The American Revolution , Bernard Cottret, 2003
A few days before the opening of the French States General of 1789, Rhode Island adopted the Constitution of the newly formed United States of America. It is the last of the thirteen original states to accept the constitutional text which still governs the institutional functioning of the United States today. The vote of the representatives of the smallest state in America concludes a quarter-century-old affair, that of the emancipation of the British colonies from their metropolis. For a French historian, it is always tempting to draw a parallel between the two revolutions, American and French. To understand their similarities, to analyze their dissimilarities. At the risk of only explaining the gesture of the Founding Fathers through the sieve of our own revolutionary experience. This pitfall, Bernard Cottret manages to circumvent it throughout this dense synthesis of five hundred pages. The specificities of American theatre, its very singularity, take precedence over the easy analogy allowed by the contemporaneity of the two revolutions. France breaks up its old institutions when America forges new ones; in Paris, we break with the past while, in Philadelphia, we invent a future. The American Revolution is above all a colonial adventure. The Republic that was born of the independence of the thirteen colonies still exists when France has scuttled four republics, two empires, two restorations and a regime of collaboration. The United States of America is a sui generis construction that no historical antecedent prefigures, despite the profusion of ancient references in the speeches of its founders. The colonies broke with the United Kingdom and invented a Republic which had no example and which only knew pale imitations. Even today, the names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Paine or Patrick Henry resonate in American ears with a glorious, almost legendary sound.
When, in 1763, the Seven Years' War ended, France lost all of its possessions continental US. The British, who triumphed over their competitors, mastered the entire American coast from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to northern Florida. As long as the French threat existed, in Canada and near the Great Lakes, the English colonists could not, at the risk of their safety, rebel against London. The French out of the game, the allies of the day before will tear each other apart. For several years, the United Kingdom sought to rebalance a treasure affected by the long imperial war. Successive governments try to tax the colonies. The Americans refuse that the British parliament, where they are not represented, can arrogate the right to impose them. Exasperated by what they perceive as an arbitrary act, the American elites – owners, lawyers, merchants – begin to coordinate their efforts. Geographically distant, and this will be one of the keys to its defeat, the British power struggles to enforce tax measures in the thirteen colonies. The deterioration of relations between American elites and British parliamentarians led to an impasse. The two camps fail to agree:when one is ready to concede, the other stiffens. British power demanded that its colonies participate financially in the defense of the empire, but hesitated to recognize their representation, if not autonomy. He wishes to impose a border on their geographic and demographic expansion when this is essential to the smooth social functioning of a land of permanent immigration. American elites want the benefits of British protection without paying the cost. They believe they can decide their future without waiting for the arbitrary decisions of distant elected officials.
In 1776, when the opposition had degenerated into conflict for a year, the representatives of the thirteen colonies declared their independence in a famous text. It is divided into two parts of unequal importance:the first compiles the "obvious truths" that all human association presupposes - a sort of declaration of rights - and the second the grievances imputed to the metropolitan power. The war will last eight years. Allied with the French, the American colonists benefited from the remoteness of the British. The line of command between the military leaders of the North American theater and London is too long:it takes many weeks for the two parties to communicate, several months to obtain reinforcements. Nevertheless, the power and experience of the British armies enabled them to seize New York and Philadelphia, then the seat of Congress. While the Americans failed to rally the French Canadians to them, the English adopted an ineffective strategy. The British armies fail to coordinate. They take cities, get bogged down there, have to fix too many men there to keep them and thus lose the initiative on the battlefield. Lord North's government failed to adopt a coherent strategy, both politically and militarily. The Americans try their hand at attrition warfare, tire the German and Scottish contingents with small daily attacks, and, when the ground proves favorable, force the decision. Thanks to French support – which weakened the British hold on the seas – the colonists gained the advantage at Yorktown. After several years of unsuccessful campaigns, London bows and accepts independence from the United States. Despite the support of loyalists, settlers favorable to the English, who fled to Canada, the conflict ended, and a certain apathy of the population, especially in the south, the English did not manage to defeat the continental army. Bernard Cottret has not written a military book here:the American Revolution is not limited to the War of Independence. Once freed from their tutelage, the Americans still have a step to take, that of political institutions. The debates of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 lead to the adoption of a federal and republican Constitution. The former British colonies created a new political structure, a subtle balance between the rights of the States and the central power. The association, indissoluble, constitutionally settled the problem of the fields of competence and that of the separation of powers. It will soon pass a bill of rights in the form of constitutional amendments. A subject of contention remains, slavery. The northern states have abolished it, or are preparing to do so; those of the south demand its maintenance, necessary for their agrarian economy. But this is already another story, the one that will culminate, eighty years later, in the Civil War.
Bernard Cottret's work of synthesis traces with precision the origins, course and direct consequences of the American Revolution. The rise of tensions between settlers and metropolitan power is well rendered, as are the constitutional and political debates that lead to this new type of regime. Two caveats, however, in this sometimes too factual account:political mobilization is often limited, under his pen, to those of the American elites; the intellectual foundations of the rupture are not treated enough. However, it would have been interesting to go into the scattered remarks on the apathy of the populations or the role of the loyalists; to distinctly analyze the conceptual evolution of American political construction. If The American Revolution by Bernard Cottret is, in his own words, "a book about happiness" , it partially misses its target. The chronological account does not allow the development of the revolutionary specificities of the period. The torrent of facts partly masks the long-standing tendencies, the performative dimension of the words of the Founding Fathers is neglected. However, and the notes, as the bibliography testify, Bernard Cottret had elements likely to support the course of this Revolution from a greater distance. This lack of intellectual ambition weakens an otherwise globally successful enterprise.