It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
When I first read the book, A Tale of Two Cities and later,The Scarlet Pimpernel, I hadn’t made the connection between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. In fact, although a school teacher may have thrown it out for consideration, I apparently didn’t catch it. Fortunately, those two classics made that connection for me.
Here we are this July 4th celebrating, as we do every year, the independence of our nation. Those American Patriots, French soldiers, and Native and African Americans making up the Continental Army fought some of their own countrymen: American Loyalists and Native and African Americans joining British soldiers. Imagine, if you will, disagreeing with your own countrymen over politics. And it didn’t happen over a year or two, or even four, but it was nearly nine years before the official end of the war.
It was an important disagreement.
That July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence from Great Britain wasn’t a sudden decision. Years of tension between our 13 colonies and King George reached an irrevocable conflict. Think of it: Being taxed for all printed material, i.e. newspapers, legal documents, and pamphlets; not to mention playing cards and dice! Methinks a boundary was overstepped with the Stamp Act. Then, something most of us recall – the tea tax (3 cents per pound) – led to the “enough’s enough” action of the Boston Tea Party. It wasn’t really a party. We should commend those early Americans for fighting for our independence. Republicanism was a new thought, and the effort succeeded. It occurs to me that we should borrow some of that “enough’s enough” attitude from our forefathers. Tea isn’t the only thing we’re taxed for now.
The interesting thing is that, with our revolution, revolutions all over the globe erupted. The French Revolution, of course, which we remember, in part, due to its morbid guillotine; but also the Haitian revolution. Brazil, Greece, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Mexico all hopped on board the revolution train, seeking to replace monarchies with republics. Not democracies. Republics.
Are you seeing any similarities yet? It does seem, doesn’t it, that we are witnessing something akin to the upheaval from history over 200 years ago. The question for the United States for America, of course, is found in Benjamin Franklin’s famous answer to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question on the final day of the Constitutional Convention: “Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” to which he answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
A republic if your can keep it. God help us keep it.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. 1859. Published by Chapman and Hall; https://www.history.com/news/american-revolution-independence-movements; https://www.thecleverteacher.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-teaching-the-revolutionary-war/; https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-fmcc-boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-south-american-revolutions/; https://www.prageru.com/video/the-difference-between-a-democracy-and-a-republic