Sydney George Fisher - "The True History of the American Revolution" (1902)

Ropey history is nothing new.

In 1898, Pennsylvania author Sydney George Fisher (1856-1927; Wikipedia here) incurred the ire of the Scotch-Irish Society. At the Ninth Annual Meeting and Banquet of the Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish Society (at the Hotel Bellevue in Philadelphia; publication online here) various remarks were made – and the Society's Second Vice President Judge John Stewart (bio here) offered a lengthy critique – about Fisher's portrayal of the Scotch-Irish in his 1896 book Pennsylvania, Colony and Commonwealth (online here). To the Society's credit, they also printed Fisher's rebuttal (page 107 here).

A few years later Fisher published his True History of the American Revolution, in 1902 (online here). The title is itself a bold claim, which encapsulates his frustrations and how the subsequent re-tellings of 1776 had warped and mutated away from the original sources. It's packed with brilliant material. He sets out his assertive stall right away in the first sentences of the preface:

"... The purpose of this history of the Revolution is to use the original authorities rather more frankly than has been the practice with our historians. They appear to have thought it advisable to omit from their narratives a great deal which, to me, seems essential to a true picture. I cannot feel satisfied with any description of the Revolution which treats the desire for independence as a sudden thought ..."

And his concise summary of the contemporary context in Britain and Ireland is a masterclass in simplicity, in capturing the Whig/Tory distinctions, explaining the issue as one of liberty rather than nationality –

"... It is important to remember the condition of parties in England and the phases of opinion among them during the Revolution. 

As time went on a large section of the Rockingham Whigs, and men like the Duke of Richmond and Charles Fox, were in favor of allowing the colonies to form, if they could, an independent nation, just as, in the year 1901, a section of the liberal party were in favor of allowing the Boer republics of South Africa to retain their independence.

The rest of the Whigs, represented by such men as Barré, Burke, and Lord Chatham, would not declare themselves for independence. They professed to favor retaining the American communities as colonies; but they would retain them by conciliation instead of by force and conquest. Their position was an impossible one, because conciliation without military force would necessarily result in independence. They professed to think that the colonies could be persuaded to make an agreement by which they would remain colonies. But such an agreement would be like a treaty between independent nations, and imply such power in the colonies that the next day they would construe it to mean independence.

The Tories could see no merit in the independence of any country except England. They believed that the colonies should remain completely subordinate dependencies, like the English colonies of the present day; and be allowed no more liberty or self-government than was for the advantage of the empire, and such as circumstances should from time to time indicate.

As to the method of reducing the colonies to obedience, the Tories were somewhat uncertain. At first most of them, led by such men as Lord North, Lord Hillsborough, and Lord Dartmouth, were in favor of a rather mild method of warfare, accompanied by continual offers of conciliation and compromise. They were led to this partly by considerations of expense and the heavy debt already incurred by the previous war, by the desire to take as much wind as possible out of the sails of the Whigs by adopting a semi-Whig policy, by the desire to avoid arousing such hatred and ill-will among the colonists as would render them difficult to govern in the future, and by the fear that the patriot party, if pressed too hard, would appeal to France or escape beyond the Allegheny Mountains and establish republican or rights of man communities which would be a perpetual menace and evil example to the seaboard colonies.

Exactly how much conciliation and how much severity the ministry wished to have in their policy is difficult to determine. Within two or three years they changed it and favored a quick, sharp, relentless war, with such complete destruction and devastation of the country as would collapse the patriot party, avoid all necessity of any sort of compromise and leave the colonies to be remodelled and governed in any way the ministry saw fit.

It is quite obvious that, besides getting aid from France, Spain, or Holland and their own personal powers, it was very important for the patriot party in the colonies to have the Whigs go into power, or come so near going into power that they would influence Tory policy. 

Many people believed that the whole question depended on the patriots holding out long enough to let the Whigs get into power, and that if the Whigs were successful for only a few months the whole difficulty would be settled. 

When, finally, peace was declared and the treaty acknowledging independence signed in 1783, it was done by a Whig ministry. Tories do not sign treaties granting independence ..."

 

He also included multiple references to the 1688 origins of 1776, such as:

"... but perhaps their greatest [Whig] triumph was in the revolution of 1688, when they dethroned the Stuart line, established religious liberty, destroyed the power of the crown to set aside acts of Parliament, and created representative government in England. For the most of their existence; however, they would have been able to live in America more consistently with their professed principles than in England.

On the present occasion, in the year 1775, after they had expended all of their eloquence and stated all of their ideas, and shown themselves in the eyes of the majority of Englishmen absolutely incompetent to settle the American question, except by giving the colonies independence, the Tory majority proceeded to its duty of preserving the integrity of the empire in the only way it could be preserved ..."

 

• In 1912 Fisher followed up with The Legendary and Myth-Making Process in Histories of the American Revolution (online here).

• Back in 1897 he had published The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States (online here), showing how many of the clauses had their origins in the reign of William III and Mary II

I hope that "USA 250" avoids myth-making and ropey history, and instead presents a narrative that is true to the 1776 era, unaffected and uninfected by our present-day prejudices on both sides of the Atlantic.