hmmm...'
Well, there's Beethoven's "Wellington's Victory," which is often coupled on records with the "1812," and which also describes a defeat of Napoleon, at the Battle of Vittoria. It's a piece that can certainly be accompanied by the appropriate ordnance, except that: 1) it commemorates another English victory; 2) it quotes "Rule Brittania" and "God Save the King," and 3) it's not nearly as good a piece of music as the Tchaikovsky. Although Beethoven might have been speculated to be sympathetic to the idea of individual freedom (c.f. "Fidelio").
Handel's "Music for the ROYAL Fireworks" doesn't make it either, I guess.
My vote? I'd forget the cannon altogether and play Charles Ives' Second Symphony. There's a rousing finale, right down to the final Bronx cheer.
Posted by: bill h. | Jul 5, 2004 4:30:10 PM
US liberals should condemn the US revolution for (a) contributing to the death of US indians by overturning the British policy of 1775 (westward expansion was far less destructive to native populations in Canada, which today has far more surviving natives per capita); (b) precluding the creation of a European-style welfare state due to the US Checks and Balances that prevent the majority from imposing its will though Parliament (Britain, Canada & Australia have universal health care, public funding of election campaigns, gun regulation, and industry regulators that are far less influenced by the will of campaign contributors).
Posted by: peter vm | Jul 5, 2004 4:48:00 PM
For God's sake, Matthew. First, if the revolution had not occurred, it's a safe bet that the British Empire would never have allowed that tidal wave of non-British immigrants that swelled the US population and economic strength to something beyond that of, say, Canada -- which would have meant that the US (or its Commonwealth equivalent) would have been a vastly weaker ally in the World Wars. (Of course, it's also possible that -- without the safety valve of emigration to America -- the various tyrannies in Europe might have undergone successful social revolutions a lot earlier. Or maybe not.)
Second: if Britain had been able to hold onto the American South, do you really think Britain would have banned slavery in 1803? Or, for that matter, by 1863? The only reason Britain did so is that, without the cotton-growing South, slavery was no longer economically worth the trouble for it -- and even then it came within a hair of allying with the Confederacy in the Civil War. So: how beneficent an effect would a British Empire that still supported legalized slavery (quite possibly into the 20th century) have had on world history?
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw | Jul 5, 2004 4:53:55 PM
Make that "1833", not "1803". *sigh* But my argument still holds -- on balance, I think the successful Revolution was a Very Good Thing indeed for human history. (I hadn't even thought of the point mentioned by other respondents that the British government might hve been a lot more authoritarian if the Revolution hadn't shown them what can happen when you push people too far.)
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw | Jul 5, 2004 4:57:42 PM
Here's a little hint for MY- if you change one thing in history, everything else changes.
Granted, the people who were actually in the British Empire might wish that something had changed, and think that any change would have been for the better.
Do the words Potato Famine mean anything at all to you? Or the phrase Opium Wars?
And we still have two things the Brits still don't have:
A government that derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and
A written constitution that makes that so.
So Matt, if you want to be a subject of the Crown, please, GO.
For myself, I am still quite pleased to be a citizen of the first and longest lived Republic.
Posted by: serial catowner | Jul 5, 2004 6:55:26 PM
However, that is some stupid b-s about "an inability of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic". The American colonists made extraordinary efforts to get some representation in Parliament, and other rights accorded Englishmen. They spent over twenty years on these efforts before concluding that the matter was hopeless. The Declaration of Independence is not some hokey propaganda broadside, it is a recitation of the facts that were well known to the colonists, and should have come as no surprise to the English, as almost the same document was written and adopted by the colonists the previous year.
There are a lot of other factors; suffice it to say that many in England at the time thought the colonists were doing what needed to be done in the face of an intransigent and corrupt tyranny.
Posted by: serial catowner | Jul 5, 2004 7:04:21 PM
"And we still have two things the Brits still don't have:
A government that derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and
A written constitution that makes that so."
But the Brits have strange women lying in ponds!
http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/python/Scripts/HolyGrail/grail-03.html
(WTF, I can't post a proper hyperlink here?!)
Posted by: digamma | Jul 5, 2004 7:28:28 PM
Simon Schama's argument in his History of Britain is a compelling one: that the late 1700s led Britain into losing 'the right Empire' and embracing 'the wrong Empire'. Had a settlement been reached with the American colonists, things might have happened quite differently in India (which, essentially, became the Raj through the attempt to solidify the power of the British East India Company).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/hob/prog_11.shtml
::
I always wonder why they don't teach the War of 1812 as being a (rather small) part of the Napoleonic Wars in American history classes, and wonder if French or British or Russian schools do it differently.
::
Yep, the War of 1812 is taught as part of the Napoleonic Wars -- at least, it was for me about ten years ago. The American War of Independence isn't taught at all in British schools.
Posted by: nick | Jul 5, 2004 7:43:48 PM
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