With up to nine million protesters on the streets in March protesting against Trump under the No Kings banner – more than the US population at the time of the nation’s founding war of liberation against the British monarchy – CHRISTINE THOMAS takes a timely look at America’s struggle for independence.
In his history of the Russian revolution Leon Trotsky wrote that one of the main characteristics of a revolution is the entrance of the masses onto the scene of history. In this respect, the struggle for independence from British imperialism by the 13 colonies that were to eventually constitute the United States of America was indeed a revolution.
Today, however, with the USA celebrating 250 years since its Declaration of Independence against the backdrop of a system in deep crisis, many capitalist commentators will inevitably try to ignore or downplay its revolutionary aspect, fearing the incendiary effect it could have on a discontented US working class. But there is no denying America’s revolutionary legacy and the potential confidence it could give to the struggles of working people today.
Severing the chains that tied the American colonies to Britain and creating an independent nation state – a bourgeois democratic revolution – was a necessary precondition for the growth of the USA as a global capitalist power. And from an historical point of view, only through the massive development of the productive forces that the bourgeois revolution ushered in could the basis be laid for a future socialist revolution and the working class taking power in society.
However, when the revolutionary process began in the mid-18th century the leaders of the revolution were acting mostly unconsciously, pushed eventually into declaring independence by an accumulation of grievances against the British state, but without a clear understanding of the historical role they were playing. And just as the embryonic English bourgeois had done in their revolution from 1640, and the French were to go on to do in 1789, they were forced to lean on the masses, who had their own distinct class interests, to fight their battles.
Crown and colonies
A qualitative turning point in the relationship between Britain, the strongest global imperial power, and its North American colonies came about with the ending of the Seven Years’ war, a global clash from 1756-63 between competing European powers that spanned over five continents. This resulted in the defeat of the French, and the assertion of British dominance over North America. Britain’s colonial possessions were run on the basis of mercantilism – maximising the wealth and profits of British manufacturers, merchants and financiers. As a consequence, in the American colonies all kinds of constraints and obstacles were placed on the development of trade and on manufacturing – which was mostly small-scale and carried out by independent artisans and mechanics. These restrictions included banning the production of certain goods; forcing the importation of expensive British products; restricting who colonial merchants could trade with; imposing borrowing from British banks – which particularly affected the southern planters who became increasingly indebted, and whose produce, cultivated by black slave labour, was sold exclusively to the British market.
Capitalist market relations had gradually developed over many years within a colonial system imposed by Britain and resting on a wealthy, privileged ‘Tory’ elite of large landowners and Crown officials. Forming part of the British empire did afford the embryonic capitalist classes in the colonies some benefits – many of the economic restrictions were not always strictly imposed and sections of the northern merchants in particular became very rich, especially during the Seven Years’ war. But with the ending of the war, the infringements on their freedom to produce and trade became more keenly felt. They no longer needed the protection of the British Crown against the French, Spanish and Native Americans as they had done previously. But also, Britain no longer needed to make concessions to the colonists in order to win their support in the fight against its imperial rivals.
In a situation of post-war depression, the British parliament decided to tighten control over the colonies and increase taxes to pay for the cost of the war – which had resulted in an almost doubling of the national debt – while at the same time benefiting British merchants and manufacturers at the expense of those in North America. The colonists were legally prevented from expanding into Native American lands in the west, particularly affecting planters and farmers; customs regulations were more strictly enforced; a standing army of 10,000 men was to be imposed, paid for by colonial taxes, including a sugar tax. But the trigger for the first mass resistance came with the passing of the Stamp Act by the British parliament in 1765, during which many of the key features of the revolution that were to later intensify began to be delineated.
Building the resistance
The Act decreed that most paper in the colonies had to bear a stamp – a tax on legal documents, newspapers and even playing cards, paid for with hard currency, not colonial paper money. Opposition to the Stamp Act united the northern merchants with the southern slave owners, who came together in the Stamp Act Congress, with 27 delegates from nine colonies – ten merchants, ten lawyers and seven planters or farmers – and agreed to petition Parliament and King George III for the Act to be repealed.
It was not just the immediate economic implications that fuelled resistance to the Act but the fact that for the first time the British parliament, which had no representation from the colonies, was imposing a direct tax on the colonists’ internal affairs. These were considered the responsibility of the various colonial assemblies controlled by the ‘propertied classes’, which had developed over many years, alongside the system of Crown representatives and officials. “For if our trade may be taxed why not our lands? Why not the produce of our lands and everything we possess or make use of?” declared Samuel Adams, one of the most militant leaders of the resistance, based in Boston. Thus the call for ‘No taxation without representation’.
Although 90% of the around three million population of the 13 colonies were involved in the agricultural sector, it was in the five main cities that the most combative struggle took place – Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Newport, and Charleston in the south. In addition to the merchants, planters, farmers and professionals such as lawyers and publishers, the resistance also roused the urban artisans, mechanics and shopkeepers, as well as wage labourers and even servants and seamen – all of whom also had their own grievances against issues such as food shortages, unemployment, economic competition, and abuse of power by the ‘King’s men’ and the rich elite.
While the more conservative merchants concentrated their activities on petitioning and boycotting British goods, looking for any opportunity for compromise or conciliation, the more radical merchants, organised in particular in the ‘Sons of Liberty’, understood that to defeat the Act it was necessary to build mass support across the whole of society. Consequently, they leant on the urban masses, successfully channelling the anger of the ‘middling’ stratum as well as the poorer layers of society to create a broad-based, cross-class movement directed against a ‘common enemy’ – the British parliament.
It was the actions of these urban masses which made the Stamp Act unenforceable: destroying buildings designated as Stamp Offices, burning effigies, harassing and ransacking the homes of Stampmasters – compelling almost all of them to resign – while the more radical merchant leaders balanced precariously between encouraging the mass action needed to defeat the Act and restraining the movement from going beyond what they considered acceptable boundaries, ie, not just venting anger at the rich elite associated with British rule but challenging their own wealth and property.
When the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766 the Sons of Liberty effectively disbanded. The aim of all the leaders of the movement had been to put pressure on Britain to make concessions so that the colonial system could work as they thought it should, not to overthrow it. At this opening stage of the revolutionary process they still considered themselves loyal subjects of the British Crown and it would take several more years of struggle for them to move from reform to armed insurrection.
The resistance grows
A new period of resistance exploded between 1767-70 when the British state passed the Townshend Acts. These were a series of laws imposing taxes on imports from Britain in order to pay for colonial officials, and aimed at greater enforcement of customs and trade regulations, as well as preventing the New York assembly from passing any bills in retaliation for its failure to provide housing and food to British troops, as stipulated in the Quartering Act. Once again the Sons of Liberty sprang into action, setting up Committees of Correspondence that coordinated the struggle across the colonies. While this was initially launched with petitioning, the central tactic of the rebellion was colonial merchants agreeing to boycott British imports, beginning in Boston and then rapidly spreading to other ports.
Monster town and public meetings mobilised the masses who once again took matters into their own hands – boycotting merchants who didn’t go along with non-importation; burning British ships; and tarring and feathering customs officials and other King’s officers. In a qualitative change from the preceding Stamp Act agitation, the non-importation campaign contained elements of dual power, as the associations took on administrative functions such as inspecting merchants’ papers and imposing sanctions on those who didn’t comply. Even when Boston was quiet “the power was entirely in the hands of the leaders of the people and everyone’s security depended on their caprice” (quoted in From Resistance to Revolution by Pauline Maier).
While the colonial militias, a ‘law and order’ force essentially made up of armed local people, had for the most part refused to be deployed against the Stamp Act ‘unrest’, this time Britain responded to the threat to its authority by sending in troops to occupy Boston, resulting in the killing of five civilians in the 1770 ‘Boston massacre’. This increase in repressive measures by Britain to maintain its control over the colonies led to the first tentative demands within the movement for military preparation to defend the colonists against ‘tyranny’ and ‘despotic’ power.
Repression increases
The wealthy merchants, in contrast, fearing both the masses and a direct confrontation with Britain, became more conservative as the struggle grew in scope and intensity, and the boycott of British goods was eventually broken by the merchants in New York. Nevertheless, the taxes were repealed, except for those on tea, so that, in the words of then British prime minister Lord North, Britain could assert “the right of taxing Americans”. A two-year pause in the movement was ended in 1773 when in an attempt to save the East India company from bankruptcy the Tea Act was passed by the British parliament, giving the company a monopoly over the American tea market. Now mass action reached its zenith. In the ‘Boston tea party’, surrounded by thousands of supporters, the Sons of Liberty, climbed on board British ships in Boston harbour and dumped around 340 chests of tea into the sea.
In response to what was considered treasonable action on the part of the colonists Britain ratcheted up repression through the Intolerable Acts. These were aimed at crushing the rebellion at its epicentre – Massachusetts – by removing the state’s democratic right to govern itself and placing it directly under the control of the Crown. These ‘Coercive Acts’ – closely associated with the King himself – were seen as a threat to the right of self-determination of all of the colonial states. Far from throttling the resistance, they shattered illusions that King George would defend their colonial rights against the ‘arbitrary’ action of parliament, and pushed the leaders of the movement into convening the first Continental Congress in 1774 – a parallel cross-colony governmental power that directly challenged Britain’s authority and control.
The colonists’ leaders had tried petitioning and peaceful mass action in their opposition to British laws. They had put their faith in King George and in the ‘radical’ leaders in Britain, like John Wilkes, who voiced both the interests of a section of merchants and the London masses – but to no avail. Now a struggle for national independence, arms in hand if necessary, seemed the only option left for a section of the leaders of the movement. After battles with British troops at Concord and Lexington in April 1775, the Continental Congress organised the militias into a central Continental Army, under the command of George Washington – one of the wealthiest men in the colonies – and ordered the drawing up of a Declaration of Independence that was publicly announced on 4 July 1776.
The revolutionary war that ensued lasted eight years, pitting ‘Patriots’, later supported by French troops and backed by Spain, against the British army, backed by German mercenaries, and Britain finally surrendered, recognising the independence of the United States of America, in 1783. This was a war for national liberation, led by the nascent capitalist classes in the 13 colonies and resting on the masses. But it was also a civil war, with most of the wealthiest colonists, the large landowners and richest merchants – the ‘Loyalists’ – some of whom had initially supported the mass action against unjust taxation, backing Britain.
It is estimated that 30% of the American colonial population actively supported independence, 30% were on the side of Britain, and the remaining 30% were indifferent or vacillating in between. But it was a situation in constant flux, often depending on which side was victorious or defeated in the various battles being fought. Black Americans, both freemen and slaves fought on both sides. Initially George Washington refused to allow even freed blacks to fight in the Continental Army. In fact, although needing the masses to be the cannon fodder for the revolutionary war, the wealthy leaders wanted to keep tight control over the ranks and avoid an organised movement coalescing like that of the Levellers during the English revolution. The Patriot forces were never more than 90,000, and sometimes much lower. But when the British opportunistically promised black slaves their freedom in return for fighting with the Loyalists, Washington then allowed blacks to fight from 1778. Around 13,000 Native Americans also fought on the side of the British, motivated by fear of what independence for the colonies would mean for their lands.
Ideological battle
At every crucial stage of the revolutionary process – the agitation against the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts and the Tea Act – it had been the masses that had propelled the movement forward, and it was the masses that were to do the bulk of the fighting in the revolutionary war, and suffer the most hardships. But how to convince them in sufficient numbers to make the necessary sacrifices? To risk disease, injury and death? To put up with the lack of military equipment and clothing, the class inequalities between officers and the rank and file of the Continental Army, and the incompetence of the military leaders? To tolerate having to bear the major burden of financing the war?
For most of the leaders of the revolution, independence meant the freedom to accumulate wealth, without the restrictions of British control. They needed to persuade the masses that they had a common interest in ‘liberty’. To this end, the pamphlet Common Sense, by English born writer and philosopher Tom Paine – which was published six months before the Declaration of Independence – together with his subsequent writings, effectively codified a programme for the revolution, promoting independence, Republicanism (‘no Kings’), equality and democracy.
Selling a total of 300,000 out of a population of around 3 million, Common Sense helped mobilise sections of the masses for the long revolutionary war against Britain. The Declaration of Independence itself stated that “All men were created equal and endowed with inalienable rights”, promising “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Of course, this declaration of equality and democracy excluded women, black slaves and Native Americans. But the middle classes and ‘propertyless’ white males and free blacks projected their own interests onto these declarations, hoping that in addition to political rights, independence would provide them with land, more equitable taxes, a better economic environment for their small businesses, and material improvements in their lives.
What kind of state?
Yet those who had done most of the fighting were the ones to gain least from the outcome of the revolution. In the newly created United States of America the economically dominant classes now used their political control to shape a nation state which could defend and promote their own interests – with a federal government, its own legal system, a national bank (established in 1791), and central army.
The remnants of feudal trappings and previously dominant hierarchical relations based on personal patronage and social obligations – which had been grafted on to the colonies from the ‘motherland’ – were swept away as capitalist relations had more space to develop, freed from the constraints of British rule. The huge estates of the Loyalist landowners and colonial aristocracy were confiscated and divided up. This land reform particularly benefited the wealthy leaders of the revolution. However, together with a loosening of restrictions on seizing land in the west, it also allowed a certain social basis of support for the new ruling classes to be created amongst small farmers and those desperate for the ‘independence’ of their own plot of land.
Nevertheless, the underlying discontent of the masses erupted to the surface in 1787 in an armed uprising of around 4,000 war veterans and small farmers in Western Massachusetts, triggered by growing indebtedness and overburdening taxes, and in which the idea of property being held in common began to be raised. ‘Shay’s Rebellion’ was eventually crushed, but it represented a foretaste of bitter struggles to come amongst the oppressed and exploited layers in US society.
At that stage of the development of the productive forces, the uprising and demand for ‘property held in common’ could only be defeated. The disparate masses did not have the social cohesion that could push the struggle further than it went. That could only come with the rise of industrial capitalism and the development of an industrial working class, with a common role in the productive process, and the potential for a common class consciousness.
It was against the background of Shay’s rebellion that the US Constitution was rapidly and secretly drawn up by the wealthy property owners in the Constitutional Convention. The inspirational “pursuit of happiness” extolled in the Declaration of Independence was now replaced with the ‘defence of private property rights’ required by the economically dominant classes. One of the ‘founding fathers’, James Madison, wrote to another, Thomas Jefferson, that “to secure the public good and private rights against the danger of the propertyless or proletarians and at the same time preserve the spirit and form of popular government was then the great object to which the Convention’s inquiries were directed”.
Those who argued for a strong national government that could prevent or quash rebellion by the ‘mob’, later dubbed ‘Federalists’, won out over the ‘Anti-Federalists’ advocating for a weaker central government. Although the franchise was widened in most states, property qualifications were only completely abolished in Pennsylvania, and these voting restrictions were incorporated nationally. Only the House of Representatives was to be directly elected by all of the people who had the right to vote, not the Senate nor the President, who was granted strong powers by the Constitution, particularly concerning the appointment of officials and judges, but was to be elected indirectly by an electoral college of state legislators, not by the popular vote.
Such was the widespread anger against a Constitution that was seen to represent a backlash against the original democratic and egalitarian ideas of the revolution, it was only passed after the promise of additional amendments – the Bill of Rights – granting civil liberties such as freedom of speech, press, assembly etc, and the right to keep and bear arms. Although the subsequent passing of the Sedition Act, and the whole history of state repression, now ratcheted up under Donald Trump, has shown that whether or not those freedoms are exercised in practice depends on struggle and the balance of class forces in society.
The new state was, in fact, a compromise between the merchants and commercial interests of the north and the slave-owning planters in the south. A paragraph in the Declaration of Independence had initially included a criticism of the slave trade but that was removed. The northern merchants and traders, the forerunners of industrial capitalists, were prepared to leave slavery intact in exchange for a central state that favoured their economic interests. In fact, the slave system was given a boost by the rise of the cotton industry in Britain and the westward expansion in the US, and the ‘Slavocracy’, resting on the support of the small farmers, politically dominated all the main state institutions from 1800 until the American Civil War – although without dismantling all of the gains that that the nascent capitalist classes had won through revolution. It wasn’t until the victory of the more economically developed capitalist north over the south in 1865 that slavery was ended and the capitalist revolution eventually completed across the whole of the United States.
Nevertheless, internationally the first American revolution represented the most thoroughgoing bourgeois democratic revolution to that date, and was to inspire revolutions in what is now Haiti, in Latin America and, of course, in France. In a country with huge tracts of land and resources to the west, it laid the basis for an explosive growth in capitalism, and also the force that has the potential to overthrow it – the working class. However, while the leaders of the bourgeois democratic revolution in America moved almost unconsciously towards the final rupture with Britain, and relied on other classes in society to do the fighting for them, the socialist revolution can only be carried out by the working class itself, drawing around it other oppressed groups in society, and with a revolutionary party at its head that is thoroughly conscious of its role in transforming society. And today, with capitalism in its ‘death agony’, only a struggle for socialism can guarantee real national liberation for those groups internationally who have yet to achieve it.