The full quote is “Why does treason never prosper? Because when it prospers, none dare call it treason.” And few treasons have prospered as much as the American Revolution.
We don’t usually call the Founding Fathers traitors because “traitor” is a very harsh word, and most of us (myself included) have strongly positive overall opinions of the Founding Fathers. But on July 1, 1776, they were subjects of the British crown, and under British law the Revolution was treason — levying war on the Sovereign. They were acutely aware of this — note Franklin’s famous observation that “We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all be hanged seperately” and John Hancock’s boast that he would be the first hanged for treason if the Revolution failed.
They would argue (and indeed did argue, in the Declaration of Independence among other places) that they no longer owed allegiance to the Crown because the Crown wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain — the King and Parliament were violating the colonists’ traditional legal rights and their fundamental human rights, and had refused to correct the problems, so Revolution was the only remedy available. There is certainly philosophical justice to this, but was Britain’s behavior really bad enough to warrant revolution?
Bryan Caplan and Mencius Moldbug argue that it wasn’t. The Moldbug piece is very long; the relevent section starts:
According to the official story, the founders were prudent and principled men whose rights had been violated once too often by a tyrannical occupation regime, whose love of freedom finally overcame their love of peace, and who prevailed by their courage and force of arms after a desperate struggle. According to the historian, however…
It’s pretty easy to see where they’re coming from. America is one of the freest and most prosperous countries in the world, but Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain are right there with us, and the specific policies that sparked the Revolution were extremely tame by modern standards, and even by the standards of the policies enacted in George Washington’s first term as President — the Stamp Act and other associated taxes were a fraction of what people were paying back in England (which was considerably poorer on a per capita basis than the Colonies), and were intended merely to raise one third of what Britain spent defending the American Colonies; the tariffs and excises Hamilton pushed through to finance the federal government were several times as high as the taxes the Colonies had rebelled rather than pay.
It’s tempting to conclude that the Founding Fathers overreacted (either through lack of perspective about how mild the taxes were, or through paranoia about Parliament’s eventual goals) but I think that their reaction makes perfect sense in historical perspective. First, they didn’t know as we do that British colonies that didn’t rebel would be treated well and remain free and prosperous for centuries. Second, we don’t know that Britain wouldn’t have oppressed her colonies much more if they hadn’t rebelled — having lost America, they were not eager to provoke Canada or Australia. And third (and probably most importantly), the American Revolution was one of a very long series of conflicts in English history where the Crown pushed to expand its authority at the expense of the people, and the people pushed back and won.
Starting in 1215 when the Barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, peaking in 1685 when the Rump Parliament had Charles II beheaded, and winding down in the 19th century as the actual powers of the Monarch faded away to almost nothing, every few generations an English monarch was deposed or forced to accept new limitation on his power as a result of a power struggle with Parliament, the nobles, or the populace. It is probably because of this pattern that England never developed an absolute monarchy as most European countries did during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Founding Fathers came from this historical tradition, and Locke’s social contract theory (the philosophical framework used to justify the Revolution) was also a product of that historical tradition. While levying war against the Crown was technically treason, that particular form of treason was a time-honored part of the English political process. That same dichotomy is enshrined in our Constituiton — we duplicate language from the English treason acts to define treason (levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort) and give Congress the power to call out the militia and suspend Habeus Corpus to supress rebellions, but at the same time we also have the Second Amendment which enshrines the right of the populace to arm itself and which was specifically intended to enable the exercise of the moral right to revolution against an oppressive government.
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I have long considered it an interesting thought experiment to contemplate what it would look like had the Colonists not rebelled, or if the rebellion had been put down, and what I generally posit is that the United States would look pretty much like Canada now, only bigger, and Philadelphia would probably be the center of the world’s largest Empire today.
But that’s just a guess, a fun premise for an alternate-history science fiction book or something. It’s far from a given that’s how it would have turned out. As you very thoughtfully point out, it’s quite likely that George III and his heirs, along with Parliament, were rightly cowed by the successful revolutionaries–although on more than one level, not just because they realized that "men want to be free" but also "our enemies will ally with our colonies if we treat them too badly" (as the French and others did in the aid of the American Revolutionaries).
Had the colonies stayed basically silent, the rabble quelled, we might have still seen the slow evolution of democratic history in the world. But heck, we might have seen it reverse itself or slow down; the French Revolution might not have happened at all, or if it had, it might have been seen by most of the rest of the world as proof positive that democratic republicanism must be fought with every measure because it was just too damned dangerous to let the rabble have too much power.
The American Revolution didn’t just inspire freedom around the world, it arguably terrified tyrants into gradually letting loose with more freedom precisely so they could keep their crowns–and heads.
Bit of a pedantic point though: Parliament and the nobles were often one and the same. Still are to a certain extent, although the UK’s House of Lords is increasingly a ceremonial body. But at one time, the House of Lords was the much more powerful body. I’m not sure where the power balance was between the Commons and the Lords in 1776 exactly, but I do know that the Prime Minister was Lord North, son of an Earl. I don’t know if he was in the House of Commons or the House of Lords, but the fact that he was a nobleman illustrates the point. The British were still working their way slowly toward democracy. It’s not a given they would have continued in that direction were it not for the headaches that the Americans gave to Lord North.
I should have been more precise. I’d originally just said "Parliament", but I added nobles and the populace because there were rebellions by each which occurred independentally of Parliament, but as-modified it does seem to imply a dichotomy between Parliament and the nobles which wasn’t the case until the early 20th century when the House of Commons started stripping powers from the House of Lords.
what an awesome post.
i’m speechless, in the good way. I do wish I had something of substance to add but you nailed this one, M. I learned something.
One question is, how similar would the development of North America have been had the colonies remained part of the British Empire?
It’s key to understand that people at the time actually believed in imperialism and colonialism as an economic system. The theory was that people in the home country supported the Empire by paying taxes. People in the colonies supported the Empire by allowing their economy to be exploited by the home country, and serving in local militias.
The colonies didn’t pay taxes because taxation without representation is tyranny — more precisely, would increase without limit — and representation in a Parliament thousands of miles away was impractical with 18th century communication and transportation technology. As one colonist said, "The Member from Georgia would represent Georgia at first, but after six weeks would represent a drawing room in Mayfair."
So colonists accepted the system where they were required to sell raw materials only to the home country, develop no manufactures themselves, and buy manufactured goods only from the home country, tempered by smuggling.
The reason the average colonial was so anti-tax is that he saw it as double billing. And the reason the Founders found it necessary to rebel is that they saw future taxes increasing without limit, destroying the colonial economy.
For the colonies to remain part of the Empire, these problems would have to be worked out. Suppose Parliament gave in to all of the Colonists’ demands. No taxes. That would still leave colonialism as the economic system, which means no colonial manufactures. Or, in practice, limited colonial manufactures, to smooth the rough edges of the system the way smuggling did.
Would British North America develop in anything like the same way with limits on the development of manufacturing? Would it have been the Arsenal of Democracy in the 20th Century?
And that’s the best-case scenario.
One of the major reasons the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are so much more prosperous than many other former British colonies (India, Pakistan, Jamaca, Belize, Angola, Sudan, etc) is that the former were what’s sometimes called "farm colonies" while the latter were "exploitation colonies". A farm colony is somewhere you send Quakers, Calvinists, and Catholics so they stop making a nuissance of themselves back home, while an exploitation colony exists to generate revenue for the mother country. Farm colonies tend to be freer and richer because there’s no imperative to maximize short-term revenue distorting the political institutions, there’s less reason for the parent country to try to micromanage across an ocean, the local economy is more balanced and diversified, and newly created value tends to be reinvested locally rather than shipped back home.
The big question is to what extent the American colonies would have remained farm colonies if the Revolution hadn’t occurred or if we’d lost.
"The colonists are revolting!"
"I know! And have you noticed the smell?!?"
Have any of these fans of England ever visited old Albion? My friend, an American who married a British citizen and lives over there, is worried about her son’s prospects. Since he didn’t go to ‘the right school’, he doesn’t have the ‘right accent’. Without that accent, his job prospects are limited.
Yes, they still think that way over there. Without America’s example, things would be so much worse.
If America had remained a little English ‘farm colony’, no one would have to deal with nasty questions about the separation of church and state, no one would fight for the right to bear arms, no one would talk about annoying ideas like equality of opportunity.
We’d all be so happy worshiping our inbred, drooling, incompetent Kings and Queens. Without the concept that anyone can be an American, without our spirit of innovation and revolution, America would not be the technical powerhouse we are now. Canada, Australia and Britain don’t even come close to America tech-wise. We’d all probably be discovering flying machines about now, using technology we stole from the Israelis.Â
Ummm Mary,  we couldn’t steal technology from Israel,  because it probably wouldn’t exist….
What’s interesting about that time is if you look at it sociologically, our Founding Fathers represented the "counter culture" and were actually usurping power from the "dominant culture". While your average American colonial citizen was not happy about "taxation without representation" they also would certainly never go against the crown. The revolutionaries were fewer than crown loyalists and neutrals. Patriots made up some 40-45%. So it also goes to show that a few great men can change the entire situation a country is in whether the majority likes it or not.
What’s also ironic is that Louis the XVI’s support of the colonists caused a massive amout of debt and hardship for France and only catalyzed the French Revolution shortly afterward. In fact the outcome of the war caused a chain reaction that liberated a lot of people.
It would be a very interesting thing indeed if the American Revolution had went the other way, My guess is Britain would be a lot bigger than it is now…
There definitely would not have been an Israel. My guess is no Hitler either.
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