American Revolution

American Revolution's Emphasis On Individual Rights

The American Revolution was in many ways a conflict over liberty -- a war between the ideology of the old world (as represented by the monarchy and the crown) and the new world (as represented by the Romantic/Enlightenment doctrine illustrated in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man). This paper will discuss the ways in which the early political experiences of our nation's forefathers gave the American political culture a preoccupation with the assertion of individual rights.

Foundational Ideology

The American Revolution was, in a way, a testing ground for the French Revolution that followed -- which gives a better understanding of Revolution in general and the ideas that were at the heart of it. While the Americans drafted their Declaration of Independence in 1776, asserting their individual rights -- the National Assembly of France drafted its Declaration of the Rights of Man a decade later in 1789 -- a document which set the platform for liberty, equality, and fraternity as the cornerstone for politics around the world. Article no. 4 of the French Declaration certainly became part and parcel of the American ethos: "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights." Article no. 6 would also sum up the American political thought: "Law is the expression of the general will." Such ideas have since, of course, proven themselves to be erroneous. (What, for example, happens when the general will turns bad? Or when the general will is manipulated and incited much like the mob in Julius Caesar? Death by guillotine.).

The American Declaration of Independence likewise drips with the Romantic/Enlightenment doctrine of the time, espousing dogma that has since become known as the American Dream (highly criticized by some of America's greatest artists, like Eugene O'Neill and Edward Albee). The American Dream was built on our forefathers' obsession with individual rights -- but more than that -- it was built on the ideas of the Revolution and those espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose philosophy summed up the spirit behind the Declaration of Independence -- a draft which essentially through off the burden of the fidelity the colonies owed their legitimate king. Rousseau's philosophy laid the groundwork for such independence: "Children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved" (p. 14). For Rousseau, voluntary filial devotion was merely a matter of convention and nothing of natural significance whatsoever. Rousseau advocated a self-centered, self-serving "naturalism," in which self-preservation was the highest order, writing of man that

His first law is to provide for his own preservation, his first cares are those which he owes to himself; and, as soon as he reaches years of discretion, he is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving himself, and consequently becomes his own master (p. 14-15).

Upon such a declaration, Rousseau and his American followers erected their vision of political correctness -- the new rule of law that would be set up to govern the extent of one's so-called liberty.

Ideology in Practice

The American forefathers followed such ideas so closely that the mantra of the French Revolution might just as easily have been their own. So then it is no surprise to find that, as Daniel Murphy (2008) notes, "laws associated with the monarchical and feudal traditions of Britain were eliminated" after America won its independence: "An emphasis on individual rights became increasingly important in American political life" (p. 145). Such emphasis was shown in the rejection of primogeniture (the handing down of inheritance to the eldest son) and a diminishing of the amount of property needed to be allowed the right to vote. (While the ethos was Revolutionary, Americans still had enough practical sense and independence of mind for a time to know that egalitarianism was a false notion). Nonetheless, they bought into the notion of religious liberty whole-heartedly.

Thomas Jefferson's Statute of Religious Liberty (1786) ordered "that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship" (Murphy, 2008, p. 146), which became the backbone of the Constitution. The First Amendment guarantees that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." It is the official stance of Congress that it should turn a blind eye to the objective pursuit of truth. Its concern is, ironically, one of self-preservation. The question remains: how far can a nation preserve itself that refuses to acknowledge that religious and/or philosophical truth must be just as objectively judged as any other truth?

Nonetheless, as truth became subjective, it was left up to the individual define his or her own truth: essentially, the American political thought was built on the contradictory notion that the truth is there is no truth.

Individual rights were further asserted in the Constitution, largely credited to James Madison. Not everyone was for it, of course. Alexander Hamilton wanted a strong central government because he feared that a lack of unity and control would pit the thirteen colony-states against one another perpetually. But the die-hard revolutionaries like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams saw the Constitution (and the confederation of states which passed it) as a "bastion for the hard-won liberties achieved through Revolution" (Liberty!, 2004). Hamilton on the other hand criticized the loose confederation of states and their insistence upon individual rights as presented in the Bill of Rights, which "guaranteed" freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, the right to a speedy trial (gone the way of the dodo), and the freedom from cruel and unusual punishments (also allegedly gone today). Such individual rights and freedoms, Hamilton asserted, would keep the country from rising up: he argued that with so much emphasis on individual rights, "the new republic would never achieve greatness -- let alone function as a united country -- if it continued to be governed by the parochial concerns of 13 independent republics" (Liberty!, 2004).