|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Select: Introduction: The American Revolution - Thomas Paine Benjamin Franklin - Ethan Allen |
|
|
The American Revolution, the conflict by which the American colonists won their independence from Great Britain and created the United States of America, was an upheaval of profound significance in world history. It occurred in the second half of the 18th century, in an "Age of Democratic Revolution," when philosophers and political theorists in Europe were critically examining the institutions of their own societies and the notions that lay behind them. Yet the American Revolution first put to the test ideas and theories that had seldom if ever been worked out in practice in the Old World--separation of church and state, sovereignty of the people, written constitutions, and effective checks and balances in government. A struggle to preserve and later to expand the dimensions of human freedom, the American Revolution was also an anticolonial movement, the first in modern history. Before then, countries had usually come into existence through evolutionary processes, the result of tradition and history, geography and circumstance. The United States, on the other hand, had a birth date, 1776; it was "the first new nation," a republic born in revolution and war, a pattern followed by scores of fledgling states since that time, especially in the so-called Third World areas of the globe since 1945. The American Revolution, the conflict by which the American colonists won their independence from Great Britain and created the United States of America, was an upheaval of profound significance in world history. It occurred in the second half of the 18th century, in an "Age of Democratic Revolution," when philosophers and political theorists in Europe were critically examining the institutions of their own societies and the notions that lay behind them. Yet the American Revolution first put to the test ideas and theories that had seldom if ever been worked out in practice in the Old World--separation of church and state, sovereignty of the people, written constitutions, and effective checks and balances in government. For many nation-makers the American rebellion has been a relevant revolution, offering insights and parallels that have aided them in their quest for self-determination. The revolutionists of 1776 themselves accurately predicted that the American Revolution would inspire men elsewhere to secure freedom and national identity in their own lands. As Thomas Jefferson assured John Adams, "the Flames kindled on the fourth of July" had spread over too much of the globe ever to be extinguished by the forces of despotism and reaction. The British constitution was unwritten, but the Americans spelled out the responsibilities and limits of government in written charters. Since their governments rested totally on the consent of the people, they were designated as republican in character. Basic liberties could not be abrogated by government under any pretext. They were defined in bills of rights, which included freedom of the press, right of petition, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and other procedures that came to be known as due process of law. This Anglo-American revolutionary writer called for American independence in his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, which was widely distributed and had a profound influence on public opinion in America. An English excise officer, Thomas Paine (picture) was dismissed (1774), probably for agitating for a salary increase, and emigrated to America on the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin. In Philadelphia from 1774, Paine became a journalist and essayist. After the publication of Common Sense, which sold 100,000 copies in 3 months, he continued to inspire and encourage the patriots during the Revolutionary War in the series of pamphlets called The Crisis (1776-83). Paine returned (1787) to England after the war and published The Rights of Man (1791-92), in which he defended the French Revolution in response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Outlawed for treason, Paine fled (1792) to France, became a French citizen, and was elected to the National Convention. Imprisoned (1793-94) during the Reign of Terror, Paine wrote the first part of Age of Reason (1794), a deistic statement of his religious views. All Paine's works reflect his belief in natural reason and natural rights, political equality, tolerance, civil liberties, and the dignity of man. His Age of Reason and his criticism of George Washington in Letter to Washington (1796), however, made him unpopular. In his Age of Reason he tried to emancipate humanity from Christian traditions and to establish a religion of deism. He did not recognize that the Age of Reason had ended when his book was printed. Paine returned to the United States in 1802 and died in poverty. Contemporaries used to speak of Paine only in superlatives either of enthusiasm or contempt. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, though differing on so many points, agreed that Paine was a man to be avoided or distrusted. When Paine died, he had been poor, sick and ostracized for many years. A century after his death, Theodore Roosevelt sneered at him as a "filthy little atheist." But independent historians have recognized that Paine, by his pamphlet Common Sense and by untiring agitation, convinced influential but hesitating Americans that independence should be declared because it was the only way to save the colonies. It was also Paine who insisted on the gathering of the Continental Congress, for the purpose of granting a Continental charter. Furthermore, it was Paine who earlier than any other proclaimed America's mission to be the defense of freedom and democracy by presenting to the whole world the example of a republic of free men. Without any doubt, America and humanity in general owe him a grateful memory, although he was not free from vanity and his education was incomplete. After and throughout many failures in business while he lived in England, Paine had educated himself by confining his spiritual interests strictly to the science of his time. He was an artless writer although he displayed extraordinary talents for aphoristic formulas and for striking expressions. To understand Paine we must adjudge him as a brilliant and sincere journalist, no doubt, but also as a man of thought, who always served the best principles of reason applied to conditions of the day. He was justly called the "Voltaire of America." But one thing he invariably forgot: to promote and protect his own interests. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On the Internet
Ethan Allen (picture) was born in Litchfield, Connecticutt and was a soldier and a philosopher. Ten years prior to the publication of Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, Ethan Alien's book, Reason The Only Oracle of Man, (1784), enunciated the principles of deism operative in American life. Condemned by the clergy and New England universities, it was admiringly referred to by freethinkers as "Ethan's Bible." When a fire at the publishing house destroyed the stock of copies, the orthodox welcomed the incident as "an act of God." Though Allen was a contemplative man, he led an active life, engaging in farming, mining, manufacturing, and real-estate transactions. He was a soldier during the French and Indian War, and, during the War for Independence, he commanded the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont and captured from the British Fort Ticonderoga, the main approach to Canada. He was a pioneer in the development of American economic life and built a blast furnace in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut, his native state. Vermont was his adopted state, and he vociferously defended its boundary and land claims against those of New York and New Hampshire. Allen was reared in Arminianism. This religious belief, though tolerant of Calvinist orthodoxy, emphasized human duties more than theological speculation. Alien rebelled against any accepted dogma, publicly protesting that he was not a Christian but a deist. He opposed authority of all kinds and declared that tradition was fallible, reason the highest gift of God, and faith less reliable and unimportant. He viewed human beings as "the most selfish, oddest, and most cunning medley of beings of that size in the universe." And though his opinions of contemporary human conditions were equally pessimistic, he was confident that the ultimate victory of virtue would make for human progress. He was convinced that the existence of Man was necessary for the maintenance of the world created by God and, therefore, there "can be no ultimate failure." He held that the future was beyond human comprehension and that goodness and happiness would prevail in the last stage of human development, for so had God ordained. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
In his many careers as printer, moralist, essayist, civic leader, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin (picture) became for later generations of Americans both a spokesman and a model for the national character. He was born in Boston on January 17, 1706, into a pious Puritan household. His father, Josiah, was a candlemaker and a skillful mechanic, but Benjamin said that his father's "great Excellence lay in a sound understanding, and solid Judgment." He described his mother, originally named Abiah Folger and born on the island of Nantucket, as "a discreet and virtuous Woman." His parents raised 13 children--the survivors of Josiah's 17 children by two wives. In honoring them and in a lifelong affection for New England ways, Franklin demonstrated the lasting impact of his Puritan heritage. After less than two years of formal schooling, Franklin was pressed into his father's trade, but his more profound talents proved to be intellectual. He devoured books by John Bunyan, Plutarch, Daniel Defoe, and Cotton Mather at home, and, after being apprenticed to his brother James, printer of The New England Courant, he read virtually every book that came to the shop. He generally absorbed the values and philosophy of the English Enlightenment. Like his favorite author, Joseph Addison, whose essays in the Spectator he practically memorized, Franklin added the good sense, tolerance, and urbanity of the neoclassic age to his family's Puritan earnestness. He rejected his father's Calvinist theology, however, and soon espoused what became a lifelong belief in rational Christianity. At the beginning of his Autobiography, Franklin states that if Providence allowed him the choice, "he should have no objection to go over the same life from beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors have of correcting, in a second edition, the faults of the first." Franklin was always fond of such harmless and shrewd remarks which prevented his earnestness from being pathetic. This inclination resulted in the legend that he was not entrusted with writing the Declaration of Independence, because the Founding Fathers feared he might include a joke in the writing of the solemn proclamation. Franklin, throughout his lifetime, made strenuous efforts to perfect his mind and character. He regarded a lack of moderation as incompatible with human perfection, human dignity, efficiency, and success. The story of his love and courtship of his wife proved his talents for tempering his passion. He read poetry for amusement and for the improvement of his literary style, but he did not allow himself to become absorbed in its charms. He always reacted to life zestfully, and with humorous detachment. He regarded reason as the means by which life could be conducted intelligently. In his youth, he was greatly interested in metaphysics, but he later disavowed this branch of philosophy; the problem of absolute and consistent truth left him unmoved. It was only to science that he was deeply devoted. In science he sought for laws that govern nature and point toward the orderliness of cosmic and human relations, though he was aware that the moral sciences of his time lagged far behind the standards of the natural sciences. Franklin summarized his experiences by eliminating the words "certainly" and "undoubtedly" from his vocabulary. In place of them, he adopted: "I conceive; I apprehend; I imagine a thing to be so; or so it appears to me at present." Other thinkers, before and after Franklin, have gone the same way. To him, it was not only the result of reasoning, but a means of success. He especially appreciated the "advantage of change," whether it concerned his own manners, or his relations to his fellow man. He formulated his creed by the words: "truth; sincerity, and integrity" as "of the utmost importance for the felicity of life." Franklin was not absorbed in utilitarianism; he enjoyed truth and integrity, "a naive lustre," independently and successfully. As a thinker, Benjamin Franklin represents a transitional figure, a man with his feet in the soil of traditional religion and morality, with his hands among the public problems of the day, and with his head in the tasks of modern science and philosophy. He was indeed symbolic of rising America, a simple man, a practical politician, a successful businessman, an inventor of useful things, a patriot. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On the Internet
To Page 2 of The Founding Fathers Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine...
|
|
|
Introduction & Directory |
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, & 2002-03 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.
This Page Was Updated On