Tag: american-revolution

Friends, Enemies, and Revolutions Revised

~ purplesage41 ~ Leave a comment

I love to blog about holidays. Some months have no obvious choice for what holiday to celebrate, but July is easy. Two related but very different revolutions, American and French, officially began in July, one by a document and one by the execution of the ruling monarchs. Both were motivated by oppressive rulers and taxes. One was started by distant colonists from the more prosperous and educated classes while the other was a violent protest by the poor over taxes and poverty amidst the conspicuous extravagance of the ruling classes..  One link that tied the two revolutions together was the assistance from  the Marquis de Lafayette and the eventual French support of the Americans against the British. A member of the aristocracy, he was killed during the Reign of Terror.

A second much needed and unappreciated resource was the fierce fighters from the Appalachian colonists, the Scots-Irish, They played an important role in many of the later battles , most of which were fought in the South. The end came in Yorktown, Virginia, when French strategy and brave Scots-Irish solders brought about the surrender of British general Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.

 he Scots-Irish and the French both had scores to settle with England.  The roots of animosity between the English and the Scots and Irish were long and deep. France and England had wavered between friend and enemy for several centuries, but by the 1770s there was competition between France and Britain for control of North America. France also had strong ties to Scotland when it was a separate nation until the early 1600s

Lafayette helped Washington in many ways as the war moved south and engaged the French government to near bankruptcy and heavy taxes, resulting in a violent revolution in1789. Unlike our own revolution, the Storming of the Bastille on July 14th it did lead to democracy but to the reign of terror and eventually Napoleon. In 2018, when American forces liberated Paris, General Pershing announced, “Lafayette, we are her,e.”

Acknowledging the role of these allies that helped win our revolution suggests two important lessons.  .  First, sometimes the best place to find friends is among the enemies of your enemy,  as long as you can appeal to their self-interest..  The French could offer money, supplies, and military experience that they hoped would in turn  help them against the British in Canada and in their Southern beachhead in Louisiana and beyond. The Scots-Irish wanted to get rid of the hayed English and throw in their lot with the colonialists. In his book, Born Free, former Virginia senator James Webb documents the critical role of these Indian-style guerilla warriors played in battles like Cowpens, King’s Mountain and Yorktown in ending the war.

So as we leave the 4th of Jul;y and approach Bastille Day, July 14th,let us pause to give thanks to both our French allies and our Scots-Irish immigrants who contributed so much to the birth of a nation. We could not have succeeded without their help. We all get by with a little help from our friends.

Ready for the Counter-Revolution?

~ purplesage41 ~ 4 Comments


Today is  the end of a month with three famous revolutions—American, Cuban, and French.  Did they make things better? Sometimes, for some people, at a very high cost. We are the heirs and progenitors of many revolutions.  The digital revolution. The industrial revolution. The printing press, which revolutionized 16th century Europe. The Green revolution, which was at the time believed the answer to world hunger but wasn’t. The Protestant Reformation, at least the left wing of it, which threw out lots of bathwater and several babies in the process.

 Actual armed battles were the chosen format for many of these revolts. One of my heroines is Boudica, Queen of the Iceni in Britain, The Iceni and their allies, led by Boudica, revolted against Rome in 60 AD and even won some major battles before finally being defeated by a more disciplined Roman army.  The Iceni and their Celtic relatives practiced democracy, unlike the Romans, which is good for peacetime but not so much in the military,

England’s Civil War began by beheading King Charles I and led 12 years later to restoring the monarchy. Twenty-eight years later, the Glorious Revolution ousted The Old Pretender, ran off the Young Pretender. and created animosity between Scotland (homeland of England’s Stuart kings) and England that persists to this day.   The bloody and endless French Revolution. The American revolution. The US Civil War (civil wars are also revolutions). The Spanish Civil War. The many revolutions against colonial domination in Asia, Africa, and South America.

In the 18th century, Americans tried to create a workable government to manage the public affairs of 13 very diverse colonies once they were free from the oppression of British rule.  That utopian vision is always the delusion of revolutionaries, the faith that keeps them going through Valley Forge and other calamities.  But no one ever anticipates a counter-revolution.

 The Roman Catholic Church officially launched a counter Reformation. The American Civil War was definitely a counterrevolution to protect the privileges of the while male hierarchy of the Southern slave states. France had so many counter-revolutions I can never keep track.

We citizens of the United States are in the throes of an attempted counter-revolution, long in the planning, detailed in its vision for post-democracy in America, and banking on this year’s election to bring it about, whether peacefully or with violence. It is a vision of what its proponents thought life used to be like when men (white ones) were men and women know their place and so did the lower classes, especially African Americans and native Americans. These counter-revolutionaries believe that an earlier America was a society in which we were only responsible for ourselves (we=men), women lived lives a modified version of he Handmaid’s Tale, teaching a dubious version of Christianity was mandatory in public schools, equality of opportunity and respect were lacking, and violence was the answer to everything. Rule by a privileged minority at the expense of a resentful majority.

And yet…there are increasing signs that democracy, like the phoenix, can rise from the ashes—maybe even put out the flames! We are all called neither to unwarranted optimism or to deep despair, but to active, engaged hope to keep our fragile democracy alive for the generations yet to come. Like the Minutemen of the original American Revolution, you are not called to violence but to support, act, and vote for democracy to survive.  As my fellow economist Eugene Steuerle says, “We get the government we deserve.”

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