Conceived in Liberty (205 page)

Authors: Murray N. Rothbard

BOOK: Conceived in Liberty

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The vital role of colonial agents in London is treated in Michael G. Kammen,
A Rope of Sand: The Colonial Agents, British Politics, and the American Revolution
(1968); and Jack M. Sosin,
Agents and Merchants: British Colonial Policy and the Origins of the American Revolution, 1763–1775
(1965). The letters of the most important of these agents are included in Ross J. S. Hoffman, ed.,
Edmund
Burke, New York Agent
(1956). The best treatment of British politics in relation to the developing American resistance is Charles R. Ritcheson,
British Politics and the American Revolution
(1954). Jack M. Sosin,
Whitehall and the Wilderness: The Middle West in British Colonial Policy, 1760–1775
(1961), is a pro-British account of imperial policy in Western lands. The Whig and radical opposition to British imperial designs and to Tory government at home is discussed in Rudé,
Wilkes and Liberty
(1962); Eugene C. Black,
The Association: British Extraparliamentary Political Organization, 1769–1793
(1963); Archibald S. Foord,
His Majesty’s Opposition, 1714–1830
(1964); George H. Guttridge,
English Whiggism and the American Revolution
(1942); and Lucy S. Sutherland,
The City of London and the Opposition to Government, 1768–1774: A Study in the Rise of Metropolitan Radicalism
(1959). The definitive, but difficult, political biography of the great Whig leader is Ross J. S. Hoffman,
The Marquis: A Study of Lord Rockingham, 1730–1782
(1973). The most relevant discussion of Burke in this period is Carl B. Cone,
Burke and the Nature of Politics,
vol. 1,
The Age of the American Revolution
(1957). The Tory, or “Namierite,” point of view is presented in Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier,
England in the Age of the American Revolution
(2nd ed., 1961); Ian R. Christie,
Wilkes, Wyvill, and Reform: The Parliamentary Movement in British Politics, 1760–1785
(1962); and John Brooke,
The Chatham Administration, 1766–1768
(1956).

An excellent study of American resistance to the Stamp Act is Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan,
The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution
(2nd ed., 1962). Supporting documents are contained in Edmund S. Morgan, ed.,
Prologue to Revolution: Sources and Documents on the Stamp Act Crisis, 1764–1766
(1959). The Boston Massacre has now been treated fully in Hiller B. Zobel,
The Boston Massacre
(1970), and the Boston Tea Party in Benjamin W. Labaree,
The Boston Tea Party
(1964). The only study on the committees of correspondence is an old and brief work by Edward D. Collins,
Committees of Correspondence of the American Revolution
(1902). Disgracefully, there is no overall history of the Sons of Liberty; as a result, we have to make do with a few sectional accounts: Roger Champagne, “The Military Association of the Sons of Liberty,”
New York Historical Society Quarterly
(1957), pp. 338–50; Champagne, “Liberty Boys and Mechanics of New York City, 1764–1774,”
Labor History
(1967), pp. 115–35; the older Herbert M. Morais, “The Sons of Liberty in New York,” in R. Morris, ed.,
The Era of the American Revolution
(1939), pp. 269–89; and the most substantial study, Richard Walsh’s
Charleston’s Sons of Liberty: A Study of the Artisans, 1763–1789
(1959). The battles of Lexington and Concord are treated fully in Arthur B. Tourtellot,
William Diamond’s Drum
(1959).

Turning to the individual colonies, Richard F. Upton’s
Revolutionary New Hampshire
(1936) has been supplemented by Jere R. Daniell,
Experiment in Republicanism: New Hampshire Politics and the American Revolution, 1741–1794
(1970); see also Lawrence S. Mayo,
John Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire, 1767–1775
(1921). Frederic F. Van de Water,
The Reluctant Republic: Vermont, 1724–1791
(1941), is a lively account of the Vermont rebellion; see also Chilton Williamson,
Vermont in Quandary, 1763–1825
(1949). For a biography
of the great Ethan Allen, John Pell’s
Ethan Allen
(1929) has been supplemented by Charles A. Jellison,
Ethan Allen
(1969).

Robert E. Brown,
Middle-Class Democracy and the Revolution in Massachusetts, 1691–1780
(1955), is a basic work, even though his stress on “democracy” is overdrawn. Rural Massachusetts is treated in Lee N.
Newcomer, The Embattled Farmers: A Massachusetts Countryside in the American Revolution
(1953), and in the important work by Robert J. Taylor,
Western Massachusetts in the Revolution
(1954). E. Francis Brown,
Joseph Hawley: Colonial Radical
(1931), is a biography of the revolutionary leader in western Massachusetts. Merchant families, on the other hand, are treated in Benjamin W. Labaree,
Patriots and Partisans: The Merchants of Newburyport, 1764–1815
(1962), and William T. Baxter,
The House of Hancock, Business in Boston, 1724–1774
(1945).

The great Sam Adams has been ill-served by his biographers: John C. Miller,
Sam Adams
(1936), under the influence of the “propaganda” school of historiography, is hostile and vituperative. John Adams, on the other hand, has had numerous biographers. Best for our purposes is Catherine Drinker Bowen,
John Adams and the American Revolution
(1950). Page Smith’s
John Adams
(2 vols., 1962), though mired in detail, is weak on Adams’ political and economic thought. Bernard Bailyn,
The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson
(1974), is sensitive, but overly sympathetic to the Tory Leader. The heroic Dr. Joseph Warren is treated in John Cary,
Joseph Warren: Physician, Politician, Patriot
(1961).

The outstanding work on Connecticut in this period is Oscar Zeichner,
Connecticut’s Years of Controversy, 1750–1776
(1949). The best account of Rhode Island politics in this era is David S. Lovejoy,
Rhode Island Politics and the American Revolution, 1760–1776
(1958); see also Mack E. Thompson, “The Ward-Hopkins Controversy and the American Revolution in Rhode Island: An Interpretation,”
William and Mary Quarterly
(1959), pp. 363–75.

Carl L. Becker’s
The History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760–1776
(1909) is a much criticized “Beardian” classic, but still the best work on New York political struggles in this era. Bernard Mason,
The Road to Independence: The Revolutionary Movement in New York, 1773–1777
(1966), presents a different interpretation, as do the later chapters of Patricia U. Bonomi,
A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York
(1971). However, the neo-Beardian approach to New York politics is rehabilitated in the early chapters of the brilliant work by Alfred F. Young,
The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763–1797
(1967). The indispensable work on land conflicts in New York is Irving Mark,
Agrarian Conflicts in Colonial New York, 1711–1775
(1940), which should be supplemented by the account of the New York tenant rising of 1766 in chapter three of Staughton Lynd,
Anti-Federalism in Dutchess County, New York: A Study of Democracy and Class Conflict in the Revolutionary Era
(1962); see also the early chapters of Bonomi,
A Factious People.
Dorothy Dillon,
The New York Triumvirate: A Study of the Legal and Political Careers of William Livingston, John Morin Scott, William Smith, Jr.
(1949), deals with the radical leadership in New York. The conservative figures are covered in biographies: George Dangerfield,
Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, 1746–1813
(1960); Frank Monaghan,
John Jay
(1935); Edward P. Alexander,
Revolutionary Conservative: James Duane of New York
(1938); and Max M. Mintz,
Gouverneur Morris and the American Revolution
(1970).

For New Jersey we must go to general works on the colonial period: Donald L. Kemmerer,
Path to Freedom: The Struggle for Self-Government in Colonial New Jersey, 1703–1776
(1940), supplemented by Richard P. McCormick,
New Jersey from Colony to State, 1609–1789
(1964).

Theodore Thayer,
Pennsylvania Politics and the Growth of Democracy, 1740–1776
(1953), is
the
book on Pennsylvania politics for this period. Although old, Charles H. Lincoln’s
The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania, 1760–1776
(1901) has not been replaced. Various aspects of Philadelphia life are treated in Frederick B. Tolles,
Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia
(1948); and Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh,
Rebels and Gentlemen: Philadelphia in the Age of franklin
(1942). Some rebel leaders have been treated: Burton A. Konkle’s
George Bryan and the Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1731–1791
(1922); David L. Jacobson,
John Dickinson and Revolution in Pennsylvania
(1965); and the great Charles Thomson in an article, John J. Zimmerman, “Charles Thomson: The Sam Adams of Philadelphia,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
(1958), p. 464. Of the innumerable works on Benjamin Franklin, the standard, though uncritical, account is Carl Van Doren,
Benjamin Franklin
(1938). For Delaware, we must still fall back on the unsatisfactory and aged John T. Scharf et al.,
History of Delaware, 1609–1888
(2 vols., 1888).

For politics in the southern colonies, John R. Alden,
The South in the Revolution, 1763–1789
(1957), is excellent. On Maryland, see Charles A. Barker,
The Background of the Revolution in Maryland
(1943); and James Haw, “Maryland Politics on the Eve of Revolution: The Provincial Controversy, 1770–1773.”
Maryland Historical Magazine
(1970), pp. 103–29.

The Parsons’ Cause and other Virginia grievances down to 1763 are treated in the latter chapters of volume two of Richard L. Morton’s excellent
Colonial Virginia
(1960). On the revisionist view of Virginia’s debts to British merchants, see J. H. Soltow, “Scottish Traders in Virginia, 1750–1775,”
Economic History Review
(1959), pp. 83–98; and Emory G. Evans, “Planter Indebtedness and the Coming of the Revolution in Virginia,”
William and Mary Quarterly
(1962), pp. 511–33. Charley S. Sydnor’s
Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington’s Virginia
(1952) is an excellent study of the political scene in the leading southern colony. On Patrick Henry, see the biography by Robert D. Meade,
Patrick Henry,
vol. 1 (1957); see also the older work by Moses Coit Tyler,
Patrick Henry
(1898), which includes long excerpts from Henry’s notable speeches. The great Richard Henry Lee now has found his biographer in Oliver P. Chitwood,
Richard Henry Lee: Statesman of the Revolution
(1968).

The literature on North Carolina is sparse. Robert D. W. Connor,
History of North Carolina,
vol. 1 (1919), covers the colonial and revolutionary periods. “The War of the Regulation: Its Place in History” (1942), an unpublished master’s theses, is the only modern study of the North Carolina Regulator movement. An earlier study is by John S. Bassett: “The Regulators of North Carolina, 1765–1771,” American Historical Association,
Annual Report
(1894), pp. 141–212.

South Carolina is better served. The classic history of the colony is Edward
McCrady,
The History of South Carolina Under the Royal Government, 1719–1776
(1899). The standard modern work is David D. Wallace,
History of South Carolina,
vol. 1 (1934). The only good history of the Sons of Liberty for any area is Richard Walsh,
Charleston’s Sons of Liberty: A Study of the Artisans, 1763–1789
(1959). The most recent study is Robert M. Weir,
“A Most Important Epoch”: The Coming of the Revolution in South Carolina
(1970). An excellent history of the South Carolina Regulators is Richard M. Brown,
The South Carolina Regulators
(1963). There is, unfortunately, no biography of the memorable Christopher Gadsden, although Richard Walsh has collected his
Writings, 1746–1805
(1966).

On the coming of the Revolution in Georgia, see Kenneth Coleman,
The American Revolution in Georgia, 1763–1789
(1958); see also Marjorie L. Daniel,
The Revolutionary Movement in Georgia, 1763–1777
(1937).

Index

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Acadians,
26

Adams, John,
72
,
107
,
135
,
155
,
180
,
183
,
193
,
198
,
206–7
,
250
,
257
,
267
,
273
,
285
,
296–7
,
316
,
318
,
320
,
335–6