MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu 21H.112 The American Revolution Spring 2006 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.21H.112, spring 2009, p.2 21H.112. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Spring 2009. TR 11-12:30. Instructor: Prof. Pauline Maier REQUIREMENTS: (1) Class attendance and participation in discussions, which will focus upon the readings assigned for the week. (2) A research paper of about 15 pages in length. Papers should answer a carefully posed historical question and be based to a substantial extent upon primary sources, that is, documents that for most topics will be from the eighteenth century. The papers can focus upon any aspect of the Revolution, but must go beyond work done in class. All topics must be approved on or before Tuesday, April 7. The final papers must include footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography composed in a correct and comprehensible form, and are due on Thursday, May 14, the final day of classes. (4) Two in-class examinations, on March 19 and May 7. ASSIGNED BOOKS: Anderson, Fred. A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers in the Seven Years War. UNC reprint paperback of 1996. ISBN 0807845760 Jensen, Merrill, ed. Tracts of the American Revolution, 1763-1776. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 0872206939. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Any unabridged edition. Recommended edition: Peter Laslett, ed., John Locke. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge University Press paperback. ISBN 0521357306 Madison, James, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787…. , with an introduction by Adrienne Koch. Norton paperback (1987). ISBN 0-393-30405-1 Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Resistance to Britain, 1765-1776. Norton paperback. ISBN 0393308251 Morison, Samuel Eliot, ed. Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution. Oxford University Press paperback. ISBN 0195002628 Readings for 21H112, The American Revolution. Available on electronic reserves through the Stellar website. Shy, John. A People Numerous and Armed. Revised edition, University of Michigan Press paperback. ISBN 0472064312 Wood, Gordon S., The American Revolution: A History. Modern Library Chronicles; New York, 2002. ISBN 0679640576 READING SCHEDULE: February 3-5. Introduction and Historiography. Background: Society, Economy, Politics and Government, America and Britain. Wood, American Revolution, xxiii-xv, 3-24. Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, to p. 26. Anderson, A People's Army, vii-xi, 3-164, 185-210, 222-23.21H.112, spring 2009, p.3 February 10-12. Background, continued, and Ideology. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chs. 1-4, 8-13, 17-19. (Note that Locke’s treatise is available at http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm) Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 27- 48. February 17: Monday Schedule. February 19: Overview of the Independence Movement Wood, American Revolution, 27-44. Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 51-157. Start the readings for next Tuesday. February 24-26: Arguments and Actions, 1764-1770. For Feb. 24: Stephen Hopkins, "Essay on Trade" (1764); Hopkins, “The Rights of Colonies Examined” (later 1764); Daniel Dulany, “Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies…” (1765); Richard Bland, “An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies” (1766) (note the quotations from a British writer---Thomas Whately---that Bland includes), and John Dickinson, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania…” (1768) in Merrill Jensen, ed., Tracts of the American Revolution, pp. 3-18, 41-62, 94-163. Also Morison, Sources and Documents, 14-24 and 43-45, which includes the Virginia Resolutions of 1765, Soam Jenyns, “The Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies by the Legislature of Great Britain, briefly consider’d” (London, 1765), and Dickinson’s Letter III (which Jensen strangely skipped). NOTE: It's a good idea read the pamphlets in chronological order. How did the American argument shift between the two Hopkins pamphlets, and between Dulany and Dickinson? If you can identify where an author is saying what everyone is saying and focus instead on what's new, and on how the American position is developing (the British didn't change much), you'll be reading efficiently and intelligently. It might take some practice to get the hang of that. Be sure to take notes on each pamphlet immediately after finishing it or all of them will quickly melt together in your mind. For Feb. 26: Accounts of the Stamp Act uprisings, the Sons of Liberty, and the Virginia Association of 1770 in "Readings." March 3-5. From Resistance to Revolution, 1770-1776. Wood, American Revolution, 47-62. Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 161-296. Jefferson, "Summary View" (1774), and Paine’s “Common Sense,” in Jensen, Tracts, 256-76, 400-446. Morison, Sources and Documents, 100-115 (Wilson, 1774), 116-25, 137-48. (The discussion will focus on the primary sources, particularly the three pamphlets in the assigned readings. What distinguishes Wilson and Jefferson from Dickinson’s “Farmer’s Letters”? Is Paine’s Common Sense a logical outgrowth of the line of argument American pamphlets had taken, or something else altogether? How exactly did Paine justify Independence? Was he convincing? Was he moving? More so than others? Why?)21H.112, spring 2009, p.4 March 10-12. Declarations of Independence; Loyalism. Especially for March 10: The English Declaration of Rights (1689); American local resolutions on independence; an early draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (by George Mason) that appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette, June 12, 1776; Jefferson's draft preamble for the Virginia constitution of 1776 (May-June 1776); the Jefferson/committee draft of the Declaration of Independence with Congress’s editings, all in "Readings." The main focus of attention will be the draft Declaration with Congress’s editings. What did Congress do, and why? (You might also take a look at Morison’s version of the preamble to the Virginia constitution on p. 151 of Sources and Documents and see if you notice anything odd.) Especially for March 12: Mary Beth Norton, "The Loyalist Critique of the Revolution,” The Development of a Revolutionary Mentality… (Washington, D.C., 1972), pp.