The Enlightenment’s Revolution: America’s Reasonable Rebellion in 1776

Historians have long asserted that the cultural and philosophical trends lumped together under the label “The Enlightenment” were decisive in shaping the American Revolution. The independence movement in North America in the 1770s could not have happened a few centuries earlier.

To be sure, there have been rebellions throughout history. But, e.g., the German Peasants’ War of 1524 and 1525 had no ideological system, no analysis of history, and no rational or empirical program to justify or explain itself, and had little idea what it would do if it succeeded.

By contrast, the American Revolution analyzed both the past and the present, evaluating and comparing both. The independence movement based its actions on an examination of human nature and a systematic worldview, as historian Jill Lapore writes:

“I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense,” Thomas Paine, the spitfire son of an English grocer, wrote in Common Sense, in 1776. Kings have no right to reign, Paine argued, because, if we could trace hereditary monarchy back to its beginnings — “would we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise” — we’d find “the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang.” James Madison explained Americans’ historical skepticism, this deep empiricism, this way: “Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?” Evidence, for Madison, was everything.

Obviously influenced by John Locke’s political writings, the founders of the United States were also influenced by Locke’s philosophical writings, and by the not-so-obvious link between Locke’s politics and his epistemology.

The independence movement studied the past, not in order to slavishly imitate it, but rather to take only the best from it. Indeed, the American Revolution contains within itself the consciousness of major points in world history: working backward from the English Bill of Rights of 1689, to the Magna Carta 1215, to Roman law, to Greek political thought, to the historical events recorded in both the New and Old Testaments.

Rather than viewing history as simply precedent to be copied, the American Revolution saw history as a data set, a collection of evidence, and the task was to formulate conclusions based on the raw material of history.

“A new era for politics is struck, Paine wrote, his pen aflame, and “a new method of thinking hath arisen.” Declaring independence was itself an argument about the relationship between the present and the past, an argument that required evidence of a very particular kind: historical evidence. That’s why most of the Declaration of Independence is a list of historical claims. “To prove this,” Jefferson wrote, “let fact be submitted to a candid world.”

Writers have been using ‘The American Experiment’ as a phrase to capture the distinct nature of the country’s origins. This phrase has been used at least since an 1860 article in the New York Daily Tribune and perhaps since even earlier dates.

In any case, this phrase articulates the rational approach found in the writings of the independence movement. This was no rebellion of blind anger. It was a deliberate response, not only to the immediate aggression of Britain toward America, but also to the development of civilization over millennia, and the rational analysis of that development.

Facts, knowledge, experience, proof. These words come from the law. Around the seventeenth century, they moved into what was then called “natural history”: astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology. By the eighteenth century they were applied to history and to politics, too. These truths: this was language of reason, of enlightenment, of inquiry, and of history. In 1787, then, when Alexander Hamilton asked “whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force,” that was the kind of question a scientist asks before beginning an experiment. Time alone would tell.

Unlike the Constitution of the United Kingdom, which is a haphazard accretion of precedents accumulated over centuries, ad hoc inventions dealing with specific situations rather than general principles, the Constitution of the United States is an expression of an axiomatic body of thought, stated in general principles so as to apply to various unforeseen situations and developments.

The intellectual foundation of the American Revolution is found in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and The Crisis, in the speeches and writings of James Otis, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry. It is found in the works of John Locke, and in both the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers.

There was no philosophical or ideological program behind the Constitution of the United Kingdom. To be sure, the American Revolution respected and even copied certain aspects of that British Constitution. But instead of allowing a series of situational precedents to slowly accumulate into a structure of governance, the independence movement chose to begin with foundational principles which can be stated in ways which free them from a specific context and thereby capture a general truth in paradigmatic form which can then be applied to new situations as they arise. This was the rationalist bent in the creation of the United States.

President Coolidge Speaks at Howard University: A Civil Rights Milestone

From the beginning of his presidency, Calvin Coolidge made civil rights one of his administration’s top priorities, as is seen not only in his words, but also in his actions. Shortly after taking office in 1923, Coolidge appealed to Congress and obtained significant funding for the medical school at Howard University.

The next year, 1924, Coolidge made history by giving the commencement address there. Howard University is what is now called a ‘HBCU’ — a historically Black college or university. Coolidge was the first U.S. president to ever speak at the graduation ceremonies of a HBCU.

Coolidge’s speech at Howard was a major advance for civil rights, as historian Kurt Schmoke writes:

Coolidge gave the commencement address at Howard and signaled a significant change in progressive race relations. In reading his words it must be recalled that he spoke at a time when separate but equal was the law of the land, when lynchings trumped due process in criminal cases involving black men, and when the most recent Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, had praised a film which glorified the Ku Klux Klan.

Words alone, however, were not enough for Calvin Coolidge. Concrete actions were needed to promote opportunities for African-Americans. His objective was to move millions of Blacks from the lower classes to the middle classes, as a report from the Coolidge Foundation explains:

President Coolidge called for funds to be appropriated to establish a medical school at Howard University in his first State of the Union message to Congress in December 1923. “About half a million dollars is recommended for medical courses at Howard University to help contribute to the education of 500 colored doctors needed each year,” the President said. By this act, Coolidge hoped to improve the state of medical care for the black population. He also sought to grow the black middle class by adding more black professionals to society.

1924 was an election year, and Coolidge’s appearance at Howard University sent a signal: Coolidge was firmly opposed to the KKK. He and his predecessor, President Warren Harding, had also promoted anti-lynching laws in Congress.

But Coolidge’s opponent in the election, the Democratic Party, had failed to make a clear anti-Klan statement in the platform adopted at their convention. The platform failed to make any statements about race or civil rights, and failed to endorse anti-lynching laws.

The Democratic Party was divided. Many anti-Klan Democrats didn’t vote for their party’s nominee in the general election in November 1924. The Democrat nominee, John Davis, did make an anti-Klain statement, but the party failed to back him up.

Entry into the middle class was important for African-Americans in the 1920s. During Coolidge’s presidency, the number of Blacks in federal employment reached a high of 51,882 in 1928, up from 22,540 in 1910. This represented measurable progress as African-Amercans left the lower classes and moved upward.

Coolidge sent a continuous series of signals, by words and by actions, of his dedication to civil rights.

Education as a Gateway into the Middle Class: President Coolidge Opens the Door for African-Americans

The civil rights movement has long understood the importance of education. Indeed, although the era from the early 1950s to the late 1960s is often called the ‘civil rights era,’ Blacks knew that education was a major opportunity decades earlier.

President Calvin Coolidge saw a link between the ascent into the middle class and contributions to society: as African-Americans rose into white-collar college-educated professions, they also played more important roles in the country.

Encouraging Black students to become physicians would benefit not only the African-American community, but the entire nation. So Coolidge worked to inspire Black students to go to medical school, as historian Kurt Schmoke writes:

In his First Annual Address to Congress in 1923 he wrote: “About half a million dollars is recommended for medical courses at Howard University to help contribute to the education of 500 colored doctors needed each year.” This appropriation was to grow over the years, leading to the production of healthcare and other professionals who would stimulate the growth of an African-American middle class and develop leaders in all walks of life, nationally and internationally.

Coolidge also understood that professional advancement is closely associated with political liberty. When Charles Gardner, otherwise unknown to history, wrote to Coolidge to protest the fact that the Republican Party was nominating Black candidates for Congress, Coolidge defended the party’s promotion of African-American engagement in the political process, as a publication from the Coolidge Foundation makes clear:

Not only that, but Coolidge spoke out in defense of the political enfranchisement of blacks. In 1924 Army Sergeant Charles Gardner wrote to Coolidge in protest when Republicans nominated a black dentist as their candidate in New York’s 21st Congressional District, based in Harlem. Coolidge’s response encapsulated his disdain for racism: “th­e suggestion of denying any measure of their full political rights to such a great group of our population as the colored people is one which, however it might be received in some other quarters, could not possibly be permitted by one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party.”

In September 1923, Coolidge hosted leaders of the Negro National Educational Congress at the White House. Calvin Coolidge’s civil rights strategy emphasized the connection between advancement into the educated professions and participation in the electoral process.

Howard University: How President Coolidge Empowered Historically Black Colleges and Universities

The presidency of Calvin Coolidge marked a high point for civil rights. Coolidge took several significant actions designed to help African-Americans move from the lower classes into the middle class. Several of those actions centered around higher education.

In 1924, Coolidge became the first U.S. president to give a commencement address at a Black college — an HBCU (Historically Black College or University).

His decision to speak at Howard University was not random. It was paired with two other aspects of his administration. First, his speech was linked to his successful efforts to increase the number of African-American students who would study medicine. The Coolidge administration effected an increase in the number of Black physicians in the United States: this meant an increase in the number of Blacks who moved from the lower class to the middle class by studying for a white-collar, college-educated profession, as historian Kurt Schmoke writes:

The 30th president, Republican Calvin Coolidge, was a major supporter of Howard University and an overlooked figure in advancing the cause of racial equality in the United States. In one of his earliest acts as president, Coolidge proposed and persuaded Congress to pass an appropriation bill that reinforced the unique relationship between Howard and the federal government.

Secondly, Coolidge’s landmark speech at Howard’s graduation ceremonies was linked to his 1924 election campaign. While Coolidge took a clear stand in rejecting the KKK and promoting anti-lynching laws, his opponent, the Democratic Party’s nominee for the presidential contest, was left to defend his party’s platform, which equivocated on racial questions, and failed to clearly reject the Klan.

Coolidge’s presence on Howard University’s campus, located in Washington, D.C., also symbolized a continuity between Coolidge and his predecessor, President Warren Harding. Like Coolidge, Harding had also been a civil rights advocate and a champion of anti-lynching laws, as a report from the Coolidge Foundation notes:

President Calvin Coolidge is known for many things, including his championing of limited government, his deft handling of the 1919 Boston Police Strike, and his responsible stewardship of the federal budget. But how often do we recall his pioneering gestures to improve race relations in the fraught decade of the 1920s?

The 1920s were fertile years for civil rights in the United States. Preceded by the racist and segregationist Wilson administration (1913 to 1920), and followed by FDR’s neglect of African-American concerns (1933 to 1945), the years of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge were years in which Blacks gained both political liberty and a concrete move into the middle class.

Coolidge vs. the Klan: How an American President Opposed the KKK

During the U.S. presidential election of 1924, the Ku Klux Klan was one of several issues to gain public attention. The Klan had significant influence in the southern states, and even had a presence in some states north of the Mason-Dixon line.

The Klan dreamed of obtaining the endorsement of a presidential candidate. It was clear that Calvin Coolidge, the incumbent, would never do this. Coolidge had become president in 1923, when his predecessor Warren Harding died. Coolidge had been vice president, and so immediately became president.

Both Coolidge and Harding had been steadily anti-Klan.

The KKK, having no hope of receiving support from the Republicans, turned to the “the Democratic convention of 1924, where many delegates were fervently pro-Klan,” as historian Charles Johnson writes.

The Democratic Party was split, half wanting to embrace the Klan, and half wanting not to publicly endorse the Klan. The debate went on for days; neither side could get a solid majority to overcome the other.

The eventual Democratic nominee was John Davis, who finally denounced the Klan, but because the Democratic Party failed to denounce the Klan, many voters “bolted from the Democratic nominee,” in the words of Charles Johnson.

John Davis denounced the Klan, but because the Democratic party didn’t, it was clear that it was a personal statement by Davis, and not the party’s view. The 1924 Democratic platform committee had discussed some statement about the KKK, but in the end, the platform said nothing about the Klan, about race, or about lynching.

Coolidge and Harding, by contrast, had both endorsed anti-lynching laws to protect Black lives.

In the midst of the Klan’s efforts to make trouble, Coolidge calmly snubbed the KKK by becoming the first U.S. President to deliver a commencement address at a historically Black college. In June 1924, Coolidge spoke in Washington, D.C., at the campus of Howard University. The Klan was enraged, and Coolidge was quietly pleased that he’d managed to do something to promote both the civil rights and the economic opportunities of African-Americans.

As Klan leaders became nearly apoplectic at Coolidge’s support of the Black community, the Coolidge campaign mocked the KKK by choosing a campaign slogan: “Keep Cool with Coolidge.” Comedians quickly changed it to “Keep Kool with Koolidge.”

In any case, African-Americans voted in large numbers for Coolidge in 1924. They weren’t the only ones voting for Coolidge. Citizens who’d formerly voted for the Democratic Party were dismayed when the Democrats failed to take a clear stance against the KKK, and so many of them also voted for Coolidge.

In the end, Calvin Coolidge won the election by an unprecedented landslide. He was enormously popular during the 1920s.

Misery Leads to Innovation: Imagining Alternative Economic Systems During the Great Depression

When the Great Depression started in late 1929 and early 1930, it soon became clear that long-established patterns would not suffice to sustain the people through what was to become more than a decade of suboptimal economic performance. Individuals and groups began to experiment with alternative forms of business transactions.

For example, historian Amity Shlaes reports that in 1931, for a sustained period of time, the residents of Salt Lake City abandoned cash transactions. Money had become not only scarce but unreliable, because its purchasing power was not predictable. So the people of the city turned to bartering system.

Other Americans looked to subsistence farming. The nation living through the Great Depression was only a generation or two removed from a lifestyle earlier in the nation’s history, when many families provided for nearly all their own wants and needs. Many people experiencing the Great Depression had heard stories of self-sufficient living from their parents and grandparents. Some were old enough to have experienced it themselves.

As it became clear that the government’s attempts at help would reach only a few individuals adequately, thoughts of subsistence farming turned into action, and handfuls of people in various parts of the country radically changed their lifestyle, as Amity Shlaes writes:

The improvisation was not confined to Utah. Communities across the country were beginning to find new ways to get through the trouble. Out in California, city people were beginning to think about moving to abandoned farms, taking up plows, and trying to make a life independent of money. Back east, Ralph Borsodi, an author and social thinker, was readying a book titled Flight from the City, about his own family effort to live on the land an hour and three quarters outside New York. Borsodi concluded that self-sufficiency of the family was the new ideal, that with his poultry yard of fat roasting capons, his self-built swimming pool, and his apiary, he had found the solution to downturns like that of 1921 or 1929. The family ought to be the next factory.

For the majority of the nation’s people, subsistence farming was neither desirable or possible. But the movement manifested both people’s creativity and their desperation.

Other experiments included turning to the black market to defy various regulations. If the government was unable to help most people, why would those people want to obey the rules imposed on them, especially when those rules were imposed with the promise ending their misery? The regulations, in fact, often increased the suffering.

It’s worth remembering that the Great Depression was a worldwide phenomenon. Not only the United States, but nations around the globe were profoundly impacted. As people realized that governments were inadequate to face the situation, they turned to their own creativity, inventiveness, and ingenuity.

The Politics of Reconstruction (Part 04)

In American History, most of the 1800s can be divided into three time spans: the prewar years, the Civil War, and the postwar years. But while these are three separate segments of time, they are shaped by one single conflict: a conflict between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

The Democrats, from the founding of their party by Andrew Jackson in 1828, were committed to defending, supporting, and maintaining slavery.

The Republican Party, and its first major candidate, Abraham Lincoln, were unswervingly focused on the goal of ending slavery.

The political debates and negotiations of the prewar years, the half-million lives lost during the Civil War, and the brutality directed toward African-Americans in the postwar years are simply three phases of the same partisan conflict, as historian Dinesh D’Souza writes:

The Civil War was a deliberate attempt by the Democratic Party, both in the North and the South, to kill America by carving her into two. Had secession worked, Lincoln would have been viewed as a failed president. The North and the South would have come to terms over the bifurcation long before 1865. Slavery would have continued, and on a firmer foundation than before. White supremacy would have continued to be its bedrock, and would have reigned unchallenged throughout the United States. Lincoln’s dark warning about all of America becoming a plantation might have proven prophetic in his own lifetime.

The Democrat strategy, then, was that the Democrats in the South would secede from the Union, and the Democrats in the North would try to use their political influence to persuade the North to get the South back by promising the South that it could keep slavery. In the process, the North would be obliged to accept slavery as well.

The goal of the Democrats was, then, that the entire country, not only the South, would become slaveholding territory.

The Republicans, however, would not go along with the Democratic Party’s plans. The Democrats wanted slavery so badly that they were willing to start and endure a war in which more than 500,000 men died.

The war ended when the South faced its inevitable undersupply of men and materiel. But while the Democrats had been militarily defeated, they had not given up their dreams of slavery. The postwar years would be known as the ‘Reconstruction’ era, and the Democrats would use a mixture of political maneuvering and domestic terror strategies to maintain slavery, or at least a slavelike status.

Although the Republicans had achieved their goal of ending slavery, it was clear that they had to defend and solidify that accomplishment to make sure that the Democrats did not succeed in bringing slavery back, and it was clear that the Republicans would push for full citizenship and full civil rights for the newly-freed ex-slaves.

The Republicans in Congress worked to guarantee civil rights for African-Americans, as Dinesh D’Souza writes:

The Republicans in Congress who drove Reconstruction realized that, perhaps for the first time in history, there was an elected government that supported not merely empancipation from slavery but also full equality of rights and full enfranchisement for blacks. Admittedly this majority would not have existed had Southern Democrats also been represented. By their own choice, however, they had resigned their positions in Congress and thus forfeited their right to have their votes counted.

During the Reconstruction era, not only did the Republicans succeed in ensuring that African-Americans could freely exercise their right to vote, but they even succeeded in getting Black candidates elected to the House of Representatives and to the U.S. Senate. This was the apogee of civil rights.