The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn

With the Anti-Federalists acting as a kind of conscience, Bailyn argues that the Constitution was largely successful at creating a balanced governmental system. Bailyn argues that the Constitution represents the “final and climactic expression of the ideology of the American Revolution” (321) and that the debate over how strong the new national government would be again illustrates that the ideological origins of the Revolution were rooted in the idea that liberty could not survive if corrupt leaders held too much power (330).

Following this, the United States went about the process of debating and creating a national constitution and constructing a new and more powerful system of government. Bailyn emphasizes that American colonists had a constant suspicion that corruption within British government would lead to a decline in liberty (Bailyn later ties this same argument to Anti-Federalist fears that too much power in a central government would lead to the same result).įrom 1776 through the 1780s, Bailyn asserts, a second phase of ideological development occurred, with state constitutions and the Articles of Confederation serving as opportunities for Americans to experiment with the implementation of republican ideologies, to mixed effect. The first, the pre-Revolution phase, led to the eventual determination by many colonists that their colonial relationship with Britain had to be severed in order for them to pursue a future free of conspiracy against liberty. Bailyn posits that this ideological trajectory can be generally grouped into 3 phases. They then debated, challenged, and revised these ideas in public, most often with the written word. While Bailyn argues for the predominance of ideology as the impetus for Revolution, he emphasizes that the so-called “Founding Fathers,” while well educated, did not form an entirely new philosophical school, but instead culled ideas from a variety of sources. At the time, this assertion struck a blow against the prevailing and popular interpretation advanced by Charles Beard, who argued that economic class conflict propelled American colonists into war and separation from Britain. In this book, Bernard Bailyn broadly argues that the American Revolution was ultimately motivated by ideological change rather than simple economic or social motivation. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn