The Great American Revolution; R. Bradford

RALPH BRADFORD The Great American Revolution IT HAS BECOME the fashion in our country to refer to every change or proposal for change as a "revo lution." When farmers first began to set up organizations to promote their interests it was dubbed the Farm Revolution. The movement to se cure for black citizens the rights to which they are entitled was soon referred to as the Black Rev olution. People of late have become aware of the dangers that lurk in water and air pollution; and so, in press and on television the Eco logical Revolution has blossomed. Students become disenchanted with some course of study, or with dor mitory arrangements; and when they become voca.l about it - 10, there is a Campus Revolution! And so it goes, ad nauseum. Let anybody advocate a sharp change of some kind, whether in the meth od of electing a congressman or Mr. Bradford is well known as a writer, speaker, and business organization consultant. He now lives in Ocala, Florida.

choosing a village alderman, whether the aim is to lower prices, or to cut taxes, or to get better fire protection, or whatever, in no time at all he will be said to be heading a "revolution." As a result of this resort to rhetorical pyrotechnics the word "revolution" has become common place, bland, watered-down - and dangerously deceptive. With re spect to the real implications of revolution we have gone off into a kind of semantic euphoria. The word not only has no terror for us; it has become a mere symbol of change - change that may be somewhat sudden, dramatic and far-reaching, to be sure, but is on the whole beneficial and in the line of human progress and betterment. This of. course is an illusion, a self-deception of tragic signifi can-ce. All Americans and their in stitutionsare the worse for it, be cause they are imperiled by it. Several years ago an American politician who had a.chieved con siderable eminence, and who at 387 388 THE FREEMAN July least had the merit of making po litical debate a more literate exer cise, made a trip through several of the South American countries.

Whereve~r he saw evidence of poli t ical progress, or even discerned signs of impending change that he thought would be beneficial, he trotted out the "revolutionary" symbolism. The United States had been born of a revolution; we sym pathized with the aspirations of all people who were trying to bet ter their condition; and, in short, it seemed he was all for bigger and better revolutions among our southern neighbors. Was he an incendiary, inciting those people to violence? Not at all. He was a gentle man who, I am sure, abhorred violence. The trouble was that he was using the word "revolution" in its watered-down sense. He was thinking of better government, probably some social security type legislation, some much-needed slum clearance, more and better education, wider ob servance of democratic procedures, and the like. He did not realize, apparently, that to most of his lis teners "revolution" didn't mean the peaceful substitution of what he would call "progressive" ideas for what he considered "reaction ary" ones. To mqst of them the term meant civil strife, political upheaval, barricades, blood in the streets, fire in the palace, and shouts of a la pared - to the wall with them!

Americans who talk glibly of the "revolution" they hope to see (meaning, of course, the adoption of their particular brand of polit ical or economic salvation) need to understand that in much of the world, especially in the Marxist domina ted areas, there is nothing mild, bland, peaceful, gradual or merely "progressive" about the in terpretation of that word. It is also clear, alas, that there is a growing element right here at home who measure revolution in the same scales, as their bombs, fires and rhetoric abundantly testi fy. No doubt there are some well meaning people, both here and abroad, who see in Marxism only a peaceful, if somewhat drastic, political and economic program just another philosophy of govern ment. But such people are hopeless dupes. No matter how mild-man nered he may seem to be, cross a Marxist and you are apt to get the vituperative scorn of intolerance; scratch him and you get the blood of a revolutionist. He doesn't con template a nice, friendly, gradual and evolutionary reordering of so ciety. He means action, violent ac tion - fire, bombs, executions and the iron heel - all, of course, in the name of justice and humanity.

Is this an exaggeration? Ask of the ghosts of those Russian farm1975 THE GREAT AMERICAN REVOLUTION 389 ers, the kulaks, who were "liqui dated" by the millions, their crime being that they owned a little land and did not want to have it taken away from them. Ask at the graves of those nameless Chinese peasants who were mowed down by the murderous fire of Mao's execu tioners. Ask the people of Latvia; ask the Estonians; ask the Hun garians; ask the family or friends of those East Germans whose only offense was their desire to escape to freedom, and who left their bul let-shattered bodies beside the im prisoning Wall as testimony to the brutal efficiency of "revolution." At this mention of the Berlin Wall and its victims, someone may well summon up the specter of HitIer, and remind us that blood and tears and unspeakable cruelty were practiced by that madman and his goons - and that theirs was not a communist regime. And the answer is: quite true - and beside the point. Or rather, in sup port of the point. In the first place, the Hitlerian movement started out as a socialist putsch. Even the hated name Nazi was only an ab breviation of the German for Na tional Socialist. But it soon went far beyond the relatively mild pro posals of the English Fabians and became a totalitarian dictatorship.

And it achieved its ends by revo lution - not so declared, but so ex ecuted. From the Marxist point of view it was a revolution in re verse; but it was a revolution, none the less. The techniques of brutal ity practiced by the Russian and Chinese revolutionaries of the left were equally effective instruments for the German revolution of the right. What' 5 to Celebrate? Now I can imagine someone echoing an old and familiar re frain: "But why get excited about revolution? Our nation is a prod uct of revolution. Right now we are beginning a year-long celebra tion of .... " Of what, friend? A revolution? That's what a lot of people think and say, because our long-ago War for Independence got tagged in the history books as a "revolutionary" war. It was not that at all, in the true sense of the word. * It was a fight for independence, not for radical social and economic change. The Colonial leaders were not out to rewrite the laws of England.

They didn't propose to abolish Parliament, or fire the Prime Min ister, or sink the Royal Navy. They had many grievances against King George, and they set them forth boldly; but they didn't suggest de throning him. They didn't want to destroy him, either as king or * See the author's article "The Great Anniversary Festival" in the May, 1975 issue of The Freeman.

390 THE FREEMAN July man, any more than they wanted to destroy the British government. They simply wanted to be free of both - to escape the frustrations imposed by a nagging and rather stupid bureaucracy. They were quite content to see the mother country survive and prosper ; and when they had finally won their war and achieved Independence, they based their institutions and philosophy of government on the same concepts of individual liberty that had long been dear to the hearts of Englishmen. Actually the "revolution" that we ought to venerate was not a thing of armies and battles. Nor did it begin, as orators like to as sert, with those shots that were fired " by the rude bridge" - shots that were "heard round the world." That episode, and even the bloody fighting at Bunker Hill, were but tragic small scenes in a continuing drama that had started long before. Some forty years later, an aged John Adams, looking back, was to write that even the war with Eng land was "no part of the Revolu tion." And he went on to assert that "the Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington."

Maybe the old gentleman retro spectively overestimated the sentiment that prevailed during those fifteen years. Probably most of the people were not greatly agi tated in their "hearts and minds." Impatient - yes. Disgusted - to be sure. Fed up - of course. But such disgruntlement is not the stuff of revolution, which must be fed with the fires of fundamental beliefs and convictions. Even in 1776 there was yet no overwhelming desire fvr the radical change of independ ence, and small appetite for a war to achieve it - and this despite great indignation over the irritat ing small tyrannies (and some great ones) of a. succession of stu pid British ministries. The Idea of Liberty But in a deeper sense the "hearts and minds" phrase was significant; and its symbolism reached much farther back than the fifteen years Adams mentioned. It covered' the whole life-span of the Colonials, and that of their grandparents. For there was a revolution going on and slowly coming to maturity, in the thinking of men concerning the in stitution of government, their prop er relationship to it, and its effect upon their welfare and happiness.

The philosophy back of that "rev olution" had be'en dimly apprehend ed by many and brillianty ex pressed by a few, back through the years. Even crusty Samuel J ohn son, no friend of American Inde1975 THE GREAT AMERICAN REVOLUTION 391 pendence, was a stout exponent of individual liberty, the desire for which was at the core of the Ameri can cause, not only during the war years, but in the attitude of the Colonials for decades before. And nearly a century before the Second Continental Congress form ulated its great "Declaration, John Locke had written that "rulers hold their power not absolutely but con ditionally, government being essen tially a. moral trust, forfeited if the conditions are not followed by the trustees." That principle, near ly a century later, was to be the es sence of the Colonial position. In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson phrased it thus: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ... governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The words were the Vir ginian's; the sentiments were those of Locke, rephrased but identical a.s to purport - which was that the citizen and not the government is the source of authority; and that it, not he, is the creature. It was the sentiment foreshadowed long before Locke in the Petition of Right, the Second Magna Carta, so to speak, which was wrung from Charles I in 1628.

The specific findings of that land mark document dealt with very practical and mundane matters. Taxes were to be levied only with the consent of Parliament, which represented the people, rather than the Crown. A man's home was his castle, inviolable by the military. No martialla w could be imposed in time of peace. Trial by jury was guaranteed to all. These are all things that are now taken for granted; but they were won for the masses of men only by long, stubborn, and sometimes painful, persistence. They were often flout ed in later years, these principles; but they were never forgotten and never abandoned by Englishmen. It was the passion for individual lib erty embodied in such findings that was the real American revolution - long developing over the decades, and now in 1776 come once more to the test of sacrifice and the harsh proof of war. Framing a Constitution And when the struggle for In dependence was won, and the weary but victorious Colonials set out to formulate and establish their own new nation, they clung to those simple but powerful "revolution ary" ideas. To a constitutional con vention they sent men who were thoroughly acquainted with the physical make-up and political needs of the young nation. They were also men who were generally well versed in the writings of the great social and political philoso phers of their century - not only 392 THE FREEMAN July with John Locke whose "social con tract" philosophy was at the heart of Anglo-American political ideals, but with the eminent French mag istrate and essayist,. the Baron de Montesquieu, whose doctrine of the separation of the legislative, execu ti ve and judicial functions of gov ernment became a cornerstone of American policy, and with the work of Sir William Blackstone, the noted expounder of law in terms of its human impact.

The wisdom of these men and other sages, plus their own broad experience in government and their passion for freedom and justice, was put by the delegates into the making of a Constitution for the new republic - a document gener ally regarded, not only here but throughout the world, as the nearest thing to perfection yet achieved in the realm of fund a mental law. Note please the slight qualification in that phrase "the nearest thing." Nobody I suppose, would claim it is perfect. It has some vague areas and some con tradictions. More than one Presi dent has had difficulty· reconciling some of its particular provisions with its overall declaration of pur poses - as when Lincoln, in order to "insure domestic tranquility," suspended the right of habeas cor pus - an action that was clearly in violation of certain Articles of the Bill of Rights. But such problems are to be expected in a complex society - which is one reason why the President is the Chief Execu tive. It is part of his job to cut Gordian knots. He will be called on from time to time to make close decisions, and must occasionally determine whether the specific pro vision of some perfectly good and sound Article is at that particular moment outweighed by the gen eral - welfare - common - defense domestic-tranquility clause. That's why he is there. And besides, there is always final recourse to the Su preme Court, which was created by the Constitution itself to resolve all such soul-searching dilemmas.

The Test of Time At all events, there it stands, the mainstay of fundamental law. Anlended from time to time to meet current needs (and sometimes to satisfy current prejudices), and buttressed by its integral Bill of Rights, it has served a growing, geographically expanding nation for 187 years and is still alive and well. Under it the nation gre\v great and strong domestically, and reached also a position of world leadership. It withstood the shat tering experience of the Civil War, weathered the stresses of two de vasta ting world conflicts, and has served as a guide to many of the so-called emerging nations of the present generation. Even the most 1975 THE GREAT AMERICAN REVOLUTION 393 shattering crisis of our history, involving a change of leadership under conditions that could have been utterly demoralizing, only served to demonstrate the strength and dependability of the political system which it embodies.

All this is not meant to be a starry-eyed exercise in jingoistic patriotism. Our nation is, after all, governed by men - biped creatures of limited intelligence and fallible judgment, like the citizens who elect them to office. Political man especially, being strongly ego-cen tered, can not always be expected to place the public interest above his o\vn. We have had our political trickeries, our scandals, our crooks, our criminals, our injustices. We have also made our national blun ders in both domestic and foreign affairs. All of which is simply to say that we are human beings, "\vho sin and err in about the same ratio of imperfection as is exhibited by other peoples of our beautiful Blue Planet. But a point to remember is that our country was not· supposed to be inhabited by supermen. The framers of our basic law had no idea of founding another Utopia. They were not erecting an eleemo synary institution, nor building a house of correction. They were not out to make men perfect. They were intent only on creating a gov ernmental mechanism under which men, perfect or otherwise, would be free to realize their full poten tial-to gain whatever status of wealth, achievement or intellectual attainment their abilities would enable them to achieve.

To dream up such a state, endow it with all powers necessary for sovereignty, yet limit and hedge those powers about with provisions for the protection of the average citizen ; to provide an ambiance for the fullest development of which men are capable, and yet leave them free to do with their lives what seems best to them; to exact of them only that minim urn of conformity necessary for the protection of all; in a word, to create a governmental condition for the greatest possible exercise and enjoyment of personal free dom - this was the dream, this was the practical reality, this was the final outcome of "The Great American Revolution." The question now to be answered by the American people is, Shall the dream endure? Shall the "rev olution" continue to bear its fruit of freedom and opportunity? Or shall our nation, like other great States, ancient and modern, sink slowly under the burden of polit ical expediency, bureaucratic am bition, unlimited debt, and ruinous inflation?

Viva the Revolution! The real one, that is.