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Reflections on Revolution in America, 1776–1976*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Max Savelle
Max Savelle*
Affiliation:
Univeristy of Washington, Seattle, Washington
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Extract

The year 1976 is correctly taken to be the bicentennial year of United States independence, which officially began on July 4, 1776. In a broader sense, however, the year 1776 was also pivotal year in the “Age of the Democratic Revolution” that swept through the entire Atlantic Community of nations during the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth.

This year, 1976, therefore, may also be properly considered the bicentennial of the opening year of the “age of revolutions” in the whole of America. Professor Robert R. Palmer, in his distinguished work on the subject, convincingly shows that, as he says,

All of these agitations, upheavals, intrigues, and conspiracies were part of one great movement. It was not simply a question of the “spread” or “impact” or “influence” of the French Revolution . . . But revolutionary aims and sympathies existed throughout Europe and America. They arose everywhere out of local, genuine and specific causes; or, contrariwise, they reflected conditions that were universal throughout the Western world. They were not imported from one country to another. . . . There was one big revolutionary agitation, not simply a French revolution due to purely French causes and foolishly favored by irresponsible people in other countries.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , October 1976 , pp. 185 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1976

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Footnotes

*

Professor Max Savelle is perhaps the only living historian who has made substantial contributions to both United States and Latin American history. For this reason the council of the Academy of American Franciscan History voted in this Bicentennial Year to bestow on him the Serra Award of THE AMERICAS for the year 1976.

References

1 Palmer, Robert R., The Age of the Democratic Revolution (2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959, 1964)Google Scholar. Professor Palmer dates the Age of the Democratic Revolution somewhat arbitrarily between the years 1760 and 1800. For the purposes of this essay, I shall speak of the “age of revolutions,” as it affected the American hemisphere, as falling roughly (but not strictly) within the period between 1776 and 1826, since between those years most of the American republics achieved their independence from their Euro-american empires and set up sovereign governments based upon representative and constitutional principles.

2 Palmer, op. cit., 1,7.

3 I am using the word “democratic” in a sense different from that employed by Palmer, that is, as a set of beliefs and institutions that envisage an equality of economic, social, intellectual and political opportunity for all men and women. The word does not imply, however, as I use it, a belief in the personal mental or psychological equality of all individuals.

4 As manifested, in the United States, in the achievements of men such as Samuel Adams and in the writings of publicists such as Thomas Paine and Joel Barlow.

5 Plumb, J. H., In the Light of History (Boston: Houghlin Mifflin Co., 1973), pp. 92–93 Google Scholar.

6 James Madison, The Federalist, No. 6, Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James and Jay, John, The Federalist, or the New Constitution. Edited, with an Introduction by Ashley, W. J. (New York, 1911), p. 324 Google Scholar. The italics are Madison’s.

7 Bolívar, Simón, Selected Writings of Bolívar, compiled by Lecuna, Vicente, trans, by Bertrand, Lewis (2 vols., New York, 1951)Google Scholar I, 103, 179–181, 11, 597–598.

8 Bolívar, Simón, “Letter to the Gentleman of Jamaica,” Sept. 6, 1815, in Johnson, John J. and Ladd, Doris M., eds., Simón Bolívar and Spanish American Independence, 1783–1830 (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1968), pp. 159, 164, 167 Google Scholar.

9 Sarmiento, Domingo F., Conflicto y armonías de las razas en América (2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1883)Google Scholar, II, 415, quoted in Crawford, William Rex, A Century of American Thought (Rev. ed., New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 51 Google Scholar.

10 Chaunu, Pierre, L’Amérique et les Amériques (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1964), pp. 295–296 Google Scholar. See also Appleman, Philip, The Silent Explosion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966)Google Scholar and Coale, Ansley J. and Hoover, Edgar M., Population Growth and Economic Development in Low-Income Countries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958)Google Scholar, Part Five and Appendix B.

11 Vasconcelos, José, La raza cósmica, quoted in Haddox, John H., Vasconcelos of Mexico, Philosopher and Prophet (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1967), pp. 53, 54–55 Google Scholar, fn. 11. See also Vasconcelos, José, Qué es la Revolución? (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1937)Google Scholar.

12 Rothschild, Emma, “Banks: The Coming Crisis.” New York Review of Books, Vol. XXIII, No. 9 (May 27, 1976), pp. 16–22 Google Scholar. The passages qouted are on page 16.

13 Fluharty, Vernon Lee, “The Upper Classes, White, Privileged, Competent; The Middle Class is not in the Middle,” in Hanke, Lewis, ed., History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations (Volume II: The Modern Age.) (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2d. edition, 1973), p. 605 Google Scholar.

14 Collier’s Encyclopedia (24 vols. New York: Crowell-Collier Educational Corporation, 1969), VII, 95 Google Scholar.

15 Myrdal, Gunnar, Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions (New York: Harper and Row—Harper Torchbooks, 1971), p. 113 Google Scholar.

16 Gassett, José Ortega y, La Rebelión de las Masas, cuarta edición. (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1933), p. 7 Google Scholar.

17 Keyserling, Herman, La Révolution Mondiale et la Responsabilité de l’Esprit (Paris: Librairie Étoile, 1934)Google Scholar.

18 Vasconcelos, José, La raza cósmica (Barcelona: Agencia Mundial de Libreria, 1925)Google Scholar and Qué es la revolución’? 2d ed. (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1937)Google Scholar, especially pp. 91–96. See also Haddox, John H., Vasconcelos of Mexico. Philosopher and Prophet (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

19 Myrdal, Gunnar, Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions (New York: Harper and Row; Harper Torchbooks, 1971);Google Scholar see also his An Internal Economy: Problems and Prospects (London: Rutledge and Keagan Paul, 1956 Google Scholar).

20 Heilbroner, Robert, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect (New York: Norton, 1974);Google Scholar see also his “The Human Prospect,” New York Review of Books, Vol. XX, Nos. 21 and 22 (Jan. 24, 1974), pp. 21–34.

21 Barraclough, Geoffrey, An Introduction to Contemporary History (London: C. A. Watts & Co., Ltd., 1964)Google Scholar.

22 Robert L. Heilbroner, “The Human Prospect,” loc. cit., p. 34.

23 Heilbroner, Robert, Business Civilization in Decline (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1976)Google Scholar.

24 Keyserling, op. cit., passim.

25 Myrdal, op cit., pp. 113–114.

26 Myrdal, op cit., p. 3.

27 Ibid., pp. 4, 5.

28 Wicksell, Myrdal quotes Knut, Lectures in Political Economy (London: Routledge Sons, 1954, I, 4)Google Scholar, in Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions, p. 112. The italics are Wicksell’s.

29 Ibid., p. 112.

30 Heilbroner, “The Human Prospect,” loc. cit., p. 30.

31 Ibid., pp. 30, 31.

32 Barraclough, Geoffrey, An Introduction to Contemporary History (London: C. A. Watts & Co., Ltd., 1964), p. 226 Google Scholar.

33 Quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Feb. 3, 1976.

34 People’s Bicentennial Commission, “Is this what America’s 200th Birthday is all about?” (Washington, D. D., Winter, 1976).

35 Breckenfeld, Gurnsy, “Multinationals at Bay: Coping with the Nation-State.” Saturday Review, January 24, 1976, pp. 12–22 Google Scholar.

36 Vernon, Raymond, Sovereignty at Bay: The Multinational Spread of U. S. Enterprises (New York: Basic Books, 1971), pp. 5–6 Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., chapter 6.

38 Quoted in Breckenfeld, “Multinationals at Bay,” loc. cit., p. 22. See, also, Heilbroner, Business Civilization in Decline, Chapter 4.

39 Breckenfeld, “Multinationals at Bay,” loc. cit., p. 22.

40 Richard J. Baruch, “Multinationals: A Dissenting View,” in Saturday Review, Feb. 7, 1976, pp. 11,58. The passage quoted is on page 11.

41 Ibid., p. 11.

42 Agee, Philip, Inside the Company: C.I.A. Diary (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1975), p. 597 Google Scholar.

43 Palmer, op. cit., II, 572.

44 The paraphrased passage appears in Palmer, op. cit., II, 572.

45 Lockwood, Lee, Castro’s Cuba, Cuba’s Fidel (New York: Random House [Vintage Books], 1969, p. xvi Google Scholar.

46 Ibid., pp. xvi-xvii.

47 Palmer, op. cit., II, 573.

48 Palmer, op. cit., I, p. 21.

49 Palmer, op. cit., II, 575.

50 The passage paraphrased is in Plumb, op. cit., pp. 92–93.

51 Quoted in Lockwood, op. cit., p. 219.

52 Quoted ibid., p. 148.

53 Quoted ibid., p. 187.

54 cf., Wright, Gordon, “History as a Moral science,” American Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 1 (February, 1976), pp. 1–11 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Heilbroner, , Business Civilization in Decline, pp. 122–124 Google Scholar.