James Carter
Spring 2000
Empire, War and Revolution
Marc Egnal, A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. Pp. Xi-338 + index.
Promising a "new interpretation" of well-trod ground Marc Egnal offers A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution. Egnal attempts here to move beyond the shortcomings of earlier historiography of the colonial period: the imperial, the Progressive and the Neo-Whig perspectives becoming his specific targets. The author attempts to demonstrate that in every colony the American Revolution, such that it was, was led by an elite class "whose passionate commitment to the rise of the New World was evident well before 1763." Careful to avoid a narrow class argument, Egnal emphasizes the extent to which a variety of factors, such as religious affiliation or national origin, influenced this group. Of course, much of the impetus toward revolution hinged on self interest and national greatness.
Mr. Egnal has necessarily limited his study in order both to articulate his argument and provide a representative sample of its viability. The book focuses on only five colonies; Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. These colonies were chosen due to their size, geography, diversity, and their prominence during the conflict with Great Britain. For example, in these colonies the author can draw on the religious motivation of Pennsylvania, the commercial interests of Massachusetts, and the agrarian interests of South Carolina in order to show that in each case, the forces advocating expansion (and thus independence) were linked by their upper class elite positions within society.
Specifics apart, Egnal thesis is a bold one: that two groups emerged as early as the 1730s-1740s, groups he terms expansionists and non-expansionists, whose composition remained consistent enough that their respective views lead one to support the war for independence and the other to oppose such a move. These groups eventually evolved and developed a more coherent and forceful call for expansion after 1763. At the outset, however, neither dreamed of independence. Their interests were far narrower than that. Not yet ready for independence, "most expansionists presented solutions predicated on membership in the British empire and typically demanded that the prerogative of Parliament be narrowly circumscribed."(1) Likewise, with no one loudly advocating independence, the non-expansionists focused on issues such as a threatening frontier to bolster their own view.
The period from 1771 - 1773 represents what the author calls the "quiet years." Apparently the result of conciliatory policies on the part of Great Britain, "these affluent partisans...continued to work for their goal of a 'mighty empire' in America" but also "granted a due obeisance to the Crown."(2) The years from 1774 - 1776 are the period of final crisis when this same group of expansionists finally discarded any hope of existing within the British empire and began to talk openly of independence. They came to support banks and a strong federal government in order to realize their dream of economic expansion. Of course, along side the development of the expansionists, there were the non-expansionists who were less vocal and less effective.
Part of the problem with this scenario is that it is far too simple. The reader is asked to accept the idea that a relatively specific group of interests were from the very early period pro-expansionist. Further, this group remained remarkably consistent over the intervening decades and through the War for Independence. These folks tended to be near the edge of the frontier, allowing for some variation from colony to colony. Thus their desire for expansion. The opposing faction, the non-expansionists, tended to be those colonists who lived inland but not along the frontier and merchants in the urban areas. And, oh yes, the Quakers. This group gets the label of non-expansionist because they were pacifists and opposed the revolution. But, Quaker merchants in Philadelphia surely did not oppose an expanding economy and expanding trade with the interior just because they opposed the move for independence. Egnal's formula, in this case does not work. One of the results of this categorization is that all non-expansionists come to oppose banks, expanded trade, a strong government and so on.
The effort to show that two distinct groups emerged during the early eighteenth century and that those groups remained relatively consistent for many decades and up to the period of crisis is on the whole unconvincing. The author writes himself into a corner. Just because someone or some group supported expansion does not mean that support for independence from Great Britain logically followed. It is also too simplistic to argue that the elite perspective toward expansion was consistent from colony to colony and that it remained so over many years. The larger argument, though, is intriguing. Egnal is trying to offer a counter argument to scholarship such as Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.(3) By demonstrating that the two groups, expansionists and non-expansionists, emerged very early and evolved over many years into pro-independence and anti-independence forces, he can also effectively refute Bailyn's claim that the American Revolution came about in large part because of a broad ideological consensus that transcended class boundaries. In Egnal's rendering of the story, the American Revolution was about expansion, had evolved over a number of decades, and owed its success to elites protecting their interests. Though not an unreasonable suggestion or one that is entirely new, the fixed division into distinct and unmalleable categories diminishes the impact of the argument.
Egnal also relies on Benjamin Franklin to a large extent as a leading exponent of expansionist sentiment. However, this leads to a inflexible definition of the Philadelphian, one to which he did not conform in reality. The author is forced by his own framework to place Franklin on opposite sides from the Quakers, because they are non-expansionists, even though he was a leader of the Quaker-dominated antiproprietary Assembly party during this period. (78-79) Not that Franklin's expansionist tendencies ought to be difficult to show. Walter LaFeber ably argued that the statesman had early on begun to reconsider the notion that a sound Republic could not be expansive for fear of a loss of control of far-flung regions and disruptive factions. "No matter how large a nation might be, if it was 'full settled,' it was, in Franklin's mind, uncomfortably similar to European urban areas."(4) Because he recognized the inconsistency of this view with earlier ideas about a republic, Franklin came to emphasize a strong central government and equal rights for all parts of the empire as solutions to expanding territorially.
In contrast to LaFeber's Franklin, Egnal's characters seem narrowly defined and resistant to the changes swirling around them through a large part of the eighteenth century. Once the principle players come into being, they remain fairly constant until the end. Even though the author does concede some division among the elite, a consensus based on class interests is emphasized. He goes so far as to refer to the groups as "parties" and "factions" with real and specific "agendas" as though they recognized themselves in these terms even though he makes clear at the outset that these terms are used without this meaning in mind. He implicitly grants the expansionists much more focus and coordination than he himself believes existed in his own introduction. There is little doubt that the interests of a political and economic elite are significant factors in expansion and creating "a mighty empire." The sharp demarcation, however, between only two groups, with special emphasis on the "balanced program of the expansionists," that remained bifurcated in this way for many decades is a bit of a stretch.(5)
1. Marc Egnal, A Mighty Empire, 13.
2. Ibid., 248.
3. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (Cambridge: 1967).
4. Walter LaFeber, "Foreign Policies of a New Nation: Franklin, Madison, and the 'Dream of a New Land to Fulfill with People in Self-Control," in William Appleman Williams, From Colony to Empire: Essays in the History of American Foreign Relations. (New York: 1972), 14.
5. A Mighty Empire, 156.