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The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind every political scene, the ultimate explanation of every political controversy, was the disposition of power.

Bernard Bailyn

The wielders of power did not speak for it, nor did they naturally serve it. Their interest was to use and develop power, no less natural and necessary than liberty but more dangerous.
BERNARD BAILYN

Dangerous Develop Liberty Power Speak Use
The full bibliography of pamphlets relating to the Anglo-American struggle published in the colonies through the year 1776 contains not a dozen or so items but over four hundred.
BERNARD BAILYN

Four Struggle Years
Never had Parliament or the crown, or both together, operated in actuality as theory indicated sovereign powers should.
BERNARD BAILYN

Crown Sovereign Together
The primary function of a constitution was to mark out the boundaries of governmental powers-hence in England, where there was no constitution , there were no limits (save for the effect of trail by jury) to what the legislature might do.
BERNARD BAILYN

England Limits might
At first the relevance of chattel slavery to libertarian ideals was noted only in individual passages of isolated pamphlets.
BERNARD BAILYN

Firsts Libertarian Slavery
What were once felt to be defects-isolation, institutional simplicity, primitiveness of manners, multiplicity of religions, weaknesses in the authority of the state-could now be seen as virtues.
BERNARD BAILYN

Multiplicity Reform Simplicity Weakness Weaknesses
Emerging first in the form of denunciations of standing armies in the reign of William III, left an indelible imprint on the “country” mind everywhere in the English-speaking world.
BERNARD BAILYN

English Imprint Speaking Standing World
In England the practice of “virtual” representation provided reasonably well for the actual representation of the major interests of the society, and it raised no widespread objection.
BERNARD BAILYN

Country Interest Practice
That by 1774 the final crisis of the constitution, brought on by political and social corruption, had been reached was, to most informed colonists, evident.
BERNARD BAILYN

Constitution Finals Political
In no obvious sense was the American Revolution undertaken as a social revolution.
BERNARD BAILYN

Obvious Revolution Social
Everyone knew that democracy – direct rule by all the people – required such spartan, soul-denying virtue on the part of all the people that it was likely to survive only where poverty made upright behavior necessary for the perpetuation of the race.
BERNARD BAILYN

Democracy People Race
What Americans were really objecting to had nothing to do with constitutional principles. their objection was not to Parliament’s constitutional right to levy certain kinds of taxes as opposed to others, but to its effort to collect any.
BERNARD BAILYN

Effort Kind Principles
Incorporating in their colorful, slashing, superbly readable pages, the major themes of the “left” opposition under Walpole, these libertarian tracts.
BERNARD BAILYN

Army Country Mind
Defiance to constituted authority leaped like a spark from one flammable area to another, growing in heat as it went.
BERNARD BAILYN

Growing Heat Sparks
In effect the people were present through their representatives, and were themselves, step by step and point by point, acting in the conduct of public affairs. No longer merely an ultimate check on government, they were in some sense the government.
BERNARD BAILYN

Acting Government People
Whatever deficiencies the leaders of the American Revolution may have had, reticence, fortunately, was not one of them.
BERNARD BAILYN

Leader May Revolution

The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind every political scene, the ultimate explanation of every political controversy, was the disposition of power.

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The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind every political scene, the ultimate explanation of every political controversy, was the disposition of power.

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Popular Authors

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