Happy Trianon Treaty Day!

[Maximus]

Well we wanted that. We fought for that. We won it. In 1849.

You're older that I thought.

[alfred russel]

According to wiki estimates are 20% of the popuation were loyalists, saying 500,000 of 2.5 mil (well - white population at least).

As we in Canada can tell you it's a bit of a problem if 20% of your population fundamentally doesn't "buy in" to your national ideal.

Assuming that most of those people left (I don't think they did), I don't see the same problem for the US. For starters, the loyalists had the same culture--the difference was just that they wanted to stay as a part of the UK. New immigrants, which swarmed the country, were unlikely to want reunion with the British, and as importantly it is unlikely loyalists would have kept such a mindset for long after independence. Loyalists were ultimately motivated by conservatism in government, but once a legitimate US government was created the same sentiments would prompt them to support the US. There are Americans today that are descendants of the loyalists, but I don't know of any that want to subject ourselves to QEII.

Even in Latin America, where things often did not work out well, there were not serious indigenous movements to reunite with Spain.

[The Brain]

If you don't want to lose stuff in the peace treaty then don't lose major wars.

Swedes today may mourn or celebrate the loss of great power status in 1721 but no one would call the peace unfair.

[Viking]

If you don't want to lose stuff in the peace treaty then don't lose major wars.

Swedes today may mourn or celebrate the loss of great power status in 1721 but no one would call the peace unfair.

Or, like the arabs, if you lose a major war don't show up for the peace conferance.

[Sheilbh]

I read a book on the history of Latin America recently.  One of it's main thesis points were that Latin American countries fundamentally had to "national ideal" like the US did - it's revolutions were promoted by the local elites with the primary purpose to continue the status quo.

So, to a large extent, was the American revolution.  America's was a conservative revolution and I think elite-led too.  But the context in which it took place was pre-French Revolution and pre-Napoleon.  That's a hugely significant difference.

Edit:  Also, crucially, pre-Haiti.

[Valmy]

America's was a conservative revolution and I think elite-led too.

Um Thomas Payne?

American society was pretty dramatically changed by the revolution so if they intended something conservative they had to be pretty disappointed.

[Sheilbh]

Um Thomas Payne?

American society was pretty dramatically changed by the revolution so if they intended something conservative they had to be pretty disappointed.

There's those two meanings of revolution though - which I think's appropriate for the American revolution (and, incidentally Cromwell's).  There's the modern, political sense that it's a great upheaval that changes the world and there's the older sense of a revolution, a full turn that ends with society in a very similar place.

It seems to me that the American revolution is one of the only examples of a conservative revolution.  They managed to change political and civil society while stopping short of a radical revolutionary phase that tends to be more economically focused.  The American revolution simultaneously ends monarchy and aristocracy while maintaining the established wealth and power of men like Jefferson or Washington.

(Edit:  I think the more radical phase happens when the masses get involved.  Elites are interested in power and politics.  They want to change institutions and governing structures while they've got their revolution.  Once that expands, for whatever reason, to the mass population they very often want to change the economic structure and to challenge the governing structures entirely.  This happened in France and Haiti, was hinted at in England by the Levellers, but avoided there and in America.)

By contrast the French and Haitian revolutions consume that too.  Their example, I think, leads to another approach by men of position in Latin America because while stirring up the masses and trying to utterly change society can lead to the US, it can also lead to the Terror and I think it's rather difficult to stop - in my view the Americans managed it in part because of the genius of that generation of leaders.

But to use your example of Tom Paine I think there's a difference between the Tom Paine of 'Common Sense' and the man who later writes 'Rights of Man', that letter to President Washington and in 'Agrarian Justice' proposes a fully funded land-tax based welfare state.  I think the success of the conservatism of America's revolution is reflected in the fact that I believe only a half dozen people turn up for Paine's funeral and by that point he's more or less universally derided in America.  Including by some associates of Jefferson who was his old friend, and the reason he was welcomed back from France.

[Valmy]

Well virtually every white man in the US at the time owned some land and if you didn't have some you just had to move 20 miles to the west and get some.  It is hard to raise the Prols to get what's theres when they can just...you know...get what's theres.  If a similar situation had existed in France or England their revolutions would have also looked alot different but that does not mean it was somehow elite driven, just the interests of the common white man were different.

And there were lots of crazy populist things going on even in our case.  Like the states just cancelling debts at one point.  It was not until the Whisky Rebellion that the forces of order and conservatism really took control again.

[alfred russel]

Um Thomas Payne?

American society was pretty dramatically changed by the revolution so if they intended something conservative they had to be pretty disappointed.

There's those two meanings of revolution though - which I think's appropriate for the American revolution (and, incidentally Cromwell's).  There's the modern, political sense that it's a great upheaval that changes the world and there's the older sense of a revolution, a full turn that ends with society in a very similar place.

It seems to me that the American revolution is one of the only examples of a conservative revolution.  They managed to change political and civil society while stopping short of a radical revolutionary phase that tends to be more economically focused.  The American revolution simultaneously ends monarchy and aristocracy while maintaining the established wealth and power of men like Jefferson or Washington.

(Edit:  I think the more radical phase happens when the masses get involved.  Elites are interested in power and politics.  They want to change institutions and governing structures while they've got their revolution.  Once that expands, for whatever reason, to the mass population they very often want to change the economic structure and to challenge the governing structures entirely.  This happened in France and Haiti, was hinted at in England by the Levellers, but avoided there and in America.)

By contrast the French and Haitian revolutions consume that too.  Their example, I think, leads to another approach by men of position in Latin America because while stirring up the masses and trying to utterly change society can lead to the US, it can also lead to the Terror and I think it's rather difficult to stop - in my view the Americans managed it in part because of the genius of that generation of leaders.

But to use your example of Tom Paine I think there's a difference between the Tom Paine of 'Common Sense' and the man who later writes 'Rights of Man', that letter to President Washington and in 'Agrarian Justice' proposes a fully funded land-tax based welfare state.  I think the success of the conservatism of America's revolution is reflected in the fact that I believe only a half dozen people turn up for Paine's funeral and by that point he's more or less universally derided in America.  Including by some associates of Jefferson who was his old friend, and the reason he was welcomed back from France.

Sheilbh, would you compare the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution?

[Sheilbh]

I think there were perhaps ideological links, but I don't think they're massively similar.  A better comparison is perhaps the English Civil War.  In both cases there was immediate conflict which required the funding, maintaining and leading of armies - which is what the elites did at that period.  So they retain control of the revolutionary process to a far greater degree than in other revolutionary situations.

[alfred russel]

I think there were perhaps ideological links, but I don't think they're massively similar.  A better comparison is perhaps the English Civil War.  In both cases there was immediate conflict which required the funding, maintaining and leading of armies - which is what the elites did at that period.  So they retain control of the revolutionary process to a far greater degree than in other revolutionary situations.

I was thinking along the lines that in both cases the theoretically ultimate font of government power: the monarchy/the UK, began to assert power that threatened the interests of the upper and middle classes. In neither case was there a radical departure in the way the government worked (at least until things began to break down in the US and the constitutional convention needed to be called).

The Glorious Revolution just substituted one king for another more in line with the prevailing views of the country. The American Revolution left power with the colonies which had been nearly de facto independent for a number of years.

The reason one had a major war and one didn't is that James II had no real power base outside of the UK. Had the UK let the colonies decide their course for themselves, I doubt there would have been much fighting either. On the other hand, the English Civil War was a civil war between different parts of society that challenged the basic form through which government would be delivered.

[PJL]

I think there were perhaps ideological links, but I don't think they're massively similar.  A better comparison is perhaps the English Civil War.  In both cases there was immediate conflict which required the funding, maintaining and leading of armies - which is what the elites did at that period.  So they retain control of the revolutionary process to a far greater degree than in other revolutionary situations.

In that respect I'd say George Washington was a far greater political leader from a military background than Oliver Cromwell was.