Conceived in Liberty (229 page)

Paine concluded the bulk of his magnificent pamphlet with these stirring lines: “O! Ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.... O! Receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.” Sounding the clarion call for the democratic-libertarian cause as the party of hope, the party of progress, in short, the party of a secular, rational messianism, he eloquently hailed the impending future: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.... The birthday of a new world is at hand....”

The explosive success of
Common Sense
emboldened the radicals to follow with pamphlets and articles extolling the goal of independence, excoriating King George as “a full-blooded Nero,” and anticipating the great benefits of free trade with all the world that would flow from an independent status.

That the Tories, and quasi Tories, and conservatives who opposed independence should abominate
Common Sense
was, of course, to be expected, reviling it as that “artful, insidious and pernicious” work of sedition and “phrenzy.” Several Tories hastened to publish pamphlets of rebuttal, warning of the “ruin, horror, and desolation” that would stem from abandoning the happy and peaceful status of a colony to pursue the romantic chimera of independence. Independence was roundly denounced as absurdly impractical and “Utopian,” a project of “ambitious innovators” who “are attempting to hurry... into a scene of anarchy; their scheme of independence is visionary....”
*
Conservative landed oligarchs such as Landon Carter and Henry Laurens considered the Paine pamphlet
as “indecent,” “rascally,” and “dangerous.” But the Tories and conservatives soon found that their attacks on independence were in vain, that “there is a fascination belonging to the word
Liberty
that beguiles the minds of the vulgar....”

*
It is true that Paine wanted the polity to approximate as closely as possible the libertarian “state of nature.” In that sense, as Halevy pointed out, “the principle of the natural identity of interests, when applied to the solution of the problem of politics, seems logically to lead to the anarchistic thesis.” Elie Halevy,
The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p. 130.

By far the most influential rebuttal to
Common Sense,
however, came not from the fading Tories, but from a rapidly emerging right wing
within
the independence movement. Until 1775, virtually the sole focus of political conflict in the colonies was the anti-British resistance movement, on what side to take and how fast to travel. But after Lexington and Concord, another great problem confronted the Americans: the structure of the internal polity within each colony. And as independence drew nearer, the
internal
problem—the problem of “who should rule at home,” in the famous phrase of Carl Becker—came increasingly to the fore, as compared to the older problem of “home rule.” Of course, this separation can be overdrawn, and clearly British rule had created and propped up an “internal” domestic oligarchy. But, essentially, the internal problem had naturally been submerged by the struggle against Britain until the war began and the choice of forms of government had to be faced.

Before Lexington and Concord, then, the radical-conservative “Left”-“Right” conflict centered around the struggle with Great Britain. After that point, a new set of conflicts emerged. Historians have long quarreled about the existence of internal conflicts and about the possible continuity of the various ideological factions over the years. The first thing that can be flatly asserted is that the conservatives on the British question became archcohservatives on the domestic scene. Believers in strong central oligarchic government from abroad also desired strong, central oligarchic government at home. Some of the conservatives became outright Tories and thereby put themselves outside the American dialogue; others, as we shall see below, opposed independence up to the last moment and finally
opted for the rebel cause in deep resignation in order to guide it in a conservative direction. In short, they were more flexible and adaptable than their outright Tory brethren. These conservatives particularly predominated in the quasi-Tory provinces of New York and Pennsylvania. Among conservatives, then, continuity prevailed before and after 1775: the Ultraright before was the Ultraright afterward. There were no cases of quasi Tories later shifting to become radical on domestic issues.

The same continuity did not apply, however, to the pre-1775 Left, to those who had led the radical fight against Great Britain. Out of this increasingly victorious group there began to emerge a cohesive faction who were radical on independence and yet highly conservative on domestic affairs. In one sense, this lack of continuity is understandable, for as the unifying British question began to give way to consideration of domestic matters, temporarily suspended differences among the radicals inevitably came to the fore. Every revolution, after all, splits as it advances from one stage to the next and former advocates fail to adhere to its inner logic and go over into opposition. But in this case the split was particularly poignant, for those who remained radical on domestic questions simply wanted to fulfill at home the grand rhetoric of liberty and democracy which both wings had effectively employed in the fight for America against Great Britain.

In the case of the powerful center of the Virginia oligarchy, this split was to be expected. It was clear from the beginning, for example, that Washington was a radical on Britain and independence and yet a staunch conservative domestically; this rare centrist quality was one of the main reasons for his selection as army commander-in-chief. But the real shocker was Massachusetts. Massachusetts had always been the home of radicalism, the spearhead and vanguard of the American Left. Now it was Massachusetts that was to turn almost
en masse
to deep-dyed conservatism on domestic issues. Certainly one great reason for this was a lack of opposition on which to hone one’s edge; in contrast to Pennsylvania or New York, for example, where conservatism had always been dominant and radicalism precarious, Toryism had always been inherently feeble in Massachusetts. With little opposition on which to develop a cutting edge, the tendency for Massachusetts radicalism was to grow lax and conservative on domestic affairs.

A second problem was a crisis of leadership. John Hancock, as we have seen, turned sharply rightward largely out of pique. More serious was the collapse of the great Massachusetts leaders, the Adamses. The brilliant young John Adams not only turned sharply rightward on domestic matters; he was quickly to stamp himself as the major theoretician of a conservative American polity—a polity that would eventually end up as British rule without Great Britain. And Sam Adams, now that the domestic scene
was inevitably growing in importance, lost his former marvelous sureness of step; uncertain, adrift in unfamiliar waters, he was from then on to drift and veer erratically leftward and rightward, his basically radical instincts at war with the influence of his brilliant cousin John. And with the Adamses shifting, the faithful followers of the Massachusetts Left shifted with them.

The basic issue in internal affairs was simply: Would the American governments remain as they had emerged at the outset of the Revolution: spontaneous, libertarian, democratic, and responsive to the checks of the people? Or would they revert to something very like oligarchic British rule: strong government, with an executive and upper legislative house far removed from the people and only partially checked by them? Would oligarchic power be resumed by a new set of Tory lords in another guise? This is what the internal struggle in the years after Lexington and Concord was basically all about. And this is why the separation of home rule from rule at home can be highly artificial; for in a profound sense, those who remained radical on the domestic front were carrying to completion the meaning of the struggle against Britain. After all, their objection was not only to a certain set of Tory and monarchical rulers; their objection was also directed to governmental power itself—to executive oligarchy, to taxes and restrictions, and to big government. They did not propose to overthrow one set of masters in order to raise up another.

If Tom Paine became the ideological spokesman of the new Left, John Adams was the theoretician of the new Right. This new Right was, of course, of inestimable value to the conservative cause. The New York and Philadelphia aristocrats, for example, who had to be dragged into independence, would have never been accepted as leaders of a new independent America. But John Adams and the Massachusetts men, impeccably in the forefront of the Revolution? Their presence in the conservative camp could not but lend that camp the color of patriotic respectability which it so desperately needed after independence.

In contrast to most believers in independence, Adams was angered rather than exhilirated by
Common Sense.
A vain and petulant man, he was patently envious of the popular success of one whom he considered a johnny-come-lately in the independence movement. More than that, the democratic-libertarian sentiments went against his grain. Already, he had set forth his views on the proper government to fellow congressional delegates from other provinces who had sought his valued advice. Now, to counteract Paine’s influence, Adams hastened to publish these views in his
Thoughts on Government,
a highly influential work that would prove to be a virtual political manifesto of American conservatism.

Adams’ aim was frankly the counter-revolutionary one of restoring as nearly as possible the status quo ante: the prerevolutionary form of government,
especially a powerful executive and judiciary separate from the popular assembly and independent of it. His political system, akin to that of Blackstone and Montesquieu, rested on a separation of powers, especially a separation from the checks of democratic procedure. In order to limit and overcome the democratic arm, an independent executive power wielded by a new governor and council was to be added to the popularly elected revolutionary committees, this executive to have an absolute veto over the legislature. Within the legislature, an upper house removed from the people was to be created, supposedly as an aristocratic element in the polity, and Adams looked forward happily to the two houses being in perpetual conflict. Each house was to have an absolute veto over the other, and to make sure that the executive officials were to have little dependence upon the public, he proposed that the lower house choose the upper house and that they would together select the governor. Even this hedged-in and ringed-about democratic assembly was
to
be chosen only by property-owning voters. Furthermore, in contrast to the royal system of judges strictly under the control of the executive and the crown, Adams urged an independent judiciary holding life terms—a patent device to remove the judges completely from checks by the populace.

The judiciary in America had never been in the least
independent.
The colonial assemblies had always had judicial functions, and in the seventeenth century the Maryland, Virginia, and New England assemblies were the highest courts of appeal in their respective colonies. By the eighteenth century, however, the judiciary was appointed by the crown and became an organ of the executive. Life, or “good behavior,” judicial appointments were originally advanced as a means of removing judges holding their offices at the king’s pleasure, of curbing the absolute control of the crown. But with the royal power gone, life tenure of judges would be a backward step away from popular control.

The emergence of John Adams as the primary theoretician of domestic conservatism was parallelled by a conservative course of the colony and of leaders who had formerly led the radical vanguard. Of all the colonies, Massachusetts in particular faced an easy political path—and quickly took it. The British Coercive Acts, after all, had been directed against the Massachusetts Charter; what more apt—and more safely conservative— course than simply to reassert the charter of the
status quo ante?
And this is precisely what the Massachusetts Provincial Congress did when the Continental Congress, in early June, mildly advised it to do so. Of course, no governor could yet be found; but the General Court (legislature) was reconstituted in elections, and the Council was selected, as before, by the elected House, now to take on temporarily the entire executive power. The General Court resumed in mid-July 1775 for a very long session.

The leaders of Massachusetts were highly contented with their scarcely
visible and conservative glide back to the pre-Coercive Act charter, achieving Adams’ frankly stated aim: “to contrive some method for the colonies to glide insensibly from under the old government into peaceable and contented submission to new ones,” in short, “veneration for persons in authority of every rank.” The former radical James Warren quickly concurred. Nor were the Congregational clergy, especially in the seaboard towns, slow to inculcate such supposed virtues in their congregations. In his important election sermon before the General Court in 1776, the Reverend Samuel West of the town of Dartmouth, a close friend of Hancock, urged everyone “to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates....” With the newfound veneration of power came also its perquisites, and the less scrupulous of the Whig leaders made full use of their new appointment powers; Thomas Cushing, for example, managed to obtain five important judicial posts from the Council for himself.

But not all the old radicals were content to celebrate the status quo, and a relatively small band of new radicals emerged who fought for further libertarian changes in Massachusetts government. Many radicals were unhappy at the continuation of the established Congregational Church in Massachusetts. Isaac Backus, the leading Baptist of New England, presented a strong plea to the General Court for disestablishment and religious liberty, but his petition was quietly buried. Also prominent in the vain fight in the General Court for disestablishment was Joseph Hawley, an eminent lawyer of Northampton and leader of the radicals in western Massachusetts. And a writer in a Boston paper, denouncing “such glaring instances of religious tyranny as the establishment” of the Congregational Church, asked if they were “contending for liberty that we might have it in our power to trample on the rights of others?” The plural officeholding engaged in by Cushing and others was widely protested in the press. A writer in the (Boston)
Massachusetts Spy
charged that “the members of the Assembly have divided among themselves and their particular friends, all the civil and military offices in the colony.” Another decrier of the new oligarchy warned that they might be fighting against a “foreign slavery” only to “suffer a domestic one to spring up in our country.”