Tracing forces leading to American independence

The Birth of American Independence

By Joseph J. Ellis

Alfred A. Knopf. 219 pp. $26.95

nolead ends nolead begins Our Lives, Our Fortunes
& Our Sacred Honor
nolead ends nolead begins The Forging of American Independence, 1774-1776
nolead ends nolead begins By Richard R. Beeman

Basic Books. 492 pp. $29.99

nolead ends nolead begins

Reviewed by Michael D. Schaffer

Familiar ground doesn't always make an easy trip for a writer of history.

When the landmarks and the terrain are so well-known, it's difficult to achieve the sense of surprise that Edmund Morgan, the great historian of early America who died recently, said was crucial to good history.

But as Morgan observed, there are unexpected things even in the familiar if you look carefully.

Richard R. Beeman and Joseph J. Ellis, two of America's most capable historians, look very carefully at the months leading up to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Neither finds anything to turn our current understanding of the birth pangs of independence on its head, but they bring freshness and new insight to an old story.

Both authors tell essentially the same tale of how the shortsighted policies of an obdurate king and parliament at last drove reluctant colonists to declare their independence.

Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner and emeritus professor of history at Mount Holyoke College, argues that independence wasn't just the result of political differences between colonies and mother country. The "political and military experiences were two sides of a single story, which are incomprehensible unless told together," Ellis writes.

Revolutionary Summer, with "summer" loosely defined as the five months between May and October 1776, covers a season of upheaval that saw independence declared, the Continental Army nearly destroyed, 13 separate colonies set on the path to nationhood, and conversation begun on such major issues as slavery, property, qualifications for voting, and women's rights.

Writing in a breezy, almost journalistic style, Ellis describes the interplay between politics and war, between the caution of the Continental Congress, which "regarded American independence as a last resort," and the combativeness of the Continental Army, which "regarded American independence as a foregone conclusion, indeed the only justification for its existence."

In 185 elegantly crafted pages, Ellis - like his mentor Morgan a master of simple, straightforward prose - puts us in the moment with the fascinating gallery of actors in this drama, from rotund John Adams, driven by zeal for American rights and by his own massive ego, to tall, dignified George Washington, driven by unassailable integrity and a devotion to 18th-century ideals of honor.

Beeman, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a National Book Award finalist for Patrick Henry, his biography of the Virginia firebrand, takes the political route in Our Lives, Our Fortunes & Our Sacred Honor. The war is a backdrop to his tale.

Concentrating on the 22 months between the opening of the First Continental Congress on Sept. 5, 1774 and the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, Beeman tracks the complicated political maneuvering and constitutional philosophizing that led to independence.

It's a story of committees and documents and political alliances as "America's political leaders resolved this conflict [with England] and made the audacious leap toward independence - shedding both their provincial and their imperial British identities and, in the process, transforming themselves into leaders of an American cause."

Beeman is especially interested in the relationships among the members of the Continental Congress and how the Adams cousins, Sam and John, patiently waited for leaders of other colonies, less directly in the sights of the king and parliament than Massachusetts, to ratchet up their opposition.

He also sets out to boost the good name of John Dickinson, one of Pennsylvania's most influential political leaders in the 1770s. Beeman believes that Dickinson, firm in his devotion to American rights but cautious in his opposition to British authority, has not been given due credit for his role in the movement toward independence. Not only that, Beeman writes, but Dickinson also "has sometimes been vilified as misguided or simply cowardly. . . . I hope that this narrative of the journey toward independence will help explain the reasons for Dickinson's actions and in so doing resurrect the good reputation of this highly principled Pennsylvanian."

While the colonial elite may have been leading the resistance to Britain (and doing most of it behind closed doors, without telling the public), the general population was becoming involved in the political process in an unprecedented way. "On a rainy Monday, May 20 [1776], some 4,000 citizens gathered in the State House Yard [in Philadelphia], to rally not just for repeal of the Pennsylvania Assembly's instructions to its delegate to vote against any resolution for independence but also in support of a change in the Pennsylvania government," Beeman writes. Democracy was rising.

Like Ellis, Beeman is a strong, direct writer, adept at bringing historical personalities to life. Sam Adams: slovenly in appearance, but sharp of mind. John Adams: impatient, irascible, self-absorbed but unwavering in his support of American rights. Patrick Henry: the country lawyer with a gift for thundering oratory. John Hancock: the dandified merchant prince of Boston who relished his role as president of Congress. Tom Paine: the ne'er-do-well British immigrant with the sharp pen.

What a cast. And what a fine pair of books about them by Ellis and Beeman.