The American Revolution is of single importance to the study of United States history for the light it sheds for students on a major theme in history: the long struggle for liberty, equality, justice, and dignity. The American Revolution severed the colonial relationship with England and created the United States of America. The revolutionary generation laid the institutional foundations for the system of government under which the United States is governed. The Revolution, inspired by the ideas concerning natural rights and political authority that were transatlantic in nature, affected people and governments over a large part of the globe in what has been called “the age of democratic revolution.”
A study of the American Revolution has a natural starting point in the Seven Years’ War. This contest for empire removed France from North America, reducing the colonists’ need for England’s protection. The war prepared a group of political and military leaders to play roles on a larger stage and gave the colonists a sense of confidence in themselves. England’s decision to maintain troops in the colonies after the war and to make colonists bear part of the cost of the war began to drive a wedge between England and her North American colonies.
In studying the decade preceding the American Revolution students should be able to trace the political and constitutional rights invoked by those colonists who debated and protested English policies. Students should discern the connection between revolutionary ideals and the economic interests of different groups such as Virginia tobacco planters, New England merchants, and urban artisans. Some of the drama of the period can be brought to life by exploring the character, thought, and political theatre of the various leaders and polemists such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams.
The Revolutionary Era lends itself to developing a respect for the power of ideas in history, how they originate, how they are shaped over time, and how they are expressed at particular moments of crisis to promote and channel the forces of change.
The Revolution changed the ways Americans thought, acted, and ordered their institutions. Students should be able to draw up a rough balance sheet that indicates to what extent different groups in society accomplished their goals and to what extent compromises were made.
Students should study how the rebellious colonists established new governments and they should understand the political principles upon which they built government anew. A thoughtful study of the Declaration of Independence will become a touchstone for the survey that follows. Students should also examine the powers allowed the central government and the powers reserved to the states under the Articles of Confederation.
The study of nation building in the generation after 1783 is important for students to understand the creation and ratification of the United States Constitution and the evolution of the political democracy it established. Students should examine the fundamental ideas underpinning the political vision of the nation’s eighteenth century founders expressed in the Constitution, the debates over ratification, and the Bill of Rights. The debate over the Constitution’s ratification is equally absorbing and important. To study the ratification debates in Virginia, where Madison and Randolph debated Henry and Mason, is to open windows to the politically sophisticated political discourse of this era. Students gain an understanding of both the fluidity and uncertainty of those early years and the sharp division of opinion at the very time the United States was struggling to define itself.
