I read a piece the other day celebrating the First Continental Congress—the initial effort by a group of leaders of some of the colonies of British North America to band together to deal with increasing tensions with the mother country. It was 1774; a quarter millennium ago and the article was an early salvo in what I expect will become a deluge over the next couple of years. They didn’t make a great deal of progress independence-wise, but it was a start and led to a certain Declaration in due course thereafter.
Many readers of this posting will recall the “Bicentennial” celebration of American independence in 1976 (Gerald Ford presided), replete with concerts, exhibitions, innumerable patriotic re-enactments and speeches, and unending rolls of red, white, and blue bunting. It, too, had a run up. I was in school near Boston at the time and distinctly remember staying up all night to watch a reenactment of arrival of Paul Revere as a prelude to the Battle of Lexington and Concord (April 19). All-nighters at age 20 were no big deal and it was great to be part of “history.”
In that more benign time, it was easy for the nation to rally and celebrate together. Despite the recent oil crisis and the defeat in Vietnam, we were still at the peak of American global dominance and wealth. We had a lot to feel proud/smug about and did so.
Of course, as with everything else these days, the nature of the upcoming Semiquincentennial (rhymes with Supercalifragilistic) or Bisesquincentennial or Quarter Millennial will be colored by our current dysfunctional political culture amplified by the election of he who will preside over those events. It will make for a disconnected celebration. Everyone will be using (abusing?) stories of this era to make their points about the current parlous state of the nation. If I could have a penny for every time someone proclaimed their version of some “lesson from history,” I would be wealthy indeed.
Much ink and megabytes will be spilled by those wringing hands—either in angst or self-congratulations—over the decline from the glory days of yore or the heights yet to be reached. Many will to inspire us to new heights of patriotic grandeur. Despite the orations, many will doubt whether our “greatest days lie ahead.” Useful topics such as “Can America last another 250 years?” will be avidly debated.
You can expect a pretty steady calendar of events as well—many likely tipping over the subtle line between the ridiculous and the sublime. I’m hoping that we can have reenactment of the plucking of the goose which produced the quills that Thos. Jefferson used to draft the Declaration. Every “Founding Father” will be trotted out and examined for warts and contributions. We will get the full tour of wherever George Washington slept. Revivals of Miranda’s Hamilton will likely grace the stages of hundreds of high schools. The bunting and flag printers are likely already building up their inventories. Perhaps some folks in London will reprise the arrival of the first word of rebellion to reach England. If nothing else, we can claim to be the first in a long string of countries who celebrate separation from the British Empire as their national day.
I’m in the middle of reading a bunch of stuff about revolutions in preparation for a series of lectures next year on the history of modern revolutions. You may thus expect further musings in this vein over the next few months.
Whatever its antecedents and myths, the American Revolution is as much an outlier from the central storyline of modern revolutions as any; even though—as “our” revolution—it gets a lot of press domestically. Most of the world has looked to the French events of 1789-98 as their role model (especially the French!!). Our revolution was about democracy at a theoretical level; even while actually excluding from political power the vast majority of the population (women, slaves, men with little property). The government which emerged from the Constitutional Convention in 1787 preserved the domination of elites at the state level. In one sense, it was about the re-assignment of political power from one set of rich white guys in wigs (centered in London) to another set (in the “colonies”).
In this way, curiously, ideology and propaganda notwithstanding, it was more of a role model for the many revolutions that followed across the 19 and 20C. Indeed, the spate of revolutions in the mid-20C which accompanied decolonization across the globe were (also) usually sparked and managed by colonial elites. They succeeded to their former imperial masters’ positions (and profit-sharing) with nominal devotions to democratic and socialist ideals and the power of the “people.” Revolutions, therefore became less about ideology, progress, and democracy and more about power-shuffling among elites.
As a result, it’s not clear that we in the 21C are likely to see much more in the vein of revolutions—at least in this modern sense. Merely replacing a government and tweaking a few policies is hardly the stuff of heroic sagas. Societal sclerosis is a deep impediment to radical change and widespread cynicism makes utopian claims inherently dubious. Not to mention that historical reassessment has taken any number of famous revolutionaries: Lenin, Mao, Fidel, Ho Chi Minh, Ataturk, Sun-Yat-Sen down a peg or two.
None of this will hinder the next few years of commemorations. There will be some serious assessments of the “meaning” of the American Revolution, but mostly those are intellectuals talking to others of their ilk. For most of us, it will be a media/social media theme park, with little depth, frequent “oh yeah, I vaguely remember that from 10th grade….”, and a fair amount of self-congratulations.
Revolutions have never turn out as planned. The “Founding Fathers” accomplished some great things, but they could never have imagined the course of the past semiquincentennial.
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