THE REVOLUTION WITHIN C H A P T E R 6 A P U S H I S T O RY
TOWARD RELIGIOUS TOLERATION How did the Revolution impact religious freedom? The Revolution expanded religious freedoms!!! What about religious freedom before the Revolution? A few colonies, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, tolerated different religious groups and sects before the Revolution. How did the Revolution actually transform religious ideas? Before the Revolution: freedom to worship flowed from the reality of religious pluralism the diversity of beliefs found in the colonies. most colonies supported religious institutions with public funds. colonies discriminated against Catholics, Jews, and even dissenting Protestants in criteria for holding office. After the Revolution: the tradition of anti-catholicism weakened. Anglican privilege was questioned. the concept of separation of church and state was introduced to American political debates.
CATHOLIC AMERICANS How did the relationship between protestants and Catholics change in the Americas? The deep anti-catholicism of colonial America was weakened by the Revolution. In approving a plan to invade Canada, the Second Continental Congress invited the Catholic inhabitants of Quebec to join Protestant American revolutionaries. Once the Congress formed an alliance with the Catholic nation of France in 1778, and after France proved essential to American victory, Catholics were seen as having a role in the new nation.
The end of British rule immediately threw into question the position of the Anglican Church, with some such as Scotch- Irish Virginian farmers demanding relief from taxes to support it. Many of the leaders of the Revolution considered it vital to avoid the passions and violence that religious differences had inspired in the past. Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Hamilton believed that religion was necessary as a foundation for public morality, but viewed doctrine through an Enlightenment lens of rationalism and skepticism. The believed in a benevolent Creator but not in supernatural interventions into the human affairs. Jefferson wrote a version of the Bible and a life of Jesus that suggested he was not divine and did not perform miracles, and he rejected the biblical account of creation in favor of a prolonged process of geological change.
A 1771 image of New York City lists some of the numerous churches visible from the New Jersey shore, illustrating the diversity of religions practiced in the city. NEW YORK THE CITY OF
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE How does the idea of separation of church and state inspire this period? The push to separate church and state united Deists and evangelical Protestants Deists (Thomas Jefferson) were seeking a wall of separation to protect politics and intellect from religion. who sought to protect religion from the corruptions of government. Throughout the new United States, individual states deprived the established churches of their public funding and special legal privileges, and several state constitutions guaranteed the free exercise of religion. So, was free exercise of religion actually free? Not really! Religious toleration was far from universal. Every state except New York retained laws barring Jews from voting and holding office, and seven states banned all but Protestants from holding office. Massachusetts retained its Congregational establishment well into the nineteenth century. Catholics, however, gained the right to worship freely throughout the former colonies.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY & DIVERSITY Was the Revolution within America anti-religious? NO!!! Thomas Jefferson was an important figure in the advancement of religious liberty. In 1779, he wrote a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom for the Virginia legislature. Jefferson saw established churches as tyrannies that constrained free thought, and the bill eliminated religious requirements for voting and holding office, and government financial support for churches. Religious liberty became the model for the revolutionary generation s definition of rights as private matters to be protected from government. In a very Christian, but not very pious United States, the separation of church and state drew a line between public authority and a private sphere in which rights existed as a limitation on government power.
So, How does the Revolution truly impact the ideas of separation of church and state? The Revolution enhanced the diversity of American Christianity and expanded the idea of religious liberty. The separation of church and state allowed various types of religious institutions to flourish; however, the culture of individual rights threatened to undermine church authority. Example: the Moravian Brethren, who emigrated from Germany to North Carolina prior to independence, found that the youth of the community drew upon their new rights to deny traditional practices. How does religious freedom exhibit itself in the early American period? Religious freedom allowed the proliferation of denominations. Established churches found themselves continually challenged by upstarts like Baptists and Universalists. Bishop John Ettwein Moravian missionary in Pennsylvania. Today, the debate over the relationship between politics and faith still rages, and more than 1,300 religions are practiced in the United States.
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS & RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS Colonial leaders were not hostile to religion. Separation of church and state was not designed as an attack on religion. Religious and secular language merged during the struggle for independence. This merge in language created an outlook called Christian Republicanism. Most leaders of the American Revolution were devout Christians, and even Deists who did not attend an organized church believed that religious values reinforced the morality required for a republic to thrive. Some states continued to bar non-christians from political office and prosecute people for blasphemy or violating the Sabbath. Revolutionary leaders worried about the character of citizens, especially their virtue their ability to sacrifice self-interest for the public good. Some promoted free public schools as a way to prepare citizens for a civic life of participation in government required of a free people.
LOYALISTS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Not all Americans experienced the Revolution and its effects as an expansion of freedom. Individuals who maintained their allegiance to the British crown, called Loyalists, lost their liberties. Many Loyalists, which included men and women from all social classes, had supported resistance in the 1760s, but opposed independence and war. About 20 to 25 percent of free Americans were Loyalists, and 20,000 Loyalists fought for the British. Although there were Loyalists in every colony, they were most numerous in New York, Pennsylvania, and the backcountry of Georgia and the Carolinas. The American Revolution took on the quality of a civil war in some places. Neighbors intimidated and assaulted each other. Pacifists who refused to bear arms were arrested, and their property seized. Many states required oaths of allegiance, and those who refused were stripped of their voting rights or expelled. Some Loyalists had their property confiscated and sold at auction to merchants, lawyers, and established landowners. Tenants unable to afford the purchase price of the property they worked had no choice but to continue their labor for the new owners.
REVOLUTION & THE BORDERLANDS What happened to Loyalists after the Revolution? Loyalists were banished or emigrated voluntarily from the United States. Most went to Britain, Canada, or the West Indies Under the Treaty of Paris (1783): Americans pledged to end their persecution of Loyalists. Americans pledged to restore Loyalist property seized during the war American leaders believed the new nation needed to begin with fairness and civility: oaths for voting and office-holding were repealed Loyalists were blended into society (though their property was not returned as promised).
How did Loyalists impact Canada? Loyalists had a profound impact on Canadian development as they brought ideas of self-rule and more responsible government with them. Loyalist ideas helped launch rebellions (albeit, unsuccessful) in 1837 that led to the creation of a single Canadian government in 1867. The US-Quebec border was transformed from a colonial line to an international border. Without this transformation, the refuge slaves found in Canada after the war, and in the nineteenth century, would not have been possible; Irish nationalists likewise found the United States a refuge from British rule and a base to launch raids to strike a blow against the rule of their homeland. Loyalist exiles were viewed as Canadian founding fathers, and Canada came to identify its identity in opposition to the United States, though good ideas always flowed easily between the two (today, each country is the other s largest trading partner). Shelburne, Nova Scotia = early loyalist retreat in Canada.
Indians in particular faced the Revolution as a loss of freedom. Between the Proclamation of 1763 and the American Revolution, colonists continued to move westward and claim Indian lands east of the Mississippi. Many leaders in the Revolution, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were deeply involved in western land speculation, and British efforts to restrain land speculation was a major grievance of the Virginians supporting independence. Different Indian tribes backed the British or the Americans in the conflict, and some tribes like the Iroquois split internally over the war, and fought each other. Both the Americans and their Indian enemies inflicted atrocities on each other and civilians during the war. Independence created state governments that were democratically accountable to voters who wanted Indian lands. Many, including Thomas Jefferson, saw the war as an opportunity to secure more land and liberty for white Americans by expelling or conquering the Indians. The Treaty of Paris marked the end of a process whereby power in eastern North America moved from Indians to white Americans. Limiting the British in eastern North America to Canada, the agreement led the British to abandon their Indian allies and recognized American sovereignty over the entire region east of the Mississippi River, disregarding the natives who lived there. For Indians, on the other hand, freedom meant independence and possession of their own land, and they used Americans language of liberty to defend themselves.
DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY Women contributed to the struggle for national independence. At least one woman disguised herself as a man, enlisted in the Continental army, and fought in several battles. Other patriot women protested merchants charging high prices, made homespun goods for the army, or passed information about the British to the rebel army. Other women formed Ladies Associations to raise funds for American soldiers. The conflict pulled women into private and sometimes public political discussion, as was the case with Abigail Adams, a shrewd analyst of public affairs. Mercy Otis Warren was a famous commentator on politics, promoting the revolutionary cause through her writing and later publishing a history of the struggle for independence. Gender remained an important boundary of freedom in America. Independence did not change the family law inherited from Britain. Husbands still held legal authority over the body, property, and choices of their wives. While political freedom for men meant the right to self-government and consent over the political arrangements that ruled over them, for women the marriage contract was more important than the social contract. Women s relationship to society was mediated through her relationship to her husband. Women lacked the essential basis of political participation autonomy founded on property ownership or control over one s own person. Most men considered women naturally submissive and irrational, and therefore unfit for citizenship. Public debate in the revolutionary era saw men s rights as natural entitlements. A woman s role was viewed in terms of duty and obligations, and her rights flowed from her roles of wife and mother. By definition, the republican citizen was male.
REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD The Revolution improved the status of many women, however. The ideology of republican motherhood produced by the Revolution gave women the responsibility to train future citizens. Revolutionary leaders believed that the nation s morality would be developed by women within the household and family. While it ruled out women s direct participation in politics, republican motherhood did encourage the expansion of women s educational opportunities. It also strengthened the emerging ideal of companionate marriage, in which marriages were cemented by affection and mutual dependency, rather than male authority. The Revolution also changed family structure. While slaves, as dependents on the male head of household, remained part of the owners family, hired wage workers in the North replacing indentured servants and apprentices who had once been considered family members, were not seen as part of the household. The Revolution changed the lives of all Americans. On one hand, the right to vote expanded for white men. Bound labor among whites declined, religious groups had greater freedoms, and blacks challenged slavery. On the other hand, Indians, Loyalists, and slaves experienced the Revolution as a loss of freedom. Many Americans saw the Revolution as a struggle for freedom with worldwide significance. The Revolution inspired other fights for national independence and social equality, from the French Revolution to the Haitian Revolution and the Latin American wars for independence. But the struggle over the meaning of freedom within the United States continued long after independence had been won.