The American Revolution as a conservative movement.

Essay by Kazic September 2003

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The American Revolution , while it may have been the first war that was started to

actually put into practice some ideas that previously had only been talked about,

did not have any ideas that were new. Nothing really changed as far as the

average man was concerned, after the revolution. Slaves were still enslaved, Indians

were still considered savages, women were not given equal rights and the governments

were still basically the same, except now there were no royal govenors.

Most of the main ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence were

borrowed from John Locke, a famous english philosopher. He believed that

if the "ruling body if it offends against natural law must be deposed." Locke saw it as a

right and sometimes an obligation of subjects to overthrow their government, if

it became oppressive. The Americans fully embraced this idea. They did not make up

their own ideas.

The most radical idea of the revolution was the idea that the COMMON people

should have the right to govern themselves. In a world where monarchies

were the status quo, and people believed that monarchs ruled by divine right, the idea THAT

the average joe even had the ability to rule himself was mind-boggling.

While the Americans preached this idea and made it the backbone of their excuse for

breaking away from Britian, in truth they didn't really practice it. All of those at

the Continental Congress were upper class white men who owned land and held

important places in their respective states. After the revolution was over, the upper

class still ruled. There was not some earth-shattering, sudden and over-whelming clamor

for national equality. Things mostly remained the same and the upper class

made most of the laws.

One problem with naming the revolution as ANY kind...