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CHAPTER 6 The Revolution Within
This chapter concentrates on the political and social changes resulting from the American Revolution. It focuses on
how the concepts of liberty and freedom continued to evolve during the Revolution and how they transformed
society and politics in the 1770s and 1780s. The chapter begins with a look at a remarkable American woman,
Abigail Adams. The democratization of freedom in the public sphere is explored through an examination of how
new state constitutions dealt with suffrage requirements. The chapter also explores how the Revolution affected
religious liberty, religious toleration, and the separation of church and state. The next topic is economic freedom.
Here the text contrasts the idea that government should regulate for the public good with a newer idea, which gained
support from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, that individual self-interest acting in a free market should be the
rule. Limitations on freedom—with emphasis on the experiences of Loyalists, Indians, slaves, and women—are then
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction: Abigail Adams
A. Wife of John Adams
1. Gave her political views in letters to him
a. Resented the “absolute power” husbands exercised over their wives
II. Democratizing Freedom
A. The Dream of Equality
1. The Revolution unleashed public debates and political and social struggles that enlarged the scope of
freedom and challenged inherited structures of power within America.
a. The principle of hereditary aristocracy was rejected.
B. Expanding the Political Nation
1. The leaders of the Revolution had not intended this disruption of social order.
2. The democratization of freedom was dramatic for free men.
3. In the eighteenth century, democracy had multiple meanings.
4. Artisans, small farmers, laborers, and the militia all emerged as self-conscious elements in politics.
C. The Revolution in Pennsylvania
1. The prewar elite of Pennsylvania opposed independence.
a. This left a vacuum of political leadership filled by Paine, Rush, Matlack, and Young.
D. The New Constitutions
1. Each state wrote a new constitution, and all agreed that their governments must be republics.
2. States disagreed as to how the government should be structured:
a. One-house legislatures were adopted only by Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Vermont.
b. John Adams’s “balanced governments” included two-house legislatures.
E. The Right to Vote
1. The property qualification for suffrage was hotly debated.
F. Democratizing Government
1. By the 1780s, with the exceptions of Virginia, Maryland, and New York, a large majority of the adult
white male population could meet voting requirements.
a. Until 1807, property-owning women in New Jersey could vote.
2. Freedom and an individual’s right to vote had become interchangeable.
III. Toward Religious Toleration
A. Catholic Americans
1. Joining forces with France and inviting Quebec to join in the struggle against Britain had weakened
anti-Catholicism.
B. The Founders and Religion
1. The end of British rule led to questioning the privilege of the Anglican Church in many colonies.
2. Many believed that religion was necessary as a foundation of public morality but were skeptical of
religious doctrine.
a. The Enlightenment influenced this skepticism.
C. Separating Church and State
1. The drive to separate church and state brought together Deists with members of evangelical sects.
2. States disestablished established churches, depriving them of specific public funding and legal
privileges.
D. Jefferson and Religious Liberty
1. Thomas Jefferson’s “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom” separated church and state in Virginia.
2. James Madison insisted that one reason for the complete separation of church and state was to reinforce
the principle that the new nation offered “asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and
religion.”
E. The Revolution and the Churches
1. As religious liberty expanded, some church authority was undermined.
2. Thanks to religious freedom, the early republic witnessed an amazing proliferation of religious
denominations.
a. Today, more than 1,300 religions are practiced.
F. Christian Republicanism
1. Religious and secular language merged in the struggle for independence, creating what scholars call
Christian Republicanism.
a. Both religious and political leaders feared moral corruption, so personal virtue needed to be
emphasized.
IV. Defining Economic Freedom
A. Toward Free Labor
1. The lack of freedom inherent in apprenticeship and servitude increasingly came to be seen as
incompatible with republican citizenship.
2. By 1800, indentured servitude had all but disappeared from the United States.
a. The distinction between freedom and slavery sharpened.
B. The Soul of a Republic
1. To most free Americans, equality meant equal opportunity rather than equality of condition.
2. Thomas Jefferson and others equated land and economic resources with freedom.
C. The Politics of Inflation
1. Some Americans responded to wartime inflation by accusing merchants of hoarding goods and by
seizing stocks of food to be sold at the traditional “just price.”
a. From 1776 to 1779, more than thirty incidents occurred where crowds confronted merchants.
D. The Debate over Free Trade
V. The Limits of Liberty
A. Colonial Loyalists
1. An estimated 20–25 percent of Americans were Loyalists (those who retained their allegiance to the
crown).
2. Loyalists included:
a. Wealthy men with close working relationships with Britain
b. Ethnic minorities fearful of losing to local majorities their freedom to enjoy cultural autonomy
c. Many southern backcountry farmers and New York tenants who opposed wealthy planter Patriots and
landlord Patriots, respectively
B. The Loyalists’ Plight
1. The War for Independence was in some respects a civil war among Americans.
2. War brought a deprivation of basic rights to many Americans.
a. Many states required residents to take oaths of allegiance to the new nation.
3. When the war ended, as many as 60,000 Loyalists were banished from the United States or emigrated
voluntarily.
a. Ten thousand of them were slaves.
C. The Revolution as a Borderlands Conflict
1. In Canada, the new province of New Brunswick was created to accommodate Loyalists who voluntarily
fled the newly independent colonies.
2. Loyalists brought to Canada a commitment to self-rule that inspired rebellions in Canada in 1837.
3. The border between Quebec and New England became an international border.
D. White Freedom, Indian Freedom
1. To many Patriots, access to Indian land was one of the fruits of American victory.
a. But liberty for whites meant loss of liberty for Indians.
VI. Slavery and the Revolution
A. The Language of Slavery and Freedom
1. During the debates over British rule, “slavery” was invoked as a political category.
a. Britain was a “kingdom of slaves,” whereas America was a “country of free men.”
2. James Otis wrote of universal freedom, even for blacks.
3. The irony that America cried for liberty while enslaving Africans was recognized by some (e.g., the
British statesman Edmund Burke and the British writer Dr. Samuel Johnson).
B. Obstacles to Abolition
1. Most founders owned slaves at one point in their respective lives.
a. John Adams and Thomas Paine were exceptions.
C. The Cause of General Liberty
1. By defining freedom as a universal entitlement rather than as a set of rights specific to a particular place
or people, the Revolution inevitably raised questions about the status of slavery in the new nation.
2. Samuel Sewall’s The Selling of Joseph (1700) was the first antislavery tract in America.
3. Benjamin Rush warned (1773) that slavery was a “national crime” that would bring “national
punishment.”
D. Petitions for Freedom
1. Slaves in the North and in the South appropriated the language of liberty for their own purposes.
2. Slaves presented “freedom petitions” in New England in the early 1770s.
3. Many blacks were surprised that white America did not realize their rhetoric of revolution demanded
emancipation.
4. The poems of Phillis Wheatley, a slave in Boston, often spoke of freedom.
5. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature)
a. Two slave petitions, from 1773 and 1777, call for black freedom in the context of white revolutionary
action.
E. British Emancipators
1. Nearly 100,000 slaves deserted their owners and fled to British lines.
2. At the end of the war, over 15,000 blacks accompanied the British out of the country.
a. Many ended up in Nova Scotia, England, and Sierra Leone, a West African settlement established by
Britain for former U.S. slaves.
b. Some were re-enslaved in the West Indies.
F. Voluntary Emancipations
G. Abolition in the North
1. Between 1777 and 1804, every state north of Maryland took steps toward emancipation.
2. Abolition in the North was a slow process and typically applied only to future children of current slave
women.
H. Free Black Communities
1. After the war, free black communities with their own churches, schools, and leaders came into
existence.
2. In all states except Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, free black men who met taxpaying or
property qualifications were “citizens of color” who could vote.
3. Despite the rhetoric of freedom, the war did not end slavery for blacks.
VII. Daughters of Liberty
A. Revolutionary Women
1. Many women participated in the war in various capacities.
a. Deborah Sampson, for example, dressed as a man and enlisted in the Continental army.
b. The Ladies’ Association raised funds to assist American soldiers.
2. Within American households, women participated in the political discussions unleashed by
independence.
B. Gender and Politics
1. “Coverture” (which meant that a husband held legal authority over his wife) remained intact in the new
nation.
2. In both law and social reality, women lacked the opportunity for autonomy (based on ownership of
property or control of one’s own person) and hence lacked the essential qualification of political
participation.
C. Republican Motherhood
1. Women played a key role in the new republic by training future citizens.
2. The idea of republican motherhood reinforced the trend toward the idea of “companionate” marriage.
3. The Revolution altered the structure of family life.
a. In the North, hired workers were not considered part of the family as indentured servants and slaves
had been.
D. The Arduous Struggle for Liberty
1. The Revolution changed the life of virtually every American.
2. America became a beacon of hope to those chafing under Old World tyrannies.
a. The idea that “the people” possessed rights was quickly internationalized.
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• What did Abigail Adams mean when she wrote to her husband, “Remember the Ladies”? Did she believe in the
modern notion of equality of the sexes?
• Discuss how the struggle for American liberty emboldened various groups of colonists to demand more liberty for
themselves.
• Comment on the title of the chapter: “The Revolution Within.”
• Describe how the revolution evolved in Pennsylvania.
• How did the removal of the British and the formation of the United States affect the Indians?
• Discuss the ideas of economic freedom brought about by the American Revolution. What influence did Adam
Smith’s The Wealth of Nations have on American leaders and society? Compare Smith’s ideas on the free
market to the economy in today’s United States and the globalizing world.
• Discuss how the Revolution affected the Loyalists and the various circumstances that led to their leaving the
United States. What country or other colony seems like the best place to escape for a Loyalist?
SUPPLEMENTAL WEB AND VISUAL RESOURCES
African-Americans and the War
Abolition
www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam005.html
Numerous antislavery newspaper articles and other publications from the Revolutionary era are available on this site.
Indians in the War
http://www.nps.gov/revwar/about_the_revolution/american_indians.html
http://www.americanrevolution.org/ind1.html
Links to two essays by historians on Indians in the American Revolution. The first essay is by Collin G. Calloway. The second
essay, by Wilcomb E. Washburn, is longer and more detailed but older.
Religion and the American Revolution
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/index.htm
The National Humanities Center. Teacher Serve: An Interactive Curriculum Enrichment Service for Teachers. Three sections:
religion and the national culture, the environment in American history, and the black freedom struggle before and after slavery.
Women in the Revolutionary War
http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/femvets.html
This site contains information on specific women, such as Deborah Samson and Nancy Hart, who made considerable
contributions to the Revolutionary War.
SUPPLEMENTAL PRINT RESOURCES
Andrews, Dee. The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2000.
DuVal, Kathleen. Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. New York: Random House, 2015.
Fitz, Caitlin A. “ ‘Suspected on Both Sides’: Little Abraham, Iroquois Neutrality, and the American Revolution.” Journal of the
Early Republic 28, no. 3 (2008): 299–335.
Glatthaar, Joseph, and James Martin. Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution. New York: Hill and
Wang, 2006.
Purcell, Sarah. Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America. Philadelphia, PA: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
Sobel, Mechal. Teach Me Dreams: The Search for Self in the Revolutionary Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2000.
INTERACTIVE INSTRUCTOR ACTIVITIES
1. Group Visual Analysis
Show the class images taken from the paintings, drawings, political cartoons, and other rich and detailed scenes used in the
textbook, as well as related images from the Internet. Break the class into small groups. Provide some background information
on visual analysis. Then hold a general discussion about notions of freedom following the Revolution. As the small groups see
each image, ask students to write down their individual observations. Then ask them to discuss these with the group as a
whole for a group assessment and presentation.
Questions to consider asking each group:
• How would a person who lived in the United States during the late 1700s interpret the image?
2. Group Dramatic Activity: Stakeholders in the American Revolutionary Period
Divide the class into eight groups, with each group picking a character. Each character lived through the American
Revolutionary period from 1763 to 1783:
• Southern Loyalist
1. How did the American Revolutionary War and its aftermath affect you? Are you better off in 1783 than you were in
1775?
2. What are your views on slavery before and after the war?
3. What are your views on the role of women before and after the war?
4. What role do you see for Indians on the frontier after the war?
5. What role does religion play in your life after the war?
