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Show Americans as Anti-Revolutionaries Editor's Nole: This is the twelfth in a series of 18 articles exploring issues of the American Ameri-can Issues Forum. This series has been written especially for the second segment of the Bicentennial program of Corses Cor-ses by Newspaper. COURSES BY NEWSPAPER NEWSPAP-ER was developed by the University of California Extension, Exten-sion, San Diego, and funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Humani-ties. Copyright c 1976 by the Regents of the University of California. By Waller LaFeber Since the first settlements. Americans have lived with global insecurity, heightened during our own century by massive revolutionary movements move-ments in China, Russia and Latin America. We have usually opposed these revolutions revolu-tions and have sometimes even dispatched military forces for-ces to control them. It is odd. therefore, that in 1959 the distinguished historian histor-ian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., ranked "the right of revolution" revolu-tion" first among "America's ten gifts to civilization," listing it ahead of "federalism." "federal-ism." "consent of the governed" gov-erned" and "rights of women." wo-men." In that same year Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, but Americans did not show much tolerance for Cuba's "right of revolution." Five years earlier the United States had helped overthrow a revolutionary movement in Guatemala. In '1965 we landed 22,000 troops in Santo Domingo to prevent a rebel group from overthrowing the conservative regime. The most revolutionary of peoples in 1776 had become, to quote Senator William Fulbright, "the most unrevolutionary nation on earth." 1776 Not Real Revolution Pondering the reasons for that change might be a most appropriate way to celebrate the Bicentennial. To begin with, we might recognize that the American War for Independence Inde-pendence was less a complete revolution than it was an anit-colonial war. Having developed de-veloped their own governments, govern-ments, economy and culture during the previous 150 years, Americans were prepared to destroy the remnants of British colonialism in order to assume complete control. The new regime did make some changes. It abolished state sponsorship of churches in some states and, most radical of all, announced that since "all men were created equal" the new nation would be ruled by consent of the governed. Such actions, however, how-ever, only ratified a process of change that had been occurring occurr-ing in America for decades. The war itself did not create many new forces. Primarily, it assured the continuance of wide property distribution, religious toleration and self-i self-i government, all facts of life in the English colonies prior to the "revolution." In Gore Vidal's novel Burr, one of Aaron Burr's manv woman friends fears that the Declaration of Independence recently written by that "Virginia doll." Thomas Jefferson, Jef-ferson, will unloose radicalism and threaten her property. Burr gently assures her that everything will be the same after the supposed Revolution, "bul without the inconvenience inconven-ience of paying taxes to England." The point made in the novel was right; but Americans made the mistake in Burr's lime and later of seeing their revolution as a model for all mankind, even for nations whose property distribution, political rights and religious toleration more closely resembled resem-bled the Middle Ages than the new America. When the French began their national upheaval in 1789. many of their revolutionary leaders looked to 1776 as a model. Their struggle, however, would be fought not against colonial rulers but fellow Frenchmen. They were not completing a century or more of rapid democratic development, develop-ment, but breaking violently with the past to start anew. By 1793 the need for killing anti-revolutionaries became so widespread that the French turned to public exhibitions of Dr. J. I. Guillotin's new highly efficient device for lopping off heads. Nothing resembling the guillotine had emerged from the American Revolution. By 1794 Americans were sickened by the bloodshed and radicali-zation radicali-zation in France. President George Washington condemned condem-ned his one-time ally-in-battle, and when France went to war with England he issued a neutrality proclamation tiat indicated not the slightest sympathy for his old ally. Revolution On Our Doorstep A decade later Americans had to deal with another revolution occurring almost at their doorstep. The Latin American colonies rebelled against Spanish and Portuguese Portu-guese rule and looked to the United States for help. The Americans did not respond officially for years, refusing to recognize the existence of the new Latin American governments govern-ments until 1822. Thomas Jefferson did not believe that Roman Catholic countries could copy the model of 1776: "History. .furnishes no example exam-ple of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.'! gov-ernment.'! Moreover, the Latin La-tin American uprisings, like the French, were not neat. "How can our mild and merciful peoples," asked a leading United States magazine maga-zine in 1821, "who went through their revolution without with-out shedding a drop of civil blood, sympathize with a people that are hanging and shooting each other in their streets?" Americans did find some revolutions acceptable, particularly partic-ularly if the revolutionaries rebelled against foreign rule in Texas, Florida and California and tnen asked to be annexed to the United States. The Texas revolution against Mexico, Mex-ico, a New York paper priK-laimed in 1844. had resulted in a "sublime spectacle" spec-tacle" because Texas's "government "gov-ernment is based upon our model." and "its liberties wrought out by a bravery and virtue that emulate the glory of our own Revolution." Annexation Annexa-tion of Texas to the United Slates would gloriously enlarge en-large the "boundaries of rational freedom." By the 1850s. however. Americans had shaped their continental empire and their taste for revolution-temporarily acqui-red--once again virtually disappeared. dis-appeared. A sharp-eyed French visitor had noted, earlier this basic antipathy to revolution during his travels. Americans "love change." observed Alexis de Tocqueville. "but they dread revolutions." He believed that since Americans already enjoyed en-joyed social equality and opportunity, they did not need to make fundamental changes. They were, moreover, businessmen, bus-inessmen, and "nothing is more opposite to revolutionary attitudes than commercial ones. Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent passions." The American Civil War of 1861-1865 confirmed Tocque-ville's Tocque-ville's observation. The North refused to admit the South's right of secession or revolution although, significantly, the Southerners never claimed to be revolutionary. They wrote provisions into the Confederate Confeder-ate Constitution, in fact, which denied to Southern states any right to revolution. In both sections of the country, "Revolution" "Rev-olution" had become a dirty word. The Waters Must Be Calm Given this background, it was not to be expected that we would welcome the great upheavals of the twentieth century. And what enthusiasm for foreign revolution that remained faded as American entrepreneurs circled the globe to profit in overseas . rnarkets. Steel magnate Andrew An-drew Carnegie exemplified Tocqueville's earlier remark about businessmen's distaste for violent change. "Foreign trade rests upon peace and . security," Carnegie declared in 1898. "The water must be calm, disturbing influences absent." No one better captured the American attitude toward foreign for-eign revolution than "Woodrow Wilson. The future President wrote in 1889. "For us this is the centennial year of Washington's Wash-ington's inauguration, but for Europe it is the centennial year of the French Revolution. One hundred years ago we gained, and Europe lost, self-command. self-possession." As President. Wilson was called upon to respond to the first major twentieth-century revolutions. The outbreak in Mexico during 1911 had nothing to do with communism. commun-ism. The upheaval in Russia six years later was guided by communists. Yet Wilson treated trea-ted both revolutions with equal hostility. He refused to recognize recog-nize the new regimes, attempted attemp-ted to manipulate their internal inter-nal politics, and finally ordered or-dered troops into both countries coun-tries in unsuccessful attempts to undermine the revolutionaries. revolution-aries. - We Favor Stability The days when the American Ameri-can upstart nation was despised despi-sed and feared, when its "mandate made tyranny tremble." trem-ble." have long passed. As a rich and powerful people, we have not looked kindly on the Mexican and Russian revolutions revolu-tions nor on those in China. Guatemala and Cuba. We favor stability and are suspicious suspi-cious of radical change. Yet Americans cannot escape es-cape the burden of their own history. The recent rebellions taking place in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as President Presi-dent Eisenhower warned in 1957. test "the fitness" of our own political( system. And referring to 'those same upheavals. up-heavals. President Truman (who did study history) noted that "the repercussions of the American and French revolution revolu-tion are just being felt all around the world." Because we did not have to be very revolutionary ourselves our-selves in 1776, we have found it difficult to come to terms with the global repercussions of our own revolution. American Ameri-can presidents have instead used diplomatic. economic, and military means to restrain such revolutions elsewhere. In the process, we have allowed the presidency to become a powerful and. to some, even dangerous institution. How our foreign policy helped this "imperial presidency'" w ill be the subject of the next article. would be gr.punds enough to bring a guilty verdict without any other evidence. But the police described this person's travel for a number of blocks that would make me afraid to think of what might have happened if my four year-old would have been in the street. In San Juan County there have been many accidents caused by drivers being under the influence of alcohol. In February a victim was injured in just such an accident and will be crippled for life. Why should the police or court system waste their time and the taxpayer's money if the voice of' the people is saying we don't want to prosecute drunk drivers? Sincerely, Verlin A. Hatch |