Read Conceived in Liberty Online
Authors: Murray N. Rothbard
Larry R. Gies
Mr. & Mrs. William W. Massey, Jr.
Richard McInnis
E.H. Morse
Mr. & Mrs. Victor Niederhoffer
Niederhoffer Investments, Inc.
Mr. & Mrs. Mason Pearsall
Don Printz, M.D.
James M. Rodney
Sheldon Rose
Menlo Smith
Sunmark Capital Corp.
Lawrence Van Someren, Sr.
Mark M. Adamo
Maurice Brainard Family Trust
Richard Bleiberg
John Hamilton Bolstad
Mr. & Mrs. J.R. Bost
Mr. & Mrs. Justin G. Bradburn, Jr.
Dr. John Brätland
John W.T. Dabbs
Sir John & Lady Dalhoff
John W. Deming
Dr. & Mrs. George G. Eddy
Roger L. Erickson
Dr. Larry J. Eshelman
Bud Evans
Harley-Davidson of Reno
Mr. & Mrs. Walter A. Frantz, III
Douglas E. French
Albert L. Hillman, Jr.
Donald L. Ifland
Michael L. Keiser
Jim Kuden
Arthur L. Loeb
Roland Manarin
Joseph Edward Paul Melville
Robert A. Moore
James A. O’Connor
James O’Neill
Michael Robb
Mr. & Mrs. John Salvador
Conrad Schneiker
Mr. & Mrs. Edward Schoppe, Jr.
Jack DeBar Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Allan R. Spreen
William V Stephens
Byron L. Stoeser
J. Billy VerPlanck
Mr. & Mrs. Quinten E. Ward
Dr. Thomas L. Wenck
David Westrate
Betty K. Wolfe
Walter Wylie
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Tom Paine
1. Spreading the News of Lexington and Concord
3. Guerrilla or Conventional War
4. The Seizure of Fort Ticonderoga
5. The Response of the Continental Congress
6. Charles Lee: Champion of Liberty and Guerrilla War
8. Washington Transforms the Army
12. New York Fumbles in the Crisis
13. The Suppression of Tories Begins
14. Suppressing Tories in Rhode Island
15. Suppressing Tories in New York
16. Suppressing Tories in the Middle Colonies
17. Virginia Battles Lord Dunmore
18. Battling Tories in the South
PART III
The War in the First Half of 1776
19. The British Assault on Charleston
20. Forcing the British Out of Boston
21. Privateering and the War at Sea
22. Commodities, Manufacturing, and Foreign Trade
24. Polarization in England and the German Response to Renting “Hessians”
PART IV
America Declares Independence
26. Forming New Governments: New Hampshire
27. New England Ready for Independence
28. The Sudden Emergence of Tom Paine
29. Massachusetts Turns Conservative
30. The Drive Toward Independence
31. The Struggle in Pennsylvania and Delaware
32. New Jersey and Maryland Follow
34. New York Succumbs to Independence
PART V
The Military History of the Revolution, 1776–1778
36. The Campaigns in New Jersey
37. Planning in the Winter of 1777
38. Rebellion at Livingston Manor
40. Howe’s Expedition in Pennsylvania
42. The Battle of Monmouth and the Ouster of Lee
43. Response in Britain and France
PART VI
The Political History of the United States, 1776–1778
44. The Drive for Confederation
45. The Articles of Confederation
46. Radicalism Triumphs in Pennsylvania
47. Struggles Over Other State Governments
48. The Rise and Decline of Conservatism in New York
PART VII
The Military History of the Revolution, 1778–1781
49. The End of the War in the North
55. The Emergence of Guerrilla Warfare in South Carolina
57. The Battle of King’s Mountain
58. Greene’s Unorthodox Strategy
60. The Battle of Guilford Courthouse
61. The Liberation of South Carolina
63. After Yorktown in the West
PART VIII
The Political and Economic History of the United States, 1778–1784
66. Land Claims and the Ratification of the Articles of Confederation
67. Inflationary Finance and Price Controls
68. Conservative Counter-Revolution: Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in 1780
69. Robert Morris and the Conservative Counter-Revolution in National Politics, 1780–1782
70. Robert Morris and the Public Debt
71. The Drive for a Federal Tariff
73. The Fall of Morris and the Emergence of the Order of the Cincinnati
74. The Western Lands and the Ordinance of 1784
PART IX
The Impact of the Revolution
78. Elimination of Feudalism and the Beginnings of the Abolition of Slavery
79. Disestablishment and Religious Freedom
80. Was the American Revolution Radical?
What! Another American history book? The reader may be pardoned for wondering about the point of another addition to the seemingly inexhaustible flow of books and texts on American history. One problem, as pointed out in the bibliographical essay at the end of Volume I, is that the survey studies of American history have squeezed out the actual stuff of history, the narrative facts of the important events of the past. With the true data of history squeezed out, what we have left are compressed summaries and the historian’s interpretations and judgments of the data. There is nothing wrong with the historian’s having such judgments; indeed, without them, history would be a meaningless and giant almanac listing dates and events with no causal links. But, without the narrative facts, the reader is deprived of the data from which he can himself judge the historian’s interpretations and evolve interpretations of his own. A major point of this and the other volumes is to put the historical narrative back into American history.
Facts, of course, must be selected and ordered in accordance with judgments of importance, and such judgments are necessarily tied into the historian’s basic world outlook. My own basic perspective on the history of man, and
a fortiori
on the history of the United States, is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power, a conflict, by the way, which was seen with crystal clarity by the American revolutionaries of the eighteenth century. I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral
virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life. But liberty has always been threatened by the encroachments of power, power which seeks to suppress, control, cripple, tax, and exploit the fruits of liberty and production. Power, then, the enemy of liberty, is consequently the enemy of all the other goods and fruits of civilization that mankind holds dear. And power is almost always centered in and focused on that central repository of power and violence: the state. With Albert Jay Nock, the twentieth-century American political philosopher, I see history as centrally a race and conflict between “social power”—the productive consequence of voluntary interactions among men—and state power. In those eras of history when liberty—social power—has managed to race ahead of state power and control, the country and even mankind have flourished. In those eras when state power has managed to catch up with or surpass social power, mankind suffers and declines.
For decades, American historians have quarreled about “conflict” or “consensus” as the guiding
leitmotif
of the American past. Clearly, I belong in the “conflict” rather than the “consensus” camp, with the proviso that I see the central conflict as not between classes (social or economic), or between ideologies, but between Power and Liberty, State and Society. The social or ideological conflicts have been ancillary to the central one, which concerns: Who will control the state, and what power will the state exercise over the citizenry? To take a common example from American history, there are in my view no inherent conflicts between merchants and farmers in the free market. On the contrary, in the market, the sphere of liberty, the interests of merchants and farmers are harmonious, with each buying and selling the products of the other. Conflicts arise only through the attempts of various groups of merchants or farmers to seize control over the machinery of government and to use it to privilege themselves at the expense of the others. It is only through and by state action that “class” conflicts can ever arise.
This volume deals with the exciting events of the American Revolution, perhaps the most fateful years in American history. While the military history of the war necessarily takes first rank, it is not simply a recital of the battles; intertwined with the tactics and the strategy of the war were ideological conflicts over how the war should be fought, and what sort of government and society should emerge after the war was over. In particular, important light is shed on both the battles and the military strategy of the war by incorporating the latest historical researches applying what we now know about the importance of guerrilla vis-à-vis conventional interstate warfare for the waging of a revolutionary armed struggle. The military histories of the Revolution written before the 1960s are hopelessly
inadequate because they fail to grasp this vital dimension in explaining the course of the fighting.
In addition to the history of the warfare itself, this volume discusses the political history of the period, in particular the conflicts over the kinds of state governments to be constructed, and the drive of the Nationalists for a strong central government. This period culminates in the adoption of the Articles of Confederation and in the rise to power of Robert Morris. Also discussed are the oft-neglected financial history of the war, the ruinous inflation and price controls, and the political-financial manipulations of Morris and his associates. The book also deals with the Western lands question, which will take on fateful importance in the nineteenth century; it concludes by assessing the impact of the Revolution on America and Europe, and by asking the question: was the Revolution truly radical?
My intellectual debts for this volume are simply too numerous to mention, especially since an historian must bring to bear not only his own discipline but also his knowledge of economics, of political philosophy, and of mankind in general. Here I would just like to mention, for his methodology of history, Ludwig von Mises, especially his much neglected volume,
Theory and History;
and Lord Acton, for his emphasis on the grievously overlooked moral dimension. For his political philosophy and general outlook on American history, Albert Jay Nock, particularly his
Our Enemy the State.
As for my personal debts, I am happy to be more specific. This series of volumes would never have been attempted, much less seen the light of day, without the inspiration, encouragement, and support provided by Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr., now of the Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, Indiana. I hope that he won’t be overly disappointed with these volumes. I am grateful to the Foundation for Foreign Affairs, Chicago, for enabling me to work full time on the volumes, and to Dr. David S. Collier of the Foundation for his help and efficient administration. Others who have helped with ideas and aid in various stages of the manuscript are Charles G. Koch and George Pearson of Wichita, Kansas, and Robert D. Kephart of Kephart Communications, Inc., Alexandria, Virginia.