The History of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 [1789]

The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, vol. 1 [1789] The Online Library Of Liberty Collection This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, foundation established to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, or to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), please visit the OLL web site. This title is also part of the Portable Library of Liberty DVD which contains over 900 books and other material and is available free of charge upon request. The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and Web sites is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash. To find out more about Liberty Fund, Inc., or the Online Library of Liberty Project, please contact the Director at [email protected]. LIBERTY FUND, INC. 8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300 Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-1684 Online Library of Liberty: The History of the American Revolution, vol. 1 Edition Used: The History of the American Revolution, Foreword by Lester H. Cohen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1990). Vol. 1. Author: David Ramsay Editor: Lester H. Cohen About This Title: Vol. 1 of a 2 volume work. David Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789 during an enthusiastic celebration of nationhood. It is the first American national history written by an American revolutionary and printed in America. Ramsay, a well-known Federalist, was an active participant in many of the events of the period and a member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina. Ramsay discusses the events and ideas of the American Revolution (from the outbreak of turbulence in the 1760s to the onset of Washington’s administration) and makes an ardent Federalist defense of the Constitution of 1787. Based on the original and authorized 1789 version, this is the first new modern edition of the work. PLL v4 (generated January 6, 2009) 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/814 Online Library of Liberty: The History of the American Revolution, vol. 1 About Liberty Fund: Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright Information: The copyright to this edition, in both print and electronic forms, is held by Liberty Fund, Inc. Fair Use Statement: This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit. PLL v4 (generated January 6, 2009) 3 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/814 Online Library of Liberty: The History of the American Revolution, vol. 1 Table Of Contents Foreword Bibliography Editor’s Note Acknowledgments Preface [to the First Edition] Chapter I: Of the Settlement of the English Colonies, and of the Political Condition of Their Inhabitants. Chapter II: The Origin of the Disputes Between Great-britain and Her Colonies, In the Year 1764, and Its Progress Till 1773. Chapter III: Tea Is Sent By the East India Company to America, and Is Refused, Or Destroyed, By the Colonists. Boston Port Act, &c. Chapter IV: Proceedings of the Colonies In 1774, In Consequence of the Boston Port Act, Viz. Chapter V: Transactions In Great-britain, In Consequence of the Proceedings of Congress, In 1774. Appendix No. I: Some Special Transactions of Dr. Franklin In London, In Behalf of America. Chapter VI: Consequences In America, Resulting From the Preceding Transactions of Parliament; and of the Commencement of Hostilities. Chapter VII: The Second Congress Meets and Organises a Regular Continental Army—makes Sundry Public Addresses, and Petitions the King, &c. Transactions In Massachusetts. Chapter VIII: Ticonderoga Taken, and Canada Invaded. Chapter IX: Transactions In Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and the General State of Public Affairs In the Colonies. Chapter X: Transactions In Massachusetts, and Evacuation of Boston. Chapter XI: Transactions In Canada. Chapter XII: The Proceedings of Parliament, Against the Colonies, 1775–6. Operations In South-carolina, New-york, and New-jersey. Chapter XIII: Of Independence, State Constitutions, and the Confederation. PLL v4 (generated January 6, 2009) 4 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/814 Online Library of Liberty: The History of the American Revolution, vol. 1 [Back to Table of Contents] Foreword David Ramsay’sThe History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789, during an enthusiastic celebration of American nationhood. “Nationhood,” moreover, was beginning to take on new cultural and intellectual connotations. The United States had declared its political independence more than a decade earlier, and a rising group of “cultural nationalists” was asserting that it was now time to declare cultural independence as well. The American people would never be truly autonomous otherwise. “However they may boast of Independence, and the freedom of their government,” wrote Noah Webster, lexicographer, historian, and the nationalists’ most brilliant spokesman, “yet their opinions are not sufficiently independent.” Instead of liberating themselves from the influences of English culture, as they had from England’s arms and government, the Americans were continuing to manifest “an astonishing respect for the arts and literature of their parent country, and a blind imitation of its manners.” While such “habitual respect” for England was once understandable, even laudable, it had become an impediment to creating an independent American character and therefore posed dangers for the future.1 Cultural nationalism was almost inevitable in the aftermath of a revolution that seemed to require Americans to define not only their political identity, but their spiritual identity as well. Such nationalism manifested itself in a variety of ways in literature and the arts, science, and education. In its superficial manifestations, it testified to an American inferiority complex, consisting mainly of defensive protests against the notion, common in eighteenth-century Europe, that the New World was a physically and morally debased version of the Old, and of mushy effusions of patriotic sentiment over any product of American literature, art, or science. Thus one commentator gushed over Ramsay’s The History of the Revolution of South-Carolina (1785), saying that it “reflects honour on this country, and gives room for hope that her literary will in time equal her military reputation,” and Rev. James Madison enthused that the work’s “Dress is altogether American.” Another reviewer, praising The History of the American Resolution, observed that it is a “necessity that the history of the American revolution be written in our own country, by a person of suitable abilities, who has witnessed the incidents attendant on that great event.”2 Thus did patriotism pass for culture, and Ramsay’s work obviously measured up. On a more sophisticated level, some cultural nationalists—Ramsay among them—developed greater insight into the idea of American cultural identity. These nationalists recognized that, along with the richly deserved celebration and self- congratulation, the new nation needed a strong unifying culture. Without a culture that articulated the fundamental tenets of liberty, constitutionalism, virtue, and simplicity, the principles of the American Revolution would soon become corrupted. Such corruption could come from without, through the people’s continued reliance on English cultural values; it could also come from within, through the disintegrating forces already operating to dissolve the new nation into a multitude of disparate fragments. This realization prompted the nationalists anxiously to develop a notion of American identity that rested on two major premises: that politics, culture, and society PLL v4 (generated January 6, 2009) 5 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/814 Online Library of Liberty: The History of the American Revolution, vol. 1 were inextricably intertwined, so that a change in any one would subtly alter the others; and that culture was a significant force in shaping human consciousness, an idea which offered a powerful incentive to use literature as a means of exhortation. Like all the historians of the Revolutionary era, Ramsay saw historical writing as a vehicle for fostering nationhood, an instrument for promoting the kind of unity, even homogeneity, that the cultural nationalists desired.3 Almost all the leading cultural nationalists were also political nationalists, the surest sign of which was that they saw the Constitution as the great vehicle for both creating and preserving American unity. And, although it was possible to be a nationalist culturally while opposing the Constitution for political reasons (as the historian, poet, and playwright Mercy Otis Warren made clear), Ramsay’s reasons for writing a peculiarly consensual or national history were intimately tied to his Federalist political views. Those reasons were motivated by Ramsay’s perception that the new nation faced two sorts of danger: on the one hand, the danger of political divisions between the states and within each state, divisions which had already given rise to factions with competing economic interests; and on the other, the threat of social and cultural divisions among the people of the several states and regions, which could readily lead to insularity and hostility. Thus, for example, he wrote in political terms about his fellow South Carolinians who put local interests ahead of national unity and opposed ratification of the Constitution.

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