By Blood Betrayed

An Analytical Argument Discussing the Notion of the American Revolution as A Civil War

Brooke Bobincheck
History 611: Readings in the American Revolution
May, 2018
Dr. Carolyn Eastman
Spring Semester
Virginia Commonwealth University
 As most Americans are familiar, the American Revolution was crucial to the

establishment of the United States as a nation-state, or so the common narrative

states.What truly is in dispute is a critical discussion in contemporary historiography viaa

theorem popularized by historian T.H. Breen in his monograph American Insurgents,

American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. Breen postulated that the American

Revolution was less an actual revolution and was in fact a civil war within a greater

nation-state. The conflicting notion of the American war for independence as either a

revolution, or a civil war is currently a dominating discussion of Early American

historiography. As this is the contested discussion at hand, this work will be evaluating

and firmly arguing that the American Revolution was in fact, a volatile civil war.

This argument makes use of not only Breen's work, but additional sources by

historians Bernard Bailyn, and Alan Taylor for contrasting and corroborating

analysis.Their works, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, and American

Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804, respectively, are used for supporting

analyses. Taylor in particular argues two points, overall. First, that the American

Revolution occurred not only as a world-oriented war, involving Spain, and France as

world powersbut as a movementen masse of the people.1 Second, as mob violence

increased, so did insurgent guerilla actions, succinctly arguing against Breen's evaluation

1
Alan Taylor. American Revolutions: A Continental History. (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.)
19-24.
 of the chronology of events leading up to the outbreak of formal warfare in 1776.2

Though Taylor fails to take into consideration the fact that guerilla actions themselves do

not constitute a revolution.3Indeed, guerilla actions often predicate the outbreak of full

civil war, as in the case of the American war for independence throughout 1773 through

1775.4

While it is generally surmised that the American war for independence was in fact

a revolution, the truths, upon closer examination, in large part due to Bernard Bailyn's

argument, reveal the ideological origin of mass colonial resentment. It would very much

appear, through most contemporary studies, that conventional rhetorical study of the

revolution is based on perception of truth and concurrent inherent bias.AsBailynexplains,

Taxation was but one flashpoint for agitation by the wealthy elite, and the landed

mercantile classes.5Moreover, it was not representation that was argued over, but rather,

taxation as a whole.6 In particular, mercantile classes and the wealthy elite who

convinced or coerced many fellow colonials,through the key usage ofpamphleteering, to

join the cause of revolution.

This psychologically-oriented use of media operations was the primary non-

violent guerilla campaign throughout the early 1770s through 1775 identified by

2
T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. (New York, NY: Hill &
Wang, 2010.) 44-47.
3
Breen, Amer. Insurgents. 55-57.
4
Breen, Amer. Insurgents. 60-61.
5
Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1967.) 22-28.
6
Bailyn, Origins. 42-46.
 Breenfirst and foremost.7 Although to be surewithin contemporary historiography,it was

Bernard Bailyn who would discover the use of mass pamphleteering as a campaign of

and for thehearts and minds of the Colonials hoping to persuade them to become

dissidents against their Sovereign.8 To clarify, Bailyn emphasizes that the pamphleteering

and overall propaganda campaigns by the revolutionaries were conducted on the part of

the mercantile and wealthy classes.

In order to sufficiently argue the point of the American Revolution as a civil war,

the individual terms revolution and civil war need to be individually defined so as to fit

and be argued within proper context. According to definitions set in the scholarlyfield of

polemology, the multi-disciplinary academicstudy of war, a standardized civil war is best

identified as intrastate warfarebetween organized groups within a nation-state.9Similarly,

T.H. Breen defines the American war for independence as a fractious affair within the

nation-state of Great Britain.10A revolution, conversely, is a political action designed to

facilitate organizational change within a nation. The term revolution is actually based off

the Latin Revolutio, for rotating,such as in the rotationof a clock's hands, a term that

directly relates back to Republican Rome.Arevolution can thus be a sub-factor of a civil

war or vice-versa depending on the internal socio-politicalsituation of a nation-state.

In the case of the American Revolution, based on factors presented by Taylor,

Bailyn, and Breen, it cangenerally be identified thus farthat the American war for

7
T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. (New York, NY: Hill &
Wang, 2010.) 12-15.
8
Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1967.) 70-74.
9
T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. (New York, NY: Hill &
Wang, 2010.) 122-123.
10
Breen, Amer. Insurgents. 15-17.
 independence with its global-scale of involvement, was in fact, a civil war of the British

Empire.The examination of these historians for the decisive argument of the revolution

asa civil war bears significantly further exploration. Breen concurs with the

aforementioned classical interpretation of a civil war versus a revolutionwhichhe makes

clear in American Insurgents, American Patriots.11 Breen emphasizes his concurrence

when he focuses on the contributions of the thousands of ordinary, common men who

made up the militias and Continental Army as opposed to the typically elitist narrative of

the glorification of the Founding Fathers.12This latter attitude is exemplified in Bernard

Bailyn's work. To clarify, there is nothing inherently wrong with either perspective, as

both are subjective points of view, however, examining both is necessary to understand

why the revolution is actually a civil war.

Alan Taylor's work on the American Revolution takes on the form of analyzing

the war as a global event comprisedof numerous micro-revolutions. By the terminology

of micro-revolutions, the termis similar to the definition of micro-histories, yet pertinent

only to the study of revolutionary theory.13 The term can best be defined as revolutions

within a revolution, and illustrated as a war on numerous levels, not simply militarily.14

Those levels contain different stages of revolution at the political, economic, and social

sectors which define a given society. Ultimately, Taylor's iteration unveils the American

war for independence as a global-scale confrontation, the first true world war.15 Taylor's

11
Breen, Amer. Insurgents. 78-81.
12
Breen, Amer. Insurgents. 225-229.
13
Alan Taylor. American Revolutions: A Continental History. (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.)
88-94.
14
Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1967.) 115-117.
15
Alan Taylor. American Revolutions: A Continental History. (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.)
277-280.
 analysis meshes best with Breen's argument given the nature of internecine warfare that

comprised the American revolution, or rather, the first American Civil War.

Primarily, however, micro-revolutions are tied to a movement of the common

people, as Breen so aptly puts it, and in fact utilizes the phrase in his work's

title.16Taylorstudies the Revolution from the perspective of the common man as Breen

does, though Breen focuses the majority of his study on the actions of the North

American colonial plebian class, rather than the psychologically-oriented ideologies and

methodologies centered on by Taylor. Bailynfocuses onthe intellectual upper-class aspect

of these micro-revolutions, and the revolution at large, which he takes on in his workThe

Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.

Traditionally by historical axiom, definition, and practice, a civil war must

originate from the masses, never the elite, the plebian classes rather than the patricians, to

useLatinphraseology once more.17 While the elite have a historically noteworthy place in

a given civil uprising, indeed there would be no uprising without the elite in the first

place, they do not comprise sufficient numbers to fight a definedwar in any reasonable

fashion.By this reasoning alone, the ruling classes tend to often present as an appealing

target for the peoples' collective if unfocused rage.

In part, due to the elites'sheer wealth, the upper classes typically had little reason

for being actively motivated against a sovereign body, unless that body issued directives

that impede or otherwise affect the elite in any negative fashion.These sociopolitical

16
T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. (New York, NY: Hill &
Wang, 2010.) 1.
17
Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1967.) 128-132.
 factors are illustrated in the American war for independence when Parliament began

issuing taxation decrees against the colonists, of which the wealthy elites would be

affected the most.18Bailyn points out these aforementioned factors out as well. Parliament

effectively goaded the wealthy colonials into action by threatening the one possession

they cared about most deeply, their finances and profits.19

Bailyn points out that the elite did thus play a major role framing the new

American government, after lashing out violently at their sovereign for issuing taxation

decrees which they perceivedas a tyrannical notion, and a limitation on individual and

class liberty.20 Breen, as noted, contradicts the notion Bailyn presents regarding the

importance of the elite classes,and emphasizes the limitations held by the elite21, as

opposed to those willing to fight and die for the dream of a new nation.22Limitations such

as their willingness to fight on their own, instead of coercing and conscripting the poorer

colonials to fight.

Further limitations on the part of the elite includeda decidedly self-inflicted

narrow world-view and thought quite highly of themselves, as though they were born to

be leaders. The two most important documents in the history of the United States, the

Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, provide ample evidence of this,

especially prior to the addition of the Bill of Rights. Digression aside, the common people

18
Bailyn, Origins. 82-85.
19
Bailyn, Origins. 90-92.
20
Bailyn, Origins. 184-185.
21
T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. (New York, NY: Hill &
Wang, 2010.) 233-235.
22
Alan Taylor. American Revolutions: A Continental History. (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.)
415-418.
 fought fiercely anddid so with seemingly little to lose, and the promise of everything to

gain regardless of whether that promise was true or not, so argues Breen.23

The elite classes seemed to have the desire to start and flame the fires of war, but

little desire to fight the actual war. While one well-regardedgeneral in particular, George

Washington, did lead men in combat, it should be noted for the sake of argumentthat

Washington is hardly remembered as a decent commander. Mediocre at best and

ultimately losing more battles than he won, Washington proved able to fight the British

Army, which he himself had served in, within a war of attrition causing a virtual

stalemate in the Northern theatre of war. The viciousness of the state at which this war

was fought is most easily recognized as a factor of a civil war; the raw emotion used in

the combat between father and son, brother against brother, went far beyond mere loyalist

versus revolutionary factionalism.24

On a separatelevel of conflict, Breen emphasizes that the voxpopuli, or voice of

the people, was relatively absent from the battles for the hearts and minds of the people

waged between the revolutionaries and their Sovereign via mass propaganda. Rather,

Breen seems to postulate that there was a voice made for the people instead, as if it were

assigned to them by the elite and merchant classes.25 This situation alone emphasizes a

socio-political schism that comes to fruition only during the strife seen during a civil war

and therefore meets onecondition needed to qualify for the status of such a volatile

conflict.

23
T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. (New York, NY: Hill &
Wang, 2010.) 174-177.
24
Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1967.) 30-42, 125-128.
25
Bailyn, Origins. 92-96.
 Those colonials who subsequentlybecame revolutionaries were indeed primarily

from the common and mercantile classes, thoughthey were taken in by revolutionary

propaganda, perBailyn's explanation.26Further, as Bailyn shows through the unorthodox

method used bythe revolutionariesthroughtheir ideologicalpropaganda campaign, literacy

was an important consideration for the writers.Notable propagandists and would-be

philosophers such as Thomas Paine, among other contemporaries of the time wrote their

pamphlets in a manner that could be easily understood by even the most basic colonial

citizen.27The revolutionaries thereby found a way to make their ideas appeal to a larger

populace and subsequently grow their cause and especially, their army.

The essence of the American war for independencestands to reason that the

American revolution was not merelya civil war, but a civil war consisting of self-

contained conflicts on different levels. A conventional military conflict was one such

level, while also being interwoven with evolvingtactics and adapting strategies, a

continuation of the military revolution of the mid-1500s in Europe. What is referred to, is

the western innovative continuation of this military revolution, in termsof guerilla tactics

and applicable strategies,demonstrated in the Americansconflict with their Sovereign in

the backwoods territories during the prelude to open war, 1773-1775.28

The military conflictof this civil war overlapped a ferocious media blitz in the

form of pamphleteering, with the goal of competing for the hearts and minds of the

colonials. There was also the social class opposition conflict between the common people

and the elite classes, as well as a diametric conflict between the colonials and the

26
Bailyn, Origins. 108-112.
27
Bailyn, Origins. 163-164.
28
T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. (New York, NY: Hill &
Wang, 2010.) 225-229.
revolutionaries, a classic asymmetrical and multi-front internecine war.A separate, yet

related level of conflict within the civil war was the often-overlooked global scale of the

war, most often demonstrated through naval and logistics confrontations, such as supply

ships being blockaded in Boston Harbor. Such was the brutality and machinations of the

so-called American revolution.

 References

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1967.

Breen, T.H. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. New York,
NY: Hill & Wang, 2010.

Taylor, Alan. American Revolutions: A Continental History. New York, NY: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2016.