American Enterprise Institute

The American Revolution in American History

Americans and Their Revolution: The First 100 Years Notes

  1. The Pennsylvania Evening Post, “Philadelphia,” July 5, 1777.
  2. The Pennsylvania Evening Post, “Philadelphia.”
  3. David Sharp, “Tens of Millions Americans Crisscross the Country to Celebrate the Fourth of July,” PBS News, July 4, 2024, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/tens-of-millions-americans-crisscross-the-country-to-celebrate-the-fourth-of-july.
  4. Stephanie Farr, “Philly’s New Independence Holiday Gets to the Heart of America,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 3, 2024, https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/philadelphia-july-4-events-new-red-white-and-blue-to-do-20240703.html.
  5. Peter Thompson, “Local Safety, National Violence,” Commonplace 14, no. 3 (2014), https://commonplace.online/article/local-safety-national-violence/.
  6. Michel Foucault, “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of a Work in Progress,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (Pantheon Books, 1984), 343.
  7. Paul Finkelman, “The First Civil Rights Movement: Black Rights in the Age of the Revolution and Chief Taney’s Originalism in Dred Scott,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 24, no. 3 (2022): 707, https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/jcl/vol24/iss3/2/.
  8. Quoted in Cushing Strout, The American Image of the Old World (Harper & Row, 1963), 67.
  9. Abraham Lincoln, “Address to the New Jersey State Senate at Trenton, New Jersey,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 4, 1860–1861 (Rutgers University Press, 1953), 235–36.
  10. Frederick Douglass, Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester (Rochester, NY, 1852), 15.
  11. Abraham Lincoln, “To George Robertson,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, 1848–1858, 317.
  12. Sarah Logan Fisher, January 13, 1777, diary entry, in Nicholas B. Wainwright, “‘A Diary of Trifling Occurrences’: Philadelphia, 1776–1778,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 82, no. 4 (1958): 422, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20089127.
  13. Elizabeth Drinker, July 4, 1777, diary entry, in The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth-Century Woman, ed. Elaine Forman Crane (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 60; and Richard Godbeer, World of Trouble: A Philadelphia Quaker Family’s Journey Through the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2019), 137.
  14. Federalist, no. 1 (Alexander Hamilton), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0152.
  15. David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1789), 1:27, 347, 350.
  16. Aurora & General Advertiser, “New York, July 17,” July 19, 1792.
  17. Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (Knopf, 1997), 171. Michael Kammen argues to the contrary that Americans in the early republic were too busy to pay attention to their history, and he takes perhaps too seriously the complaints of John Adams that “the history of our Country is getting full of Falshoods and it is high time for some of them to be corrected.” Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (Knopf, 1991), 49.
  18. Thomas A. Chambers, Memories of War: Visiting Battlegrounds and Bonefields in the Early American Republic (Cornell University Press, 2012), 84–90.
  19. Aurora & General Advertiser, “Philadelphia,” July 9, 1798. The cornerstone for the Saratoga battlefield monument was not laid until 1877; the monument honoring Nathanael Greene at Guilford Courthouse was not dedicated until 1915.
  20. Philadelphia North American, “Fourth of July,” July 12, 1798.
  21. William Swinton, First Lessons in Our Country’s History: Bringing Out Its Salient Points, and Aiming to Combine Simplicity with Sense (New York, 1872), 87.
  22. The Freeman’s Journal, or, the North American Intelligencer, “New-York, July 11,” July 16, 1788; and Adam J. Criblez, Parading Patriotism: Independence Day Celebrations in the Urban Midwest, 1826–1876 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2013), 13.
  23. New-York Evening Post, “American Independence,” July 21, 1813.
  24. Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Correspondence of the Plain Dealer,” July 9, 1845.
  25. Paul Finkelman, “Master John Marshall and the Problem of Slavery,” The University of Chicago Law Review, August 31, 2020, 6, https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/online-archive/master-john-marshall-and-problem-slavery.
  26. David Waldstreicher, “Rites of Rebellion, Rites of Assent: Celebrations, Print Culture, and the Origins of American Nationalism,” The Journal  of American History 82, no. 1 (1995): 3, https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/82/1/37/737797.
  27. Paul Goetsch, “The Fourth of July and Its Role in American Literature,” in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776–1876, ed. Paul Goetsch and Gerd Hurm (Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992), 46; and Len Travers, “Hurrah for the Fourth: Patriotism, Politics, and Independence Day in Federalist Boston, 1783–1818,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 125, no. 2 (1989): 134–35, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015052932962&seq=139.
  28. Edward Everett, “The Seven Years’ War the School of the Revolution,” in Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston, 1859), 1:377–78.
  29. Abraham Lincoln, “Response to a Serenade,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 6, 1862–1863, 320.
  30. Thomas Paine, A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe’s Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up (London, 1817), 37.
  31. Francis Wayland, “The Duties of an American Citizen,” in Occasional Discourses, Including Several Never Before Published (Boston, 1833), 64.
  32. David Ramsay, “An Oration on the Advantages of American Independence,” in David Ramsay, 1749–1815: Selections from His Writings, ed. Robert L. Brunhouse (American Philosophical Society, 1965), 188.
  33. James Kirke Paulding, The Backwoodsman: A Poem (Philadelphia, 1818), 34.
  34. New-York Evening Post, “Friday, July 6,” July 6, 1804.
  35. Charles J. Ingersoll, A Communication on the Improvement of Government: Read Before the American Philosophical Society, at a Meeting Attended by General Lafayette, October 1st, 1824 (Philadelphia, 1824), 7–8, 10.
  36. Richmond Enquirer, “The Jubilee of Liberty,” July 4, 1826.
  37. William H. Crawford, July 4, 1813, in The Journal of William H. Crawford, ed. Daniel Chauncey Knowlton (Department of History of Smith College, 1925), 11:19.
  38. Paul A. Johnsgard, Lewis and Clark on the Great Plains: A Natural History (University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 106.
  39. Cleveland Plain Dealer, “The Celebration,” July 5, 1845.
  40. Illinois State Register, “Juvenile Celebration,” July 4, 1845.
  41. Gazette of the United States, “The Day,” July 4, 1826.
  42. Enoch Cobb Wines, Hints on a System of Popular Education: Addressed to R. S. Field, Esq. (Philadelphia, 1838), 247–48.
  43. John Russell, A History of the United States of America, from the Period of Discovery to the Present Time: Arranged for the Use of Schools, with Questions for the Examination of Students (Philadelphia, 1838), 116, 204.
  44. Abbé Fauchet, “Extract from the Eulogy on Dr. Franklin, Pronounced by the Abbe Fauchet, in the Name of the Commons of Paris, 1790,” in The Columbian Orator [. . .], ed. Caleb Bingham, 18th ed. (New York, 1816), 67; and Arthur O’Connor, “Part of Mr. O’Connor’s Speech in the Irish House of Commons, in Favor of the Bill for Emancipating the Roman Catholics, 1795,” in Bingham, The Columbian Orator, 247.
  45. Caleb Bingham, The American Preceptor: Being a New Selection of Lessons for Reading and Speaking (Boston, 1801), 48–50.
  46. Bingham, The American Preceptor, 48–50.
  47. John Stauffer, Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (Hachette, 2009).
  48. Abraham Lincoln, “Report of Speech at Vandalia, Illinois, 23 September 1856,” speech, Vandalia, IL, September 23, 1856, https://papersofabrahamlincoln.org/documents/D200923.
  49. Abraham Lincoln, “First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, 1858–1860, 18–19.
  50. Abraham Lincoln, “Farewell Address at Springfield, Illinois,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4, 1860–1861, 190; and Lincoln, “Address to the New Jersey State Senate at Trenton, New Jersey,” 235–36, 240.
  51. Abraham Lincoln, “Speech in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4, 1860–1861, 240.
  52. Jefferson Davis, “Inaugural Address of the President of the Provisional Government,” in Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, ed. Dunbar Rowland (Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923), 5:50.
  53. Emory M. Thomas, “Jefferson Davis and the American Revolutionary Tradition,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 70, no. 1 (1977): 6–7.
  54. New York Daily Herald, “The Monster Meeting,” April 21, 1861; and John Cochrane, “Speech of Hon. John Cochrane,” New York Daily Herald, April 21, 1861.
  55. Chicago Tribune, “The Nation’s Crisis,” April 15, 1861.
  56. Chicago Tribune, “All for Our Country,” April 16, 1861.
  57. Stephen Foster, “I’m Nothing but a Plain Old Soldier,” in Classic Songs, ed. Matthew Barton (Sterling, 2008), 248.
  58. Alexander Wallace Givin, July 21, 1862, diary entry, Union League of Philadelphia Archives.
  59. Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s ‘Original Rough Draught’ of the Declaration of Independence,” in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 1, 1760–1776 (Princeton University Press, 1950), 246–47.
  60. Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (London, 1774), 28–29.
  61. Thomas Jefferson to Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, July 18, 1824, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-4419.
  62. Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 28–29; David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution 1770–1823, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1999), 9–10; Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, in The Portable Thomas Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (Viking, 1975), 568; and Michael Zuckerman, “The Power of Blackness: Thomas Jefferson and the Revolution in St. Domingue,” in Almost Chosen People: Oblique Biographies in the American Grain (University of California Press, 1993), 214–16.
  63. James Madison to Joseph Jones, November 28, 1780, in The Papers of James Madison, ed. William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal, vol. 2, 20 March 1780–23 February 1781 (University of Chicago Press, 1962), 209.
  64. James Madison to James Madison Sr., September 8, 1783, in The Papers of James Madison, vol. 7, 3 May 1783–29 February 1784, 304–5.
  65. James Madison to Edmund Randolph, July 26, 1785, in The Papers of James Madison, vol. 8, 10 March 1784–28 March 1786, 329. On this incident, see also Jeff Broadwater, James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of the Nation (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 115.
  66. Quoted in Eva Sheppard Wolf, Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat Turner’s Rebellion (Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 1. Eva Sheppard Wolf quotes the Virginia Gazette in 1782. But the original author of this nettling inquiry seems to have been John Cooper of Gloucester, New Jersey, in The New-Jersey Gazette on September 20, 1780. See John Cooper, “To the Publick,” The New-Jersey Gazette, September 20, 1780, 2, https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83025471/1780-09-20/ed-1/.
  67. The New-Jersey Gazette, quoted in Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (University of North Carolina Press, 1968), 378.
  68. Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Being the First Session of the Fifth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Philadelphia, May 15, 1797, and in the Twenty-First Year of the Independence of the Said States (Washington, 1826), 3:550.
  69. Sean Wilentz, No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding (Harvard University Press, 2018), 154, 165, 167–69, 176; David Stone and John Quincy Adams, “1804, Tuesday, Jany. 31. Bill Relating to Louisiana,” in Everett Somerville Brown, The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase, 1803–1812 (University of California Press, 1920), 224; and David Stone and John Quincy Adams, “1804, Friday, Feby. 17. Louisiana Bill,” in Brown, The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase, 1803–1812, 232.
  70. Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, “From the Genius of Universal Emancipation,” in The Spirit of Humanity and Essence of Morality: Extracted from the Productions of the Enlightened and Benevolent of Various Ages and Climes (Albany, NY, 1835), 268.
  71. Tim Matthewson, “Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haiti,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 140, no. 1 (1996): 23.
  72. Forrest Nabors, From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction (University of Missouri Press, 2017), 143–44.
  73. Cong. Globe, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 876 (1848).
  74. John C. Calhoun, “A Disquisition on Government,” in Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun, ed. Ross M. Lence (Liberty Fund, 1992), 42.
  75. John C. Calhoun, “Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions,” in Union and Liberty, 473; and Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1837).
  76. John C. Calhoun, “Speech on the Oregon Bill,” in The Papers of John C. Calhoun, ed. Clyde N. Wilson and Shirley Bright Cook, vol. 25, 1847–1848 (University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 535.
  77. Calhoun, “Speech on the Oregon Bill,” 535.
  78. John C. Calhoun, “Exposition and Protest,” in Union and Liberty, 357; and C. Bradley Thompson, America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It (Encounter Books, 2019), 362–73.
  79. Calhoun, “Exposition and Protest,” in Union and Liberty, 333–34; Cong. Globe, 22nd Cong., 2nd Sess. 322–23 (1842); and John C. Calhoun, “Speech: On Mr. Clay’s Resolutions in Relation to the Revenues and Expenditures; Delivered in the Senate, March 16th, 1842,” in The Works of John C. Calhoun, ed. Richard K. Crallé, vol. 4, Speeches of John C. Calhoun, Delivered in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate of the United States (New York, 1854), 134.
  80. John C. Calhoun to William Ruffin, October 8, 1835, in The Papers of John C. Calhoun, ed. Clyde N. Wilson, vol. 12, 1833–1835, 564.
  81. Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison & the Republican Legacy (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 234.
  82. Stephen V. Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 1860–1870: War and Peace in the Upper South (Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 40.
  83. Henry St. George Tucker, Lectures on Constitutional Law: For the Use of the Law Class at the University of Virginia (Richmond, VA, 1843), 46–47.
  84. Tucker, Lectures on Constitutional Law, 46–47.
  85. Thomas Roderick Dew, “An Address, on the Influence of the Federative Republican System of Government upon Literature and the Development of Character,” Southern Literary Messenger 2, no. 4 (1836): 277, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/acf2679.0002.004/226:2.
  86. Alexander H. Stephens, “Cornerstone Address,” in Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860–April 1861, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 406–7.
  87. Stephens, “Cornerstone Address,” in Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860–April 1861, 406–7.
  88. Angelina E. Grimké, “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,” The Anti-Slavery Examiner 1, no. 2 (1836): 16.
  89. Henry Highland Garnet, “An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” in The Black Abolitionist Papers, ed. C. Peter Ripley et al., vol. 3, The United States, 1830–1846 (University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 406.
  90. David Walker, Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles: Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World (Boston, 1830), 77.
  91. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805–1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, vol. 1, 1805–1835 (New York, 1885), 131.
  92. Benjamin Lamb-Books, Angry Abolitionists and the Rhetoric of Slavery: Moral Emotions in Social Movements (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 106.
  93. Lemuel Foster, “The Presidential Election: A Momentous Issue,” Oberlin Evangelist 10, no. 4 (1848): 157.
  94. Stephen A. Douglas, “First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 3:9.
  95. Douglas, “First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois.”
  96. Lincoln, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, 1848–1858, 501.
  97. Abraham Lincoln, “Sixth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas, at Quincy, Illinois,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, 1858–1860, 248–49.
  98. Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address,” speech, Gettysburg, PA, November 19, 1863, https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm.
  99. William Henry Seward, “The President and His Cabinet,” in The Works of William H. Seward, ed. George E. Baker, vol. 5, The Diplomatic History of the War for the Union, Etc. (Boston, 1884), 522.
  100. Philadelphia Inquirer, “One Hundred Years Ago,” July 4, 1876.
  101. Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (Macmillan, 1913), 17; and Alan Gibson, Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions, 2nd ed. (University Press of Kansas, 2010), 21–31. As Finkelman has observed, Beard almost never talked about slavery and showed little interest in abolition or civil rights.