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Episode 10: Bernard Bailyn and Caroline Robbins, 250 Series · Comps List Radio

• Robert Ferguson: Welcome to the second edition of the 250 of the 250 series of the of Comps List Radio, our summer series here with ⁓ so affiliated with H Pole. Thank you very much for joining us. It is ⁓ Tuesday, June the ninth, and unfortunately, ⁓ we are beginning this episode on a bit of a somber note. ⁓ came became news yesterday. that ⁓ Gordon Wood, ⁓ the leading scholar of the American Revolution and the Constitutional Period, ⁓ who we were gonna marie, you know, when I was when we were setting up the schedule for this two fifty series, the question was not, ⁓ should we do Gordon Wood, but which Gordon Wood book were we gonna were we gonna pick? ⁓ you know, he won the Pulitzer for Radicalism of the American Revolution. ⁓ written so many other books, I don't even know where to begin. We were gonna do the creation of the American ⁓ creation of the American Republic, which is was his ⁓ dissertation, I believe, that was turned into the book. ⁓ and we'll be do still be doing that in a few weeks. And ⁓ Empire of Liberty as well. ⁓ I mean the amount and and that's just scratching the surface. I mean, he's written so many books and he I know he's been an incredible mentor to Histor American historians everywhere. Exactly. I mean, talk about a foundational character. Yeah. And coming up on the two fiftieth, I know that he had some ⁓ I think Brown was going to honor him. He had already been honored at some ⁓ meetings and and conve and conferences before this. just tragic. And historians, I mean, not just historians, but people across the internet have been ⁓ talking about him in the in glowing terms. I mean, just talking about what a giant he was in ⁓ American history in general, but especially early America. I mean it's just tragic to not have him for the 250th. ⁓ you're right. It's not just historians. He he's one of those few historians that have ⁓ really ⁓ penetrated public public mind, public consciousness. ⁓ and yeah, I saw people I never would have thought yesterday posting notes about Gordon Wood. And it just ⁓ I mean he he he really I think for Americans, and I mean I'm not an American myself, but I've lived here a while. ⁓ he was really part of that project of American historians of what does it mean to be American? What does America mean? And ⁓ Exactly, exactly. I found this really good quote. that he had from ⁓ he gave he was honored and and gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in November of last year. And I think this just really sums up you know, what what he taught, the way he looked at American history and the way he wanted Americans to look at what it meant to be American. And it's to be an American is not to be someone, but to believe in something. And so this idea that we're not an ethnic state. We are a state. that was fo a a country, a nation that was founded by ⁓ ideas. And those ideas are still very important. And so I I really thought that that not only was a good way to talk about Wood and what he believed, but I mean, talking about Balin today and Wood was his student. I mean it just ⁓ it was your right somber, tragic introduction that is connected here. Yeah. I mean your You gave me a fantastic segue there to talk about the the the business at hand. But ⁓ just for another moment, I I I again I just I I just found myself profoundly sad yesterday thinking about that. Mm-hmm And I d I didn't know Gordon. What a what a career. I didn't know him personally. But I feel like ⁓ you know, anybody who's read his work it it It just it's very impressive. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. And ⁓ and I've never heard ⁓ anybody say anything but the most the loveliest things about the man. Exactly. Exactly. Definitely shaped the way that I think about the constitution in the era of the ⁓ early republic. Yeah. Okay. Well, on that note, you know, we are we the notion of the United States is being founded on ideas. In our last episode, ⁓ you actually I'm not sure I before we do that, I'm not sure I actually introduced myself or you, Marie, so I should probably do that. ⁓ this is ⁓ Robert Ferguson at the Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University, and I am joined as always by Marie Tottenham. At the University of Central Arkansas. Yep. You've said that America's founded on ideas. Well, I think today's discussion, whereas in the last episode, when we talked about Charles Beard's economic interpretation of the Constitution, it was about the economic motives that were at stake in the development of the Constitution. In this episode, it's far more about the ideas that were at stake. And if it was a nation founded on ideas, then these are the n ideas that are at the heart of the founding of the republic. Marie, I ⁓ I tasked you with reading Bernard Balin's ideological origins of the American Revolution. ⁓ and I read Yes, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So glad. I'm so glad. ⁓ I I read ⁓ Caroline Robbins's Probably less famous, but ⁓ incredibly foundational book, The 18th century Commonwealthman, which inspired Balin's work. And so I thought that these two should be done together because I do think they're very, very closely linked and closely related. And I and you know, I think most his students were aware of Balin, but hopefully we can make them aware of Robbins as well, because she deserves ⁓ a considerable amount of ⁓ of credit here. So Marie, you read Balin. I'm assuming it had been several years since you've read Balin. ⁓ what are your thoughts? How do you start there? Yes. So it's been ⁓ maybe ten years since I had picked up Balin. Definitely his argument shaped the way that I teach the revolution. I teach American history. His use of primary source material is something that I use in my own classes. ⁓ his discussions of political culture, something I use in my own classes, but coming back to it years later, like all these texts that we've returned to or or read for the first time in the context of our lives outside of graduate school, this really did open my eyes to the way that you can find a set of source material and from that source material let it shape your argument. So instead of having this, I mean Balin certainly had this question, but it's because he's looking through and creating this book of pamphlets, this book of material from the revolutionary era that he and and because of Robin's work that he read at Harvard, that he is starting to form these questions that become the ideological ⁓ origins of the revolution, this book that that I read and that we're going to talk about today. And I think that revisiting that now as a, you know, junior scholar but out teaching in the field was really important for me and for the way that I look at my own research. So that's really what I I mean, his arguments there. ⁓ I know that, and I knew this in graduate school, you know, how people build off his argument, the criticisms of his argument, certainly the idea of whose revolution is it is an important discussion around Balin. But that idea that the sources led him here, that these ideas led him here, is just fascinating to read it from that perspective. Yeah. I mean, I think as a one of the things that I reading Balin, and I did not read Balin for the for this. I want to be clear to both Marie and our listeners that I had it's been at least six years since I've read Balin. So ⁓ but I think one of the things that struck me as a as more of a Southern historian, ⁓ when I when I read Balin is just how much is going on in Boston. But right. in the seventeen sixties and seventeen seventies. And like you, it shaped how I teach the revolution. ⁓ I definitely, you know, whatever you know, ⁓ occasionally I I think I teach some things that that are getting inspired by Balin that well, maybe I don't fully believe it. I mean, I think it helps tell a really coherent story. And I think the Balin way of telling the American Revolution is the most effective way. To teach undergraduates, at least. ⁓ you know it's very accessible, it makes sense, it's ⁓ you know, a and I think it it does a really good job of ⁓ I'm just highlighting again, you know, the notion of the ⁓ of of the United States of ideas. Right. ⁓ and it and it's not so unfamiliar that they're gonna have a a hard time with it, you know. ⁓ okay. So ⁓ Marie may maybe and then ⁓ I read Caroline Robbins' book, 18th century commonwealth, but I've never read it before. ⁓ this comes out before Same, this never read it before Balin. and this for a lot of people, I I expect this podcast will be your major interaction with Caroline Robbins' book in your life. ⁓ I I'm just gonna say the book blew me away. It blew me away. It is I can't wait to hear about it. But difficult. To c to approach in 2026, at least as an American historian. I'd always heard of this sort of long shadow cast by this book over what I guess we could call the revisionists historians of the American Revolution. so both Wood and Balin, at least, ⁓ and many others, ⁓ probably Forrest McDonald as well, who we're gonna get to in a few weeks. But ⁓ this book, which is an intellectual history of English liberalism, ⁓ the English Whig thought and English Republican thought between the restoration of Charles the Second and ⁓ then George the Third. And it just it's an unbelievable book. I I don't have any I I don't know I don't know how anybody wrote this. Like I I just don't. I it's very rare that I've ever approached a book where after reading it, I'm like, I I don't know how she wrote this. It's so impressive. Is it that dense? Is it that it's just that impressive, yeah. Yeah. The prose is is good. Like it's good. It's it's not poetical, you know. It's not flo it's not ⁓ you know, i she doesn't necessarily write with with with tremendous flourish, but she writes with some. But the amount of research that went into this is just astounding. And the fact that she was able to condense it into one volume is to to 300 and some pages, ⁓ at least in the the the edition I have, I I just I don't know how she did it. I've never read anything like it. Yeah. Glad it's impressive. Never read anything like it. And perhaps it's not surprising. I mean I'll she was the first woman to get a PhD at the University College London. ⁓ wow. So we just make sure I got that right. That was U University College London. I want to make sure that I was ⁓ that that I did get that right. and it it sort of it strikes me as a book that could only be written by somebody who was really trying to prove something on behalf of herself and on behalf of artists. Because this book is just so good. Shortcuts would have been taken by any other scholar, including myself. I'm I'll be honest. Like a shortcut would have been taken here. But there are no shortcuts. Yeah. So anyway, we'll get into it. But ⁓ you know, so just a little bit about Caroline Robbins, ⁓ you know, born in 1903. She ⁓ again got her PhD at the University, ⁓ University of London, ⁓ and first first woman, I believe, to get that. And ⁓ she ended up coming across the Bryn Mawr College in the late 1920s, where she taught until the 1970s, ⁓ and was a foundational figure in American academia, connecting Anglo ⁓ work and and American work. She was a British historian, ⁓ in at least by by trade, although she did a lot of work and was certainly inspired by ⁓ intellectual ⁓ currents in the United States as well. I think she died in she don't she did die in nineteen ninety-nine. So it wasn't that long ago. You know, she born in O three, died in ninety nine. Yeah. And ⁓ you know, just the towering figure in American academia. And she's best known for this book, ⁓ the eighteenth century commonwealth, and which was published in nineteen fifty-nine. ⁓ Marie, why don't you tell us a little Yeah. You want me to go ahead and talk about Balin? Yeah. So Bernard Balin, born in nineteen twenty-two, ⁓ he got his PhD from Harvard in nineteen fifty-seven. So, well no no, it can't be fifty fifty-three, excuse me. Got his PhD in fifty-three from Harvard, and this is gonna be just a few years before Robin's book comes out. And of course, this book is going to be very influential in his own work. So he's there at Harvard. Her book is from Harvard ⁓ press. He's he's looking at all of this information. ⁓ he spent his entire career, most of his career at Harvard. He was the Adams University professor when he retired. So that's the university's highest endowed chair. So not just, you know, huge at this this towering figure at Harvard. like he was in American history as well. He focused mostly early on on these merchant communities in colonial New England, but with Robin's ideas and this pamphlet literature that he comes across from the revolutionary era. So he's working on this document collection. He comes across these pamphlets. He puts her ideas with these pamphlets and he's going to create this book, The Ideological Origins of the Revolution, which becomes this This really ⁓ I mean he wins the Pulitzer, he wins the Bancroft prize. I mean, this is going to be the book in nineteen sixty eight that is the defining book of his ⁓ his career here and sets off this, I mean, history are historiography for generations. he he is ⁓ he died in twenty twenty. So twenty two to twenty twenty. He is creat you know, ⁓ throughout most of his life, throughout the last half of the twentieth century, he's creating this. Historiography. He is the ⁓ dissertation advisor for Polly Meyer and for Gor Gordon Wood. And so some he, you know, from him, he spawned some of the most famous Americanists, ⁓ especially of early America as well. ⁓ he a little bit of background on when he's writing, like obviously, I think it's always important to talk about the context that these historians are working within. He is writing in the mid to late 1960s. Amidst all these campus protests. So when we talked about Hofstadter, we talked about the fact that he is not ⁓ comfortable with these campus-wide protests and the radicalism that he's seeing. And Balin feels very similar to that. And so Balin also sees that radicalism is being defined in a different way that then he sees in these pamphlets. Like the radicalism he sees in the pamphlet has this long political tradition that Robbins talks about. So he's tracing that. The radicalism that he sees on campus protest is new. Like this is something that is true or he believes it's new. This is something that troubles him. And so he's writing in the midst of all of that that's going on. And I found out that as I was doing some background research here, he initially wanted to use the term radicalism in his book that becomes just the ideological origins, but he decides to take that out because he thinks that will be misinterpreted in the context of the 1960s. And so he's he leaves that out, even though the ideas he's talking about are somewhat radical in America during the time period ⁓ he's he's writing about, not the time period he's living through. And I thought that was very interesting how like Hofstadter, they're in academia, they're seeing these campus wide protests to other Ivy Leagues, and they are ⁓ concerned. They're very concerned about it. Yeah. And of course Balin's gonna live through this and he's gonna be able to talk about it later. He's gonna see the criticism that comes his way in a way that Hofstadter didn't. ⁓ but the two had the similar the similar ideology surrounding the context in which they were writing. Well I I was thinking, you know, the what's the year it's published again, Marie? Wanna just remind me? Yeah, using the if you use the word radical in the title, it would have interfered with Zinn, you know, you it may have kind of you would have thought of Zinn, a Zinn perspective rather than a different perspective. So I can kind of understand that from a marketing perspective. ⁓ Yeah. I mean I I got a r you know, when I read this book, when I've read Baylin, I've just the pamphlet material is just amazing. It is. It really is. It's so it's I mean, he brings it alive. And before Balin, people looked at this political material as propaganda, solely propaganda. That it was coming from the, you know, not necessarily the elite, but these high thinkers that were putting this information out here. It wasn't part of political culture at all. It was just, they were just there. And Balin's like flips this and he says, no, these ideas are absolutely part of political culture. He brings political culture into the historiography, ⁓ not for the first time, but definitely in a way that people weren't talking about before. And he says, people are paying attention to this. They are able to see through maybe the propaganda that's there, they're using this. ⁓ information to justify their behavior and their decisions that they're making in the revolutionary era, mostly in the 1770s. And so the, I mean, how do you create the story without the the pamphlet? And showing my students ⁓ examples of these pamphlets really helps them understand what Americans are seeing and how they're thinking about these ideas. And you can talk about how these pamphlets are spreading throughout the colonies, but you're right, like a lot of this is taking place in Boston. But these ideas are circulating and they are being used to justify actions that Parliament and the Crown see as ⁓ not only radical in the time period, but treasonous. ⁓ and so they're using these ideas that are coming from this British tradition in an in a that Robbins writes about in a much different way than maybe it would be assumed that these ideas would be used when they're, you know, when these thinkers are first ⁓ talking. Well, some of the way that the th I mean we'll we'll get into this. I and I want I I think we should talk about Balin first. Because I think people are more familiar with that and I think that's kind of a good way to enter into Robbins later on, if that's okay. ⁓ but you know, just a quick point like on the I t these ideas, the way that they were presented in in Britain were sometimes considered treasonous too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. I can reckon, yeah. ⁓ but anyway, so so what is Balin's argument, overall argument? So he's talking about the fact that there are these intellectual traditions that are I mean, like I said before, they're influencing revolutionary thought. So he's looking at these five intellectual traditions, and we'll talk about these, I'm sure, when we talk about Robins momentarily. But before this, people talked about the Enlightenment and the fact that the Enlightenment ideas are extremely important to revolutionary ideology, which of course they are. Like you cannot deny that. But he's bringing in these other ⁓ traditions that had been more longstanding within British culture. And he's saying that these ideas influence these the pamphlets, they influence the rev the revolutionaries during the time period, the colonists during the time period. And not only do they influence them, but they're going to lead the colonists again to justify their actions through these ideas. ⁓ So when the colonists are using these ideas to justify you know, ⁓ opposing the Stamp Act or the Townsend Duties or ⁓ you know, these ideas that are coming after 1763 in the colonies, the British Parliament says, this is not, you know, we don't accept these ideas and this is not how we assume these ideas would be put into practice. So the colonists are seeing themselves as part of this longstanding tradition, while the British are seeing this as as treasonous and as radical during that period. And so he's again, he's bringing this political culture that these pamphlets show and showing that the revolution is founded in these ideas, not the beardian idea that this or the progressive school's idea that this is just economic tension. So the progressives ⁓ beard, they argue that it's just economic tension between people who want to keep their land and they're seeing the British government trying to take their property or or limit how much property they can control. And ⁓ he's saying, Balin is saying, no, the ideology is more important. Like this is truly revolutionary. It's the ideology that is the foundation for this. It's the ideology they're building on and using to justify these actions. So he's pushing back against this idea of economic tension and inserting these different ideologies into that argument, ⁓ ultimately saying this is it. It the revolution is born from not just the enlightenment. But these other traditional ideas as well. Yeah. And I mean, I think he does a really good job. And again, I'm going back here, trying to remember, really showing the way that like classical notions, you know, be you know, classical philosophy, ⁓ you know, Anglo-Saxon notions of you know, or notions of Anglo Saxon liberty, and ⁓ then these other kind of the Enlightenment and then English traditions are all kind of working together here. And you've got this amazing like melting pot of ideas. And I mean, I think that's what I'm you know earlier when I said, you know, all this is going on in Boston. I think what's interesting about Boston is it's the place where this melting pot is really like happening of these various ideas. And ⁓ and in these in these remarkable pamphlets. Exactly. And in Boston, you also have the like the issues that the colonists are facing across the colonies, across most of the colonies, are all centered in Boston. Like Massachusetts is where the revolution is born. And Boston is is kind of this microcosm where you see all of these issues and you see these thinkers and you see the colonists debating this and how do we respond to this is the big debate. How do we respond to what we see as overreached by parliament? ⁓ and they they are looking at Parliament and not the Crown at this point, but how do we use these ideas to justify our actions? And and so that's where we see this come out in practice first, is in Boston and in Massachusetts, but they are filtering out. And Balin also talks about speaking of Boston and ideas filtering out here. I always like to tell my students about the conspiracy theories that are just running amok in the colonies during this period. And a lot of those are talking about. Boston because this is where the action is happening. And these he he Balin brings in some of these conspiracy theories through the use of these pamphlets. Like he shows how these are spreading. And I mean, their ideas, like their conspiracies throughout the colonies, that Boston has been burned to the ground, that there's nothing left. And this causes people from all over the colonies to descend on Boston and Massachusetts because they don't know what's going on, but they're seeing this information. And so he's showing here it's not just even what's being created in the United States is not just political propaganda. Like this has real world implications. These conspiracies that are spreading, these pamphlets that are going around the colonies have these real world implications. And when people start descending on Boston and the colonies or ⁓ and in Massachusetts, the British are gonna react to that. And so the And and I like how Balin does that. Other authors do this as well, of course. This is not the central core of Balin's argument by any means, but the conspiracies that are spread through these pamphlets is also an important part of like the undercurrent of what's going on. And again, all I mean most of those overwhelming majority center around what's Right. Or what's going on in England. Because there's rur there's crazy conspiracies going on about what's happening in England too. You've got the Wilkesite. ⁓ movement in England and you know people are thinking, ⁓ my goodness, we we James the is back right in the in the figure of George the Third. And they they've got ⁓ or through the through through the Parliament have as essentially essentially created a dictatorship or whatever. And you know, ⁓ again, like Wilkes is probably the perfect example of something that gets massively blown out of proportion of what actually happened. Not that what happened wasn't was good, but it gets blown out of proportion. And by the time this news reaches Boston, let alone by the time it reaches ⁓ you know, stuff going up the Hud you know, communities up the Hudson Valley, ⁓ it is a com it is totally changed its shape as to what actually happened. What might have started as sort of a good natured rumor turns into ⁓ pretty astounding s pretty astounding stories. that just become believable. Exactly. I mean, they're seeing things from Parliament that they never expected. They're seeing Parliament behave in a way that they they they that is not their relationship that they had had with the British government before this. And they're seeing that in a sh a fairly short amount of time. You know, all of these things happen really after 1763. And so they are Th the conspiracies are more believable now. You know, at that point they they are they don't know what to think. And so why wouldn't they think? And just based on communication, I mean, to get a response from London is gonna take the better part of a year. Like if you have a question of what's going on, it's gonna take me a year to get a response. Let's assume I and let's assume I wrote the letter perfectly. Let's assume it gets answered, you know. Let's assume I write the answer per the question per or the letter perfectly where I'm asking the exact perfect question that I'm actually trying to ask. And the person on the other side is gonna perfectly understand what I'm trying to ask and then gonna be able to perfectly communicate an an answer that is not only what they believe, but also what I'm going to understand. So best case scenario, it's still twelve months before you get an answer. Meanwhile, what are you going to be hearing on people getting off ships in Boston and New York, Philadelphia? ⁓ my goodness. Who know you know, talk about a game of telephone. I mean all kinds of things. And by the time you got that perfect response, it would not work because the situation's totally changed. Exactly. anyway, I mean, you know, you've got and and I mean, yes, Marie is is probably worth talking about, like how does the relation according to Balin, how does the relationship with Parliament change in the colonist? Yeah. So just as the colonists see this overreach from Parliament, Parliament is seeing what the colonists do are are doing as a problem as well. That they are acting out in a way that they hadn't as well. And like you said, the communication takes so long and there's so much miscommunication in the meantime that ⁓ you do have these conspiracies develop and you do have this hatred toward Parliament, not the king yet. But this hatred toward parliament developing. And you have ⁓ you know, loyalists and British officials on the ground and the colonies having to respond to this without knowing what parliament would have them do. And they see the colonists who are raising up as ⁓ traitors. They see them as, you know, they should be arrested. They sh they should not be pushing back against these things. And so Balin really highlights that, that this miscommunication between the two. this this ⁓ communication void, this vacuum in a way, leads to these misunderstandings between parliament and ⁓ the colonists. And you have parliamentarians who are members of parliament who are arguing in favor of the colonists, saying we are being too hard on the colonists. We need to compromise. The colonists I mean, the overwhelming majority of the colonists are not hearing those things. They are not ⁓ they are not accepting that those ⁓ arguments are going on because they're these conspiracies are running rampant or they're seeing how the British officials in the actual colonies are acting. And most of them are not in the mood to compromise with the radicals that they see, the the colonists who are turning against Parliament. Yeah. And I mean and and y I I I really like in you brought up the the the officials, the British officials that are in in North America. I mean, hard enough to follow instruction, you know. How many instruct how much instructions are you actually gonna get? Trying to follow them and then you get a letter, and then maybe three weeks later you get another letter, or then three and none of this is in response to anything that you've written. Right? You know, it's not like you're ha you're not having a conversation. You're just getting instructions and you're doing your best to interpret them. Right. And then all of a sudden, you know, right there are orders like ⁓ you know, the intolerable acts, some of the intolerable acts that come out. I mean. Hard to not have sympathy with a British Governor General. A British governor if you're like Does do they know what this is gonna do? Yeah. Right. 'Cause the I mean the members of parliament that are sending these instructions, they don't know exactly what they are just as you know, going this just as blindly as the color. They're seeing it, and this is just me r remembering Balin's book here, but they're seeing it entirely through the lens of like this is a child that must be disciplined. Right. At at the reaches a point where they're like, Okay, swift, firm action is going to nip this in the bud. But of course, again, like you're not there's a twelve month lag on reports. Right. There's at minimum a three month lag when you read something about what happened. Right. And I'm not even sure. It might even be longer going the other way back. I I don't I don't actually might be six months. If it's going two ways, I mean if it's going both ways. A letter asking question of ten months or something. Yeah. I mean the better part of a year. And yeah. And what changed during that period? And Baylin really hits on that. the the things that are going on within that vacuum of instructions and information. Because that's when these ideas are spreading. That's when these pamphlets are filtering through to the other columns. You can spread you can get a pamphlet to Philadelphia a heck of a lot faster than you can get a note to Britain. Yep. Right. Not a lot. So ⁓ or rumor. Again, the power of rumor is so important too. And ⁓ have you ever read Peter Oliver's Tory interpretation of the American Revolution? He might I I don't know that I think Balin refers to it. ⁓ it was written in like the eighteen seventeen eighties or something. And Peter Oliver was a ⁓ he was an ⁓ an official. He worked with Hutchinson in Massachusetts, and so he was on the front lines of this. I I think he actually grew up in America too, unlike ⁓ a lot of the British officials. He's actually from America. And he just says they're all smugglers. His conclusion is that they're all just greedy smugglers that finally had to pay taxes, that finally couldn't get away with their smuggling anymore. And they refused to be, they just wanted to be pirates. Basically. It's a tremendous book, actually. It's pretty short. But if you ever get you get a chance to read it, I recommend it. It's a great book. and ⁓ but it's ⁓ it it really is you start to see, and and and Oliver was in America. And one of the things that Oliver criticized is right is that the British government has no idea how to handle this. He almost like he's almost like saying, you know, I get why. He's like, I there was misinterpretations everywhere. Right. This could have if this was handled well, it wouldn't have been a problem. But he's like, but at in the end it was up to the American colonists to just sort of accept right British control and ⁓ right, their subjects. And that in the end the thing that kept pushing them over the edge is that they were just a bunch of smugglers. And he really hates John Adams. So but anyway, it's Gary it but you know, you can sort of see that it it's very you can really like ⁓ reading that book really convinced me about Balin that his argument was was was quite strong. Yeah. ⁓ And Bacon wrote a book ab about ⁓ loyalist Thomas Hutchinson. ⁓ what was it ten years? I don't have the date for that, but within ten years of writing ideological origin, so I'm sure he used that text in ⁓ writing about Thomas Hutchinson. ⁓ on in both 1750 and coming out of the Seven Years' War, there is no happier place of the Empire, generally thought of, than the Thirteen Colonies. I don't know that that's true. I think that's a lot of myth involved in that, but there is this sort of notion that they're very happy colonists in 1763. And thirteen years later they launch an amazing revolution against the British Empire. So how does Balin answer that question? Why are they not happy anymore? I mean that's what he's talking about. Right. I mean, you can go through the ⁓ yeah, after the French and Indian War, the British are trying to raise money and that's what they're saying. Like he talked about this as well. Parliament is saying this these measures that they're taking in the 1760s and even the 1770s as ⁓ funding measures. I mean, they need to raise money. A lot of the money they had spent was on the thirteen colonies, defending them against the French. defending them against different ⁓ indigenous American. And so they are raising money. They look to the colonists. The colonists were the ⁓ they didn't pay high taxes. British subjects in Britain paid higher taxes than the colonists did. And so Parliament didn't see raising taxes as on the colonists as an issue. Like you said, they see them as as relatively happy in what they're you know in their lives. And so why would this create this revolutionary spirit? And the colonists, because of the ideas that are spreading during the time and because they're going back to those ideas that were a part of this country tradition that you'll talk about when you talk about Robbins, they're going back to these ideas and they're using those ideas to say, well, power is corrupting. This seems to be very corrupt what parliament is doing. And so we have to hold power to account. And so they're using these ideas that are spreading in the pamphlets. to hold power to account, essentially, because that's what these ideas are arguing. That when people have power, they're gonna hold on to that power and they are it's going to corrupt them. And if the people who are under them, the general population doesn't hold them to account, then they are going to be, and what the colonists are arguing here is they're gonna be small. They're gonna be taken advantage of their rights are going to be taken away, their property is limited because of the proclamation line in 1763. And so you have not only the elite in the colonies, like like the progressives argue that are pushing back against these measures, but like everyday Bostonians, New Yorkers who are suffering from these measures as well. The the rich people, even poor people in the colonies, are paying attention to what's going on. And so they're talking about this, what Parliament is doing is overreach. And they're saying, okay, well, we know that the this ideology exists. We know it'd be enlightened ideas are new and somewhat exciting during that period. And so they're putting those enlightened ideas with this other English traditional athlet. And they are saying, okay, we're gonna use this. This is part of our tradition. We're gonna use this to justify pushing back. And so that's what's happening in that time period. Is they're organizing, they're pushing back, they're constantly using this ideology that's spreading to justify new actions, to learn about, you know. And to continue to justify their idea that parliament is corrupt. Right. Right. And I mean, and it's not like the English the American colonists didn't have an experience of tyranny from London when James II was king. Right. Right. So ⁓ you know, it was easy to look at George the Third as possibly a return of of James the Second. ⁓ or at least the the ministry. All right. Well, ⁓ in cognizant of wanting to keep this reasonable reasonable time, I'm gonna turn, I'm gonna Turn it over to you, Marie, and maybe you can ask me some questions about Robbins. Yeah. So you ⁓ talked about Robin's the who she was, who the author was. So we've got our back right here. We ⁓ and what year was the book ⁓ fifty through fifty was it? Yeah, I think it's fifty fifty-nine. Okay, so while ⁓ Bayolina is just talking about these ideas, of course. So what is Romane's main argument here? We know she's focusing on the ideology, but what's her main argument? I think the main argument is that the ideas of the English Civil War, ⁓ the Republican ideas don't go away. And that they you know, with the restoration or maybe with the glorious revolution. I mean, I think there's this notion, kind of a notion that I Until I became aware of Robbins' book, which again is is ⁓ you know, is a while ago, but I never actually read it. I think there's this notion in Amer when American historians at least think of this period, we sort of think about the turmoil that lasts from sixteen you know, sixteen forty one to sixteen eighty nine. Right. ⁓ with the glorious revolution at the end of it. And that there's this ⁓ sixteen eighty eight. ⁓ glorious revolution at the end of it. And so that once William and Mary are are asconced on the throne, it's a constitutional monarchy. Everybody's kind of happy and that there's this sort of inertia or stasis that sets in and like everybody's generally content with the with the accord. They're proud of their English liberties. They're proud of the Bill of Rights. ⁓ but that there's you know But that kind of radical tradition goes away. And Robbins argues that it just doesn't. And it's building on itself. And that the period between, and this is, I think, what I really appreciate, so much what I appreciated about this book. And again, it's it's a black hole in my own knowledge of English history. ⁓ I'm an American historian. My master's degree was in Russian history. my ⁓ I I I know enough English hist I I know more English history than the guy on the street knows, but I don't know as much English history as a good as an as an English high school student would know. You know, so I ⁓ like I've got a general sense of the mileposts of English history. but I don't really like, you know, enough to teach a class on the American Revolution. You know, I could kind of talk about the beheading of King Charles, I could talk about Cromwell. I could talk about enough to fill a lecture for a 100 for a 100 level class of American students. But any more than that, we're getting kind of tricky for me, especially in this period. So I there was a level of assumed knowledge reading this book I just didn't have. And that was the biggest obstacle reading the book. ⁓ so you know, there's you've got to be able to, you know, she just throws terms out that I just mean I had no idea what she was talking about. You know. Context you do your best to pick up context clues, but you know, it's hard. And so ⁓ what the thing that really stands out to me is that the period is real it's a very tumultuous political period between the the glorious revolution and George III ascension to the throne. Whereas on the surface it might look kind of stable. It's not. And especially right underneath that surface, there's a lot of stuff going on. And there's a lot of thinkers that and and there's there it's an array of them, but they are they go from everywhere from somebody like you know from ⁓ from Sydney who's who's you know executed before the glorious revolution. ⁓ but how the ideas that were at the heart of the English Revolution and the English Republic never go away. And that there are a lot of thinkers and a lot of very prominent thinkers that are inspired by it. ⁓ maybe don't think that some of them are like, okay, killing the king was too far. The regicide was too far. But The glorious revolution didn't isn't far enough. You know, and and there's sort of this: how do we, you know, we need an executive figure. In some cases, we need an executive figure. In some cases, no, we don't need an executive figure. But what from our perspectives as American historians, the thing that I think is so critical in this book is that every idea that you see at the Constitutional Convention. When we're going to talk about the Federalist Papers in a few weeks, you know. all of the the ideas that are at the heart of all of this are being discussed in the early 17th century. In the early 18th century. The late 17th and early 18th century. you know, Queen Anne's rule is more, I think, ⁓ authoritarian than I thought it was. And so, ⁓ you know, there's these the there's ministries under Queen Anne that are ⁓ they're kind of figuring stuff out, right? What does it mean for Parliament to be supreme? What does it mean for parliament to be supreme and having a monarch? What does that mean? Right. ⁓ and they're kind of they're they're figuring it out, right? You've got ⁓ ⁓ you've got the ⁓ the Harley ministry in particular is really interesting. ⁓ he's a Tory, but he starts as a Whig and he betrays the Whigs and he becomes a Tory. And it ⁓ and and and Harley is really like he's a major figure in the this wig in the Whig movement at the time. And so this betrayal, like casts a long shadow of who among us Whigs is actually a Tory, right? And trying to figure that out, you know. And ⁓ And then the other aspect of it, and this is, I think, really and Robbins emphasizes this, is just the role of Ireland. The role of Ireland, the role of Scotland, the role of dissenters. ⁓ not ex this is not exclusively dissenters, but a thing that comes out is that a lot of the the great thinkers here are dissenters. now that changes a little bit in the first 40 years of the of the of the 17th century in that kind of the Presbyterians disappear to a certain degree, where the Puritans and the Presbyterians kind of disappear. And the Methodists replace them eventually. But ⁓ but that that Presbyterian dissenter tradition ⁓ continues to play a really important role in in formation here. These are people who are tip who for the most part feel a little outside of mainstream society. Either because they live in Ireland, yeah, Scotland, or they're English. ⁓ but they are not they're not perfectly part of the ru ⁓ of they're not part of the ruling class for sure. And they're they feel a little apart. So this is the embarrassing ⁓ admission on my part that I made a mistake in the production of this episode and I accidentally deleted my own voice file. after this point. So ⁓ the file that I currently have is just Murray asking some incredibly interesting questions and then three to four minutes of blank of dead air. So ⁓ unfortunately the episode ends here and the discussion of Caroline Robbins's book is truncated. ⁓ for those who are interested I I really would encourage you to read the book if if you've got ⁓ If you're feeling courageous, it's a really great book on political theory. It's an incredible intellectual history. I I hope I've made that clear so far in the episode. One of the things that we go on to talk about, or that Marie and I went on to talk about, that unfortunately wasn't recorded, was ⁓ how to distinguish the Commonwealthman that Robbins is discussing versus, say, your ordinary wig. And one of the things that I that I emphasize or that that Robbins emphasizes at least is that this is a group of people who are not comfortable with power. It is a sort of libertarian streak line of philosophy where the they are concerned about what happens when power concentrates at the center, the notion that, you know, ⁓ power corrupts ⁓ and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And so this is a ⁓ this is a group. ⁓ the the ones at least in Caroline Robbins' book are generally know each other. They are dissenters ⁓ of the religious tradition, although not exclusively, but they tend to be concentrated or or heavily indexed that way. and they are ⁓ they're building on each other. And they're they discuss issues of religious liberty, they discuss issues of ⁓ economic liberty, they discuss issues of political liberty. We we talk about this a little bit later in the episode, but ⁓ you know, one of the real libertarian you know, you could argue that one of the real blind spots that this group had is they were willing to ⁓ grant political and civil liberties and religious liberties to everybody, but it took a long time for them to accept Catholics. In that group. ⁓ they associated the Catholics with the Stuarts, they associated Catholicism with ⁓ absolutism, and therefore they did not think that it was ⁓ consistent with their other values. ⁓ for those in Ireland, it also presents this other problem, which is what to do with the Catholic majority. though in ⁓ certainly among the Irish. There does seem to be ⁓ a a realization in the book by the seventeen twenties at least, that there is a need to give s to grant to extend the liberties offered to the Catholic majority. ⁓ it might be a little bit different in England itself, but in ⁓ in s in in Ireland that's certainly the case. ⁓ but it is, you know, Marie will ask, she asks a a really great question. Which is about how you know the American founding fathers were influenced by these ideas, and yet they continued to countenance ⁓ slavery, African slavery. And ⁓ that was obviously a significant blind spot at the very least for them. And so I presented the notion that the the Irish thinkers and English thinkers and Scottish thinkers that were these These Commonwealthmen, these men who continue to think that Republican values and ⁓ if there if there was a monarch, it had to be highly constrained by the people, that the people are truly s sovereign. And how do we create a ⁓ a society in which the people are truly sovereign that extends the greatest liberty possible to people? They, for the most part, were not from what I can read in Robbins' book at least, we're not were oftentimes very critical of the slave trade, very critical of slavery. But as I mentioned a few minutes ago, they were not not until much later were they willing to grant the sort of liberties that they thought everybody should have to Catholics. So ⁓ both both of these groups have some ⁓ are are not perfectly consistent. And in the American context, you know, you could argue that they work a lot of them were consistent. ⁓ I think I make the argument, and again I've lost the voice file here, so it's possible that I ⁓ that I ⁓ that I didn't say it exactly like this, but that at least through the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, ⁓ where Jefferson writes a paragraph incredibly critical of slavery and blames King George. and British Parliament for the continuation of slavery in the United States, ⁓ or the existence of slavery in the colonies. ⁓ you can you can see the echoes of the Commonwealthman in that draft of the Declaration of Independence. Now obviously that doesn't make the final draft, and obviously there's ⁓ a a degree of ⁓ toleration for slavery in the Constitution, but you know, I I I don't necessarily, you know it Robins certainly doesn't make any arguments about that. the the eighteenth century Commonwealthmen themselves, though I don't know how much they talked about slavery, to ti typically spoke about it negatively. So y you wouldn't say that the continuation of slavery is necessarily a a true reflection of the intellectual movement of the eighteenth century Commonwealthmen that goes all the way through Adam Smith. ⁓ and Robins emphasizes that. So anyway, that's my attempt to give a brief summary without the without the aid of the excellent questions that were offered by Marie. I'm sorry that this episode ends kind of ⁓ kind of badly, but ⁓ thank you very much for listening. Be sure to like and subscribe if you can ⁓ when you get a chance and ⁓ we will be back in two weeks time with the with Douglas Adair's famous dissertation. Thank you very much. Bye. Yeah.