Radicalism and the American Revolution

Paper Summary:

In this article the writer discusses that the rejection by America of the traditional sense of dependence, through patriarchal systems on a legal and social level coupled with other issues, may also have been said to predispose the nation to an early sense of citizenship for slaves and eventually women. The writer examines how radical the American Revolution was and notes that, though fights for equality of human rights were not won easily or without resistance, it was still America who led the way in the western world for universal suffrage among women and blacks. The writer concludes that a reasonable argument could be made that the people in this newly formed country had a generational memory of what it was like to be dependant and without voice, and therefore were inclined to eventually break with tradition and allow the un-propertied men, women and freed slaves the right to vote.

From the Paper:

"Another issue that was clearly radical, on the part of the Americans was their desire and real attempt to create allies among other European countries, in the very least to find out how other European countries viewed the American rebellion. To most this would seem a concerted effort on the part of the Americans to create early attempts at diplomacy, as if they were acting as an independent nation already. In the end these early attempts at independent diplomacy, a radical notion in and of itself retained foreign aide from France, despite its early misgivings."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Middlekauff, Robert The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789, London UK: Oxford Press, 2005
• Wood, Gordon S The Radicalism of the American Revolution, New York: Vintage,March, 2005.

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