One of the most important historical occurrences of the 18th century was the American Revolution. In this time period, America, a previous colony of the Europeans, attained independence. Following its independence, America turned its attention to a growth path that was distinct from and unrelated to its past. (Raphael 219). However, it is debatable to what extent the American Revolution qualifies as "revolutionary." (Bailyn 90). Although these compensations of balance were unequally distributed among Americans and the conceited notion of equality was exclusive and restricted, the American Revolution altered the existing social structure and supported equality. The American Revolution's primary theme was equality. This revolutionary idea originated out of the desire by the American elites to attain parity with the British elites. The American pre-Revolutionary elites were facing legitimacy challenges as their positions of power only justified in the nonexistence of "proper" British men to run the colonies (Rothman 56). This situation implied that the American elites were inferior to their British counterparts. This situation led to an “inferiority complex” among the Americans and made them at first hesitant to shove for complete secession from the British Empire (Raphael 210). However, the crucial turning point came when the American elites underwent a model shift whereby they began to consider themselves as an independent nation and not just an offshoot of a more extensive British country.
Equality idea was vital to the shifting dynamic of the association between the Americans and British. By putting forward the thought that “all men are equal,” the British treatment of the Americans as their social lesser could be directly attacked by the American elites (Rothman 580). Undeniably, the newly described good value of equality allowed American aristocrats to inhabit the moral high ground, and change their intelligence sense of weakness into one of control (Rothman 83). Eventually, the yearnings for “equality” became essentially connected with American yearn for "liberty." This is because a person could not claim to have actual liberty unless he was on an equal political and social footing with other people, along with those people whom he/she until that time differed to as his/her superiors.
Accordingly, the American Revolution led to the manifestation of the idea of equality in numerous ways, which includes making of the religion equal before the state. Before the American Revolution, various states had their own recognized beliefs, which were preferential over other non established ones (Rothman 750. Often, this bureaucrat favoritism could result to members of the non-official churches being mistreated; a good example being the happening of 1771 when the Anglicans in the state of Virginia, a state with the Anglican establishment assaulted a Baptist preacher (Bailyn 112). The primary practical means of solving such instances of aggression was the withdrawal of the state from religious business, which had the consequence of turning all the religions and at least all Christians equal in the logic that none of them was more or less advantaged than any other. It followed that every society was allowed to enjoy full, impartial and equal liberty. By this, the youthful republic of American could assure its steadiness and avoid internal slaughter and bloodshed (Raphael 210). After the official ending of the state religion by Virginia in 1786, the other states adopted the suit. This saw most of America being secularized by early 19th century.
Virginia performed a groundbreaking role not just in the faction to stop church establishments and balance the religions but as well in the encouragement of parity in broad. As renowned, it is Jefferson who came up with the idea of "All men are created equal" and after the attainment of independence; it is the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican who abided staunch proponents of the revolutionary concept of autonomy (Raphael 225). Unlike the condition in the north where the revolution led to an end of slavery on the blacks, the society in the south where most occupants were blacks did not experience any equality as they were entirely seen as slaves and inferior to the white man. This means that the revolution only favored the whites as it remained an imaginable term for the blacks in the south.
Nonetheless, as the whites did not want to treat the black slaves as their equals, there were a few blacks who were politically conscious and who were willing to embrace egalitarian revolutionary ideology (Raphael 220). Among these blacks were, a man named Gabriel who led a revolution against harming any Frenchmen, Quakers, as well as the poor white women who did not have slaves (Bailyn 94). Although he was later assassinated and his rebellion quashed, he had driven the point home that the blacks also needed to be treated with equality to the whites.
To summarize, American Revolution can be considered to have different impacts on different groups of people. Thus the levels of which this Revolution can be depicted as "revolutionary" vary depending on the exacting group that one focuses on. For the poor whites, that Revolution can indeed be described as "revolutionary" as it led to social equality and abolished class division. However, for the other groups in the South like the black slaves and women in spite of race, the American Revolution can hardly be regarded as "revolutionary."
Works Cited
Bailyn, Bernard. The ideological origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2017.
Raphael, Ray. A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence. New Press, The, 2016.
Rothman, Angela. "Revolutionary Theatricality: Dramatized American Protest, 1967-1968." (2016).
