Tad Stoermer on the mythological retro-fitting of Thomas Paine

Brilliant summary here. This year, the 250th anniversary, there's going to be a lot of myth-reinforcement. Few will be interested in challenging the two and a half centuries of nationalistic baggage with which the American revolution has been subsequently packaged. Challenging orthodoxy is tricky when reinforcing orthodoxy pays the bills. 

There's been a bit of highly selective Paine-worship over the past week, marking the 250th anniversary of his pamphlet Common Sense. Here's a corrective dose of reality –

 

John Dickinson's writings were more influential than Paine (see previous post here), and had put in place a decade of thought and philosophy, grounded in the previous Glorious Revolution; Paine arrived very late to the party, in November 1774, and only publishing from spring 1775 - as Stoermer correctly says here "most of the real American revolution had already happened before Paine ever set foot on America's shores", between 1765-1775.

So, as Tad Stoermer explains above, the myth of Paine began almost at day one, when John Page selectively extracted the politically useful parts of Common Sense, and printed it in newspapers which had a far wider readership than the print run of the complete pamphlet itself. 

The Scots-Irishman poet, David Bruce, refers unfavourably to Paine in his 1801 collection. Check out Brother Tamie, A Song. 

• A more substantial Common Sense is the philosophy that emerged as part of the 1700s Scottish Enlightment (which sounds a bit fluffy as a term anyway) - Scottish Common Sense Realism. That's a subject for another day...

Revolutionary Psalms – Isaac Watts, the Glorious Revolution and the American Revolution

Isaac Watts' The Psalms of David was first published in 1719. His father, also called Isaac, had been a local 'nonconformist' church pastor in Southampton, who was imprisoned at least twice during the regime of King Charles II. When James II became monarch in 1685, the public executions of his Bloody Assizes included two locations along the south coast not very far from Southampton; 12 men at Weymouth and five men at Wareham were sliced and diced by order of his majesty. Isaac junior had just turned 11 years old when the hanging, drawing and quartering began.

"... The trials of the parents made, as may be conceived, a deep impression upon the mind of the son; the adversities of his early years were remembered by him in after life ; and doubtless here originated that ardent attachment to civil and religious liberty which marked his character, and which led his muse to hail its establishment with exultation, when the dynasty of the tyrannical Stuarts was driven from the throne..."*

 

So, when Isaac published his The Psalms of David, he added a dedication to Psalm 75 which read:

Power and Government from God Alone 

Apply'd to the Glorious Revolution of King William, 

or the Happy Accession of King George to the Throne

 

Watts' The Psalms of David was probably the most-used sacred song book in the English-speaking Atlantic World; the first edition to be printed in America was by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia in 1740. The Psalm 75 dedication remained throughout an estimated 39 editions that were printed on both sides of the ocean.

After the American Revolution, with America newly independent, the first edition of Watts to be printed was in Newburyport, Massachussetts in 1791. The printer, John Mycall, revised the intro to Psalm 75 to reflect the new era –

 

Power and Government from God Alone 

Apply'd to the glorious revolution in America, 

 July 4th, 1776 

 

Ezra Stiles, the President of Yale, wrote this summary in his diary:

"This year has been published the fortieth Edition of Dr. Watts's Psalms: it was printed at Newburyport in Massachusetts by Mr. Mycall, Printer. He with the Advice & Assist of neighbors ministers & others, has made some Alterations in Psalms where G. Britain is mentioned, & references to the King of Gt. Britain as in the 75th Psalm. At first it may seem as if these alterations were many: however they really are but few. Thus the Ps. Book is well adapted to the Ch in America"

• * The Life, Times and Correspondence of the Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. by Thomas Milner (1834) is online here

• The American Revisions of Watts's Psalms, by Louis F. Benson (1903) is online here.

Below: The American edition with the revised dedication

John Adams on David Hume – "varnishing over the crimes of the Stuarts" (King Charles II and King James II)

Most people today have little or no idea about the 'Stuart' kings' tyrannies of the 1600s. It is easier to promote the concept of loyalty (or, as we'll see below, passive obedience) if the evils of all monarchs are airbrushed away, or "varnished over" as John Adams says in the quote below, which is from this famous and sparkling letter of 1818.

Adams takes aim at the mega-history that had been published before the Revolution, at the key moment when King George III settled onto the throne in 1760, written by the Scottish writer David Hume.

The rewriting of history is nothing new. History is often appropriated, not to inform about the past, but to recruit in the present. Here is Adams' own copy, sold a while ago at Christies.

 

"...Another gentleman who had great influence in the commencement of the Revolution, was Doctor Jonathan Mayhew, a descendant of the ancient Governor of Martha's Vineyard. This Divine had raised a great reputation, both in Europe and America by the publication of a volume of seven sermons in the reign of King George the Second, 1748, and by many other writings, particularly a sermon in 1750, on the thirtieth of January, on the subject of Passive Obedience and Non Resistance, in which the saintship and martyrdom of King Charles the First are considered, seasoned with witt and satyre, superior to any in (Jonathan) Swift or (Benjamin) Franklin. It was read by everybody, celebrated by friends, and abused by enemies. (see previous post on the Boston pastor Mayhew here).

During the reigns of King George the First and King George the Second, the reigns of the Stewarts – the Two Jameses, and the two Charleses – were in general disgrace in England. In America they had always been held in abhorrence. The persecutions and cruelties suffered by their ancestors under those reigns, had been transmitted by history and tradition, and Mayhew seemed to be raised up to revive all their animosity against tyranny, in church and state, and at the same time to destroy their bigotry, fanaticism and inconsistency or David Hume's plausible, elegant, fascinating and fallacious apology in which he varnished over the crimes of the Stewarts had not then appeared (Hume's multi-volume history was published from 1754-1761).

To draw the character of Mayhew would be to transcribe a dozen volumes. This transcendant [by choices] threw all the weight of his great fame into the scale of his country in 1761, and maintained it there with zeal and ardour till his death in 1766..."

• Adams was of course creating a narrative too. His thinking and justification for the 1776 revolution in America leaned heavily upon the 1688 revolution in Europe. It doesn't matter that there was a revolution - what matters is why there had to be one. Or two.

"and can speak broad Scotch" – from Magheralin to Maryland, escaping with a man from Madagascar - 1739

St Mary's County on the western shore of Maryland is just across the Chesapeake Bay from Somerset County, the location of the first major Ulster-Scots community settlement in America, where the renowned Francis Makemie from Donegal became the minister in 1683.

Thomas Macoun was (very likely) from Magheralin / Maralin. He spoke “broad Scotch” and went to America as an indentured servant. In 1739 he, and a Black slave from Madagascar known as Robin, escaped together from their master’s plantation on the banks of the Potomac River, in a stolen boat with a pile of flamboyant clothes and a silver hilted sword.

This notice appeared in a few newspapers - if anyone in Pennsylvania found the two of them, Benjamin Franklin the printer was to be informed.

• the famous scientist John Macoun emigrated to Canada; his autobiography tells of the family's Scottish roots and of how they joined the resistance against King James II's army at The Break of Dromore in 1689. 

It would be worth fact-checking this interesting summary, from The Days of Makemie –

Much is said of his fairness in dealing with the Indians, but it is a fact, about which there has been no boasting, that our own province is nearly a half century ahead of Penn in setting the example. At St. Mary's no land was taken but was paid for, and the pleasantest relations of amity were established between the two races. The village of Yowacomaco was sold to the whites and became their capital, and there the English and Indians lived side by side in the rude huts constructed by savage hands, the one teaching the art of hunting the deer and planting the maize and preparing the succotash and hominy, the other teaching the lessons of civilized life and religion.

Prof. Gordon S. Wood on how 1776 was born in 1688 - "a revolt on behalf of the English Constitution"

Professor Gordon S Wood is one of the world's foremost experts on the Declaration of Independence. In this new podcast clip he summarises some of how the 1776 American Revolution was based upon the 1688 Glorious Revolution, at 20 minutes in –

 

 "... They talk in terms of 'we're the defenders of the English Constitution'. It's a curious Revolution in that sense. It's undertaken on behalf of the uncorrupted English Constitution, that they are a free people just as the English used to be. But now 'we are the free Englishmen. We're saving you from your own corrupt system'.

And so they don't see themselves until the very end as needing to be independent. They're defending themselves as Englishmen. And in fact, you could you make a case and they understood the irony of this, that we're revolting on behalf of the English Constitution. And it's a curious kind of thing ...

... they're talking about English rights, all of their rights. And the English had this tremendous tradition of rights. The first Bill of Rights that we talk about is in the 1688 Glorious Revolution, they get a Bill of Rights against the Crown.

The only thing that's unique about American rights is the right of religion because the English keep an Established Church, but all the other rights - jury trial, all that stuff that's in the 10 amendments, The Bill of Rights - are English rights..."

Ulster-Scots speech in Colonial America: 1700s newspaper sources

Here's a potentially rich seam of research which, as far as I know, has never been looked at. The pre-1776 newspapers are gradually being digitised, and far away from the 'high politics' of Founding Fathers, Generals and Presidents, they tell a more grounded story of daily life. A few searches have revealed people from the north of Ireland who spoke "Scotch". Here are just two examples:

Pennsylvania, 1759: 18 year old Martha Steward, a runaway "Irish servant girl ... she came from Antrim, in the North of Ireland, and talks much in the Scotch manner".

She had run away from a plantation owned by Joseph Sims in Passyunk Township outside Philadelphia, with 20 shillings offered to anyone who could return her to her Master.

Pennsylvania, 1766:

RUN away from the Subscriber in Newport, an Irish Servant Man, named John Purday, and Mary, his Wife, the said John Purday is about 5 Feet 9 Inches high, and about 27 Years of Age, is pitted with the Small pox, has strait pale Hair commonly tied behind; had on, when he went away, a light coloured Coat, and Thickset Jacket and Breeches, Worsted Stockings, his Hat sharp cocked, and appears very neat in his Clothes, has been a Soldier in Flanders, speaks very good English, ***a little inclined to the Scotch Accent. His Wife is a little short thin woman, dark Complexion, dark frizled hair, speaks broad Scotch***. They are about 6 Weeks in from Ireland, and came in the Ship Marquis of Granby. Whoever takes up the said John Purday, so as his Master may have him again, shall have Twenty Shillings Reward, and reasonable Charges, paid by me ROBERT ALL, or by applying to Mr. JAMES ALEXANDER, Merchant in Water street, Philadelphia.

It seems that the ship, Marquis of Granby, operated from Londonderry.

Geographically Irish, linguistically "Scotch".

1688 & 1776 – The Official UK Government publication "Parliament and the Glorious Revolution: The Influence of the Revolution"

In 1988, to mark the Tercentenary of the 1688 Glorious Revolution, HMSO produced this official brochure to accompany an exhibition that was held at the Houses of Parliament. Published under the auspices of the Lord Chancellor, Baron Mackay of Clashfern, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Bernard Weatherill, it had a double page spread about the American Revolution which describes the indelible umbilical connection between 1688 and 1776:

"... When Britain tried to impose more of the financial responsibility for maintaining the empire on the colonists in the period after 1763, the Americans viewed the moves as an attempt to overthrow their liberty much in the way that James Il's policies had seemed an attack on English liberties 80 years before.

And when the American Revolution finally erupted, the issues involved would have been very familiar to the participants in the Glorious Revolution: the proper distribution of governmental power, and the rights of subjects and citizens. Moreover, in making their new constitution the Americans drew on the English constitutional documents of 1689, notably the Bill of Rights, even to the extent of using some of the same phraseology.

The American Revolution was an inspiration to the French revolutionaries of 1789, and when they drafted their Declaration des Droits de l'homme they consciously followed the American Declaration of Independence. In the process, they were also harking back to the Declaration of Rights of 1689, a fact which some Frenchmen at the time recognised and which the Revolution Society in England was keen to point out..."

Smithsonian "One Day in History", published 2006

This book published by the Smithsonian Institution has a preface by Gordon S. Wood (Wikipedia here), the author of the landmark The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (online here).

"THE AMERICAN Revolution has been called a conservative revolution, which seems to be a contradiction in terms. However, there is a large body of literature that supports the fact that the colonists seceded from Britain not because they wanted to overturn the existing social and political order, but because they were being denied the rights guaranteed to English citizens.

The rationale for the secession was in great part based on the theories of English philosopher John Locke, who believed in the natural rights that were given to all humans by their Creator.

It is significant that the government created by the states when the Constitution was written in 1787 was based in large part on the English system of government that had been instituted after the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the recognition of the English Bill of Rights. The most notable difference in the American and English political systems, of course, was the absence of the monarchy in America."

From the same publication:

"... These ideas were not original to Thomas Jefferson. These truths, which had not always been quite so “self-evident,” are usually credited to John Locke, a British writer and philosopher of the Enlightenment. Locke was a revolutionary and a political activist who had supported Britain’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Locke rejected the theory of divine monarchy, which held that kings had been appointed to their positions by God. 

Divine monarchs ruled— or so they told themselves — at the will of God and were thus responsible to no one but Him for their actions. Locke opposed the very idea of divine monarchs and also rejected the belief, deeply held by the Stuarts, as well as by many other European rulers, that monarchs should have absolute authority over their subjects and did not need the permission of others before putting their will into action.

Locke instead posited a different basis for government, one that was postulated on the existence of what he termed “natural rights.” According to the theory of natural rights, all people possessed rights that had been given to them by God simply because they were human. These “rights” were those that allowed people to ensure their survival: life, liberty, and the property needed to maintain life. Because these rights were given to people by God, not by a monarch, they could not be taken from them. They were thus “unalienable.”

Although Jefferson, in his Declaration, proved to be a faithful copyist of Locke, there is one significant way in which Jefferson’s conception of “unalienable rights” differed. While Locke asserts that one’s natural rights consist of life, liberty, and property, Jefferson omits any reference to property and instead proclaims that people have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This change, many scholars believe, was made to indicate that in a nation built on the concept of freedom, the protection of slave property would not be considered a fundamental right and would not be among the foremost concerns of the new nation."

Virginia and Philadelphia 1775: Standing armies - "the last arguments to which kings resort" - the Monmouth Rebellion, and a visit to Bath

In his renowned "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech of 23 March 1775, Patrick Henry (depicted above, by Peter Frederick Rothermel) made this stark observation of the standing army, of around 7,000 men, that was being assembled in the Colonies –

"... warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? 

Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? 

Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging ..."

 

Henry was right. Less than a month later the armed Revolution formally began, at Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775 - the famous "shot heard around the world". Among the colonists was David Spear who had led a company of 44 "minutemen" from Ulster-Scots areas of western Massachussetts who were present at Lexington that historic day (see previous post here).

A few months later, on 21 August 1775, the newspaper of Strabane-born John Dunlap, entitled Dunlap's Pennsylvania Packet and General Advertiser, reprinted a long letter by an anonymous writer called Caractacus. The choice of classical pseudonym, which was the name of an ancient British hero who resisted the invading Roman Empire, is tantalising – it was also the name of Thomas Jefferson's horse. The letter reminded the reader to "beware of standing armies" and of how King James II had used a relatively small army to crush a far larger number of mobilised civilians during the Monmouth Rebellion back in 1685 – 

"... A standing army in a part of a country which is not the immediate seat of war, is attended with all the inconveniences and dangers of a standing army in the most profound peace. History is dyed in blood when it speaks of the ravages which standing armies have committed upon the liberties of mankind. Officers and soldiers of the best principles and characters, have been converted into instruments of tyranny, by the arts of wicked Ministers and Kings. Cromwell overturned the commonwealth of England with the remains of his army of Saints. Nor is the small size of a standing army any security again the dangers to be apprehended from them. 

King James the Second, at the head of only 2000 mercenaries, defeated the popular Duke of Monmouth at the head of 8000 men, and was led from his success in this battle to trample under his feet the most sacred rights of his country. It is true the same mercenaries afterwards threw down their arms, and refused to oppose the landing of King William – but ... in a word – had I the wings, and tongue of an Angel, I would fly from one end of the Continent to the other at the present juncture, and proclaim constantly in the ears of my countrymen – BEWARE OF STANDING ARMIES..."

......................

King James II's brutal use of the army against civilians had - theoretically - been dealt with after his ousting in the new 1689 Bill of Rights – which stated "Standing Army: By raising and keeping a Standing Army within this Kingdome in time of Peace without Consent of Parlyament and Quartering Soldiers contrary to Law." 

King James II's standing army had carried out his monarchical, maniacal, orders. I was back in Somerset a few weeks ago, we drove through Corston and stopped to photograph the 1685 Hanging Tree location. In Bath city centre I visited the open pedestrianised piazza-like space called Saw Close, which was where the Monmouth Rebellion public executions had taken place in November 1685.

Saw Close was the location of the old city timber yard, so maybe the easy availability of both wood and sharp tools made it a logical location for a round of public hanging, drawing and quartering - following exactly the grisly instructions which had been relayed to the Sheriff of Somerset. Six men were hanged almost to death, then cut down, and slowly chopped to pieces before a crowd of onlookers. Their names are here, on historian Steve Carter's excellent website.

Some signage in Bath recalls Monmouth and his ill-conceived attempt to overthrow the tyranny of James. It's no surprise that the American colonists saw the potential for the bloody 1685 that their grandparents' generation endured to be repeated upon them in America in 1775.

Gustav Mahler on tradition

 

The Virginia Gazette, 8 June 1776 - "An Address to the Convention of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia"

It is always worth pointing out that narrow nationality wasn't the reason for the American Revolution, but rather transatlantic liberty - liberties which, although imperfect, had been secured in law on both sides of the Atlantic in 1688 & 1689, but which the new 1770s London government of Lord North's Tory Party was taking away.

Almost half of the MPs in Parliament were supportive of the stand for liberty being taken by the American colonists.

There will always be a ruling elite of some kind, no matter what form of government is in place - the real issue is how much liberty does the citizen have.

This is what Northern Ireland's nationalistic binary mentality does not compute. Some people here have been so irreparably moulded by nationalistic thinking that they would happily choose chains, as long those chains had their preferred national flag attached, and their preferred tyrant in charge.

However, if government truly serves the people, then nationality is not the end goal, the people's liberty is. Here's a t-shirt I photographed in Colonial Williamsburg on 4 July 2016.

For example, why was there such widespread opposition to Home Rule for Ireland in the late 1800s and early 1900s? The text of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant gives four reasons, the second of which was liberty. The likelihood was that the form of Home Rule that would be implemented across Ireland would be "subversive of our civil and religious freedom".

As Rev John Pollock, the minister of Ireland's largest Presbyterian congregation said in 1914, "I am a Home Ruler on principle ... I have no objection to a free Parliament on College Green in Dublin, but I do object to Italian rule". Here's the introduction from the rare 1913 book Intolerance in Ireland; by an Irishman …

They expected that the 20th century (Free State / Republic of) Ireland would be ruled by Catholic integralism; 21st century Ireland is ruled by what the author Paul Kingsnorth calls an authoritarian progressive integralism. In the 21st century United Kingdom you can be imprisoned for tweets. 

Back to 1776. The American colonists weren't rejecting British rule, they were reclaiming their full British liberties. Had those liberties been restored to them, there would never have been a Declaration of Independence. Independence became necessary, not as an end in itself, but in order to pursue liberty.*

Below is the voice of an anonymous writer, described only as "A Native", in The Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Hunter Edition) on 8 June 1776 - less than a month before the Declaration of Independence would be published. 

..................

"What has been the government of Virginia, and in a revolution how is its spirit to be preserved, are important questions. The better to discuss these points, we should take a view of the constitution of England, because by that model ours was constructed, and under it we have enjoyed tranquility and security.

Our ancestors, the English, after contemplating the various forms of government, and experiencing, as well as perceiving, the defects of each, wisely refused to resign their liberties either to the single man, the few, or the many. They determined to make a compound of each the foundation of their government, and of the most valuable parts of them all to build a superstructure that should surpass all others, and bid defiance to time to injure, or any thing, except national degeneracy and corruption, to demolish.

In rearing this fabric, and connecting its parts, much time, blood, and treasure, were expended. By the vigilance, perseverance, and activity of innumerable martyrs, the happy edifice was at length completed under the auspices of the renowned King William in the year 1688. They wisely united the hereditary succession of the Crown with the good behaviour of the Prince; they gave respect and stability to the legislature, by the independence of the Lords, and security, as well as importance, to the people, by being parties with their Sovereign in every act of legislation. Here then our ancestors rested from their long and laborious pursuit, and saw many good days in the peaceable enjoyment of the fruit of their labours. Content with having provided against the ills which had befallen them, they seemed to have forgot, that although the seeds of destruction might be excluded from their constitution, they were, nevertheless, to be found in those by whom their affairs were administered...

... However necessary it may be to shake off the authority of arbitrary British dictators, we ought, nevertheless, to adopt and perfect that system, which England has suffered to be so grossly abused, and the experience of ages has taught us to venerate..."

..................

* of course, with human nature as it is, the newly independent ruling class of the new United States of America began to accumulate power to itself, and began to look not much different to the overlords which it had just thrown off. After all, it was the same men in the same wigs meeting in the same buildings, but now with no London to answer to or to be taxed by. Another story for another time... 

Another early 1700s usage of the term 'Scotch Irish'

With thanks to the friend who sent me this:

"They call themselves Scotch Irish, and the bitterest railers against the Church [of England] that ever trod upon American Ground. I wish I had better neighbours or keener weapons to stop their career."

- Rev. George Ross, Delaware, September 1723

Other examples are listed here, compiled by the late Michael Scoggins.

Jake the Lawyer - breaking down the Declaration of Independence, and explaining the Bill of Rights

 These YouTube presentations are excellent – energetic, detailed, fun where appropriate, informal, yet information-rich.

William Findley, Ulster-born, Scotch Irish, Pennsylvanian 'Anti-Federalist'

William Findley was born in Co Antrim, and was one of the strongest voices to challenge the potential overreach of the proposed new United States Constitution of 1787. He and the other 'Anti-Federalists' eventually secured a new Bill of Rights in 1789 to help safeguard the rights of the individual.

In an autobiographical letter written in 1812, Findley said – 

"I arrived in Pennsylvania in August 1763 in company with a great number of protestant emigrants from the North of Ireland who are chiefly the descendants of those who fled from the persecution of the Presbyterians, carried on in Scotland during the reigns of the two last of the Stuarts, therefore frequently called Scotch Irish.

They are the majority of five or six Counties of the Province of Ulster, in the north of Ireland. My grandfathers both came from Scotland in early life, and him of my name assisted in the memorable defence of London derry, the only place that was successfully defended against King James army.

I being a younger son of a younger son, is the reason why I am only the second in descent during more than 120 years. The descendant of those Scottish emigrants to Ireland have contributed exceedingly to people this Country and composed a great proportion of the Pennsylvania line including several Generals during the revolutionary war".

 

Fascism thrives on "Mythic History - a Golden Age that never really existed"

Here's another short video from Professor Tad Stoermer, majoring on the 1789 Bill of Rights as an act of resistance against the possible tyrannical abuse of the United States Constitution. He talks about the present day, and the very obvious 20th century regimes which re-created a mythical past to suit their own agendas. It's part of the centuries of social toxicity in Ireland too.

As he says "it's not just about making up history, it's about selectively remembering the parts that justify your power ... things were better back then because the right people were in charge, and we need to put them back in power".

Maybe as humans we all do that to some extent in our own individual lives. But when "power" does it, the results can be catastrophic.