From the painting by the famous American artist, Gilbert Stuart.
Then why revolt, especially when above a third of the thinking people in America were opposed to the Revolution, and had to be driven out or silenced? To the original grievances of the Revolution was added a stupid John Bull obstinacy, concentrated in George III, but shared by a good part of the British nation. These mistakes made by England are a fine example of what comes to a country that falls into the hands of what are called the “Interests”; for Parliament was really nothing but a combine of great titled families, who took in some representatives of the cities and the merchant class. One of the best results of the Revolution was that it shook up the British aristocracy; and the best proof that the Revolution was right is the admission of Lord North, when the war was all over, that it had been a great mistake, but that the nation had made it, and not simply the prime minister.
The Revolution was worth all the blood and treasure that it cost, because it lighted a new torch of popular government. There had been plenty of government of the people in ancient and medieval times; but at the epoch of the American Revolution the formerly democratic Swiss and Dutch, and the free citizens of the German and French and Spanish cities, had lost faith in themselves. It was fashionable to revere Demosthenes and Cato and Brutus and the Populus Romanus; but real republican government had about ceased on the earth when the new constellation of the United States appeared on the horizon.
The colonies had very tidy little governments, schools of politics, in which the speaker of the assembly was commonly the leader of a healthy opposition to the governor; and on that foundation they built tidy little state governments, which showed the prevalent belief that governors were dangerous creatures who ought to have as little power as possible; while legislatures were a reflection of the people’s will which could not err. The wheel of revolution has twirled backward in our day; for we make governors and presidents great political leaders, and set our legislators on a one-legged race against the initiative and referendum. In the midst of the confusion of the Revolution, when town after town was picked up by the British, and nobody knew whether the Revolution would win out, it is wonderful how well the state governments worked, and how successful they were in putting on record the great principle of the two kinds of law,—fundamental or constitutional law, and statute law.
PATRICK HENRY ADDRESSING THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY IN 1765.
He is famous for his speech supporting the resolutions to resist the Stamp Act. At one point he exclaimed, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third”—“Treason! treason!” shouted the Speaker of the Assembly, “Treason! treason!” shouted the members—“and,” Henry continued, “George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!”
THE CHAIR AND TABLE USED AT THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The finest work of the Revolution was the making of a national government; for which the army and the navy were in part responsible, because a central national power was all that could save the army from capture and the navy from destruction. The Continental Congress became a government before it knew it, authorizing an army and navy, borrowing money, issuing many times more paper notes than it could ever redeem, appointing George Washington commander in chief of the Continental forces, sending ambassadors to foreign countries.