Big historical events often come to
seem inevitable, and little today seems more inevitable in
retrospect than America’s declaring independence on July 4,
1776.
So it can be startling to recall that well into the spring and early summer of that year, the Continental Congress meeting at the State House in Philadelphia was by no means committed to declaring independence. Until the last minute, powerful men in the Congress still hoped to negotiate a settlement with England.
Even more surprising may be that without a crew of lower- class Philadelphia organizers, collaborating secretly with independence-minded gentlemen in the Congress, the declaration never would have occurred. Most outlandish of all: Those down- at-the-heels outsiders had ideas about economics and finance -- some today would call them “socialist” -- far more radically democratic than anything espoused by better-known founders.
Radical economics, in fact, was key to gaining American independence.
We often hear from historians that modern ideas about economic equality and financial fairness shouldn’t be read backward, anachronistically, into the thinking of great men like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and others who signed the Declaration of Independence. Almost all those men were more concerned with preserving and advancing individual liberty than with passing laws making economic life more equal. The founders took for granted and even endorsed a degree of class difference among Americans that we don’t accept today.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/how-radical-economics-led-to-u-s-independence.html
So it can be startling to recall that well into the spring and early summer of that year, the Continental Congress meeting at the State House in Philadelphia was by no means committed to declaring independence. Until the last minute, powerful men in the Congress still hoped to negotiate a settlement with England.
Even more surprising may be that without a crew of lower- class Philadelphia organizers, collaborating secretly with independence-minded gentlemen in the Congress, the declaration never would have occurred. Most outlandish of all: Those down- at-the-heels outsiders had ideas about economics and finance -- some today would call them “socialist” -- far more radically democratic than anything espoused by better-known founders.
Radical economics, in fact, was key to gaining American independence.
We often hear from historians that modern ideas about economic equality and financial fairness shouldn’t be read backward, anachronistically, into the thinking of great men like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and others who signed the Declaration of Independence. Almost all those men were more concerned with preserving and advancing individual liberty than with passing laws making economic life more equal. The founders took for granted and even endorsed a degree of class difference among Americans that we don’t accept today.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/how-radical-economics-led-to-u-s-independence.html
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