Part I: A Tory, also called a loyalist, was someone who was loyal to the British government before and during the Revolutionary War. The loyalists (particularly the clergy of the Anglican Church, like Inglis) were threatened and treated with violence and cast into jail on spurious charges, and when they would try to flee, they would be arrested, brought back, and “tried for the Lives.” After the Declaration of Independence, the clergy were face with a dilemma: to omit prayers for the King would go against their Oath, but prayers for the King would have “drawn inevitable Destruction.” To “avoid both evils,” they had to simply close their churches. Inglis believed that the “Abolition of the Church of England” was one of the principal goals of the “Dissenting Leaders.” I’ve never heard that before, but it makes sense. We’re told that 20% of the free population sided with Britain. The only thing about that that surprises me is that there weren’t more who sided with Britain. The Whig cause was audacious, and incredibly risky. It was much more likely that rebellion would make things worse rather than better. I honestly don’t know whether I would have been a Whig or a Tory. On the one hand, I have always believed the United States to be a very special place, and have reverenced the Patriots and Founders and all that. On the other hand, I am not a rebellious person, and I hate confrontations and fights. I believe in working within the law to effect change, and in being loyal to your government. My church has something called the Articles of Faith, which I have grown up memorizing and reciting. One of them is, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” So even though I am very glad that the Revolution happened and that some people were Whigs, I probably would have been a Tory because supporting the government would have seemed like the most conscionable thing to do. That is a bit cowardly, but there you are.
Part II: Mercy Otis Warren feels that “politicks” commands “the attention of the mother and the wife” because the recent occurrences were, in her words, “so alarming.” She also felt the subject was “interwoven with the enjoyments of social and domestic life” and noted that women may “be called to weep over… [their] beloved sons,” slain by the British. Mercy does not apologize for “touching on a subject a little out of the line of female attention” because she and her friend are “happily united” to men who think them “capable of taking part in whatever affects themselves.” I think it’s interesting that the personality of her husband is the reason Mercy would or wouldn’t apologize for involvement in politics. In her letter to Mercy, Hannah Fayerweather Winthrop describes the citizens’ terrified flight from Cambridge following news of the fighting at Lexington—she called it the “Bloody Massacre at Lexington” and recounts the scenes with horror. She regrets that she cannot visit her friend, because “the Length of the journey & the uncertainty of the times forbid it.” It appears that she is afraid to travel because of the fighting of the Revolution. These letters show that women at the time of the Revolution felt free to discuss politics, to read and write, and even express opinions, but only if their husbands were okay with it. Women stayed out of the fighting, and felt the need to justify their involvement in politics at all. It seems that women played an important rhetorical role in politics but were limited by culturally necessary deference to men.
Part III: In his letter to John Sullivan, John Adams defends property ownership as the prerequisite to the right to vote. He believes that men who have no property have very little “Judgment of their own,” but instead are directed by someone who owns property in how to vote, thus leading to corruption because men of property essentially get more than one vote (theirs and all the property-less people they influence). He also says (quite ironically to the modern ear) that any argument one could use for granting men without property the right to vote would naturally extend to woman and children, who are equally dependent on others (and I think he is holding that situation up as ludicrous). John Adams’ ideas are not practical for today for so many reasons. First of all, the number of people who rent rather than owning property is huge—that would be a lot of people without votes. Secondly, many of the issues facing voters today affect those who don’t (and particularly those who can’t) own property differently that those who do. Because of all the social programs that government is involved in (not present in Adams’ time), the poor (who typically do not own property) must have a voice. Thirdly, we obviously do value women’s votes today, so that part of Adam’s argument isn’t applicable. All of this is the ideal situation for votes. The truth of the matter is that those who own property, specifically wealthy property owners, are grossly overrepresented in government, as well as in proportion of voter turnout. So even though those without property can vote, many of them aren’t, so perhaps Adams’ ideas are being perpetuated even though we say we don’t agree with them. In the last two paragraphs, Adams basically expresses a fear of equality. He worries that extending votes to greater numbers of people would “confound and destroy all Distinctions, and prostrate all Ranks, to one common Levell.” Basically, he wanted liberty, but not for everyone, and certainly not in equal amounts. He wanted the status quo to be perpetuated, with the same people in power in the Americas, just without the distant connection to England. Even though Adams’ fear is certainly hypocritical, it is understandable. With the ideas of social position so ingrained in us as we grow up, it is natural to fear the upset of “social order”. It amounts to the fear of the unknown. These early patriots seemed to be saying, “We want change, but let’s not get too crazy.” Clearly, equality was a little “too crazy” for them, and with how long it is taking us to achieve small measures of equality today, we just might think it’s “too crazy,” too.
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