Conceived in Liberty, Volume 4, The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784, by Murray N. Rothbard.
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot
will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands it now
deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.
Yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict,
the more glorious the triumph.
Tom Paine.
Volume 4, Preface.
What? Another American history book?
The reader may be pardoned for wondering about the point of another addition
to the seemingly inexhaustible flow of books and text on American history.
One problem, as pointed out in the bibliographical essay at the end of Volume 1, is that the
survey studies of American history have squeezed out the actual stuff of history, the narrative
facts of the important events of the past.
With the true data of history squeezed out, what we have left are compressed summaries
and The Historian's Interpretations and Judgments of the Data.
There is nothing wrong with the historians having such judgments. Indeed, without them,
history would be a meaningless and giant almanac, listing dates and events with no causal links.
But without the narrative facts, the reader is deprived of the data from which he can
can himself judge the historian's interpretations and evolve interpretations of his own.
A major point of this and the other volumes is to put the historical narrative back into
American history.
Facts of course must be selected and ordered in accordance with judgments of importance
and such judgments are necessarily tied into the historian's basic world outlook.
My own basic perspective on the history of man and of fortiori on the history of the
United States is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged
between liberty and power, a conflict by the way which was seen with crystal clarity by
by the American Revolutionaries of the 18th Century.
I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself, or, with
Lord Acton, as the highest political good, but also as the necessary condition for the
flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes, moral virtue, civilization, the
of Arts and Sciences, Economic Prosperity.
Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life.
But liberty has always been threatened by the encroachments of power, power which seeks
to suppress, control, cripple, tax, and exploit the fruits of liberty in production.
Power then, the enemy of liberty, is consequently the enemy of all the other goods and fruits
of civilization that mankind holds dear. And power is almost always centered in and focused
on that central repository of power and violence, the state.
With Albert J. Nock, the 20th century American political philosopher, I see history as centrally
In those eras of history when liberty, social power, has managed to race ahead of state
power and control, the country and even mankind have flourished. In those eras when state
Power has managed to catch up with or surpass social power, mankind suffers and declines.
For decades, American historians have quarreled about conflict or consensus as the guiding
leitmotif of the American past. Clearly, I belong in the conflict rather than the consensus
camp with the proviso that I see the central conflict as not between classes, social or
The Social or Ideological Conflicts have been ancillary to the central one, which concerns
who will control the state and what power will the state exercise over the citizenry.
To take a common example from American history, there are, in my view, no inherent conflicts
Conflicts arise only through the attempts of various groups of merchants or farmers to seize control over the machinery of government and to use it to privilege themselves at the expense of the others.
It is only through and by state action that class conflicts can ever arise.
This volume deals with the exciting events of the American Revolution, perhaps the most
fateful years in American history.
While the military history of the war necessarily takes first rank, it is not simply a recital
of the battles.
Intertwined with the tactics and the strategy of the war were ideological conflicts over
how the war should be fought and what sort of government and society should emerge after
the war was over.
In particular, important light is shed on both the battles and the military strategy
of the war by incorporating the latest historical researches applying what we now know about
about the importance of guerrilla vis-a-vis conventional interstate warfare for the waging
of a revolutionary armed struggle.
The military histories of the revolution, written before the 1960s, are hopelessly inadequate
because they fail to grasp this vital dimension in explaining the course of the fighting.
In addition to the history of the warfare itself, this volume discusses the political
Financial History of the period, in particular the conflicts over the kinds of state governments
to be constructed, and the drive of the nationalist for a strong central government.
This period culminates in the adoption of the Articles of Confederation and in the rise
to power of Robert Morris.
Also discussed are the oft-neglected financial history of the war, the ruinous inflation
and Price Controls, and the Political-Financial Manipulations of Morris and his Associates.
The book also deals with the Western lands question, which will take on fateful importance
in the nineteenth century. It concludes by assessing the impact of the Revolution on
America and Europe, and by asking the question, was the Revolution truly radical? My intellectual
My intellectual debts for this volume are simply too numerous to mention, especially since an historian must bring to bear not only his own discipline, but also his knowledge of economics, of political philosophy, and of mankind in general.
Here I would just like to mention for his methodology of history Ludwig von Mises, especially his much neglected volume Theory and History.
and Lord Acton for his emphasis on the grievously overlooked moral dimension, for his political philosophy and general outlook on American history, Albert J. Nock, particularly his Our Enemy the State.
As for my personal debts, I am happy to be more specific. This series of volumes would
never have been attempted, much less seen the light of day without the inspiration, encouragement
and support provided by Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr., now of the Liberty Fund, Indianapolis,
Indiana. I hope that he won't be overly disappointed with these volumes. I am grateful to the Foundation
for Foreign Affairs, Chicago, for enabling me to work full-time on the volumes, and to
David S. Collier of the Foundation for his help and efficient administration.
Others who have helped with ideas and aid in various stages of the manuscript are Charles
G. Koch and George Pearson of Wichita, Kansas, and Robert D. Kephart of Kephart Communications
Incorporated, Alexandria, Virginia.
To my first mentor in the field of American history, Joseph Dorfman, now professor emeritus
at Columbia University, I owe in particular the rigorous training that is typical of that
keen and thorough scholar.
But my greatest debt is to Leonard Peligio, editor of The Literature of Liberty, San Francisco,
whose truly phenomenal breadth of knowledge and insight into numerous fields and areas
of History are an inspiration to all who know him.
Over the years in which this manuscript took shape, I was fortunate in having several congenial
typists, in particular, Willette Murphy Clausner of Los Angeles and the now distinguished intellectual
historian and social philosopher Dr. Ronald Hamowy of the University of Alberta.
I would particularly like to thank Louise Williams and Joanne Ebeling of New York City
for their often heroic services in typing this manuscript.
The responsibility for the final product is, of course, wholly my own, Murray N. Rothbard,
November 1978.
Chapter 1 Spreading the News of Lexington and Concord
The news of the victorious battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 hit the world
And finally, they were smashed by a triumphant array of enthusiastic, individualistic, American farmers on the retreat from Concord.
As historian, Arthur Tortello has put it, the British had marched out of Boston in force, the British had fired to kill first.
As historian, author Tortello has put it, the British had marched out of Boston in force.
The British had fired to kill first.
The British had destroyed property.
There had been bloodshed and death.
All this established beyond any doubt that the Americans had been the victims.
At the same time, and this was equally important, the Americans were also the victors.
The half-believed argument that the American colonists would never stand up to British regulars was thoroughly shattered.
But the facts had to be dressed up for popular consumption, especially before the British could turn on their engines of propaganda.
There was little need at first to whip up Massachusetts, whose armed farmers were on fire and beginning to pour in to aid the militia.
It was essential and much more difficult to try to command the support of the other colonies
for the revolution, colonies whose leadership had always been suspicious of the radicalism
and individualism of the Bay Colony.
While John Hancock, John Adams and Sam Adams departed for the crucial meeting of the Second
Continental Congress scheduled for May 10, the leadership of radicalism in Massachusetts
was left in the capable hands of Dr. Joseph Warren. A brilliant young man educated in
liberty under Edward Gutz Holyoke at Harvard, Warren had been the only political leader
to participate in the first line of fighting over the whole course of the flight from Concord.
Now the toast of Massachusetts, Warren set up civil headquarters at Cambridge on the
Less than 24 hours after the end of the Battle of Concord, he issued the First Circular on the events of April 19. In the name of the Committee of Safety, Warren directed the Circular to the prime, immediate task, to raise an army of the Massachusetts militia. His Circular,
The barbarous murders committed upon our innocent brethren have made it absolutely necessary that we immediately raise an army to defend our wives and children from the butchering hands of an inhuman soldiery, who, enraged at being repulsed from the field of slaughter, will, without the least doubt,
take the first opportunity in their power to ravage this devoted country with fire and
sword. Our all is at stake. Death and devastation are the certain consequences of delay. An
hour lost may deluge your country in blood and entail perpetual slavery upon the few
who may survive the carnage. He concluded by urging the speediest possible enlistment
in a Massachusetts Army. The British troops had scurried from the Charlestown Peninsula
back to the safety of Boston across the river. And so the first task of the rebels was to raise
an army to lay siege to Boston and contain the British forces within that city. That army sprang
up literally overnight as during April 20 militia from all over the province poured into Cambridge
where Artemis Ward and others appointed as generals by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress
now made their headquarters. Militia also poured in rapidly from Connecticut and New Hampshire
and in a few days many thousands arrived from these two colonies. As a result in an incredibly
brief time 20,000 eager militia men formed an army laying siege to Boston. The provincial army
The army which the radicals had sought and which the Provincial Congress had failed to raise only a week before conquered was now in being.
Although it had a leader, Artemis Ward, it was as yet a force of individualists, each coming and leaving on his own responsibility.
The Massachusetts Provincial Congress met quickly on April 22.
Now that an army, albeit an individualistic army, could at least temporarily ham in the
British force at Boston, Joseph Warren, the new president of the Congress, turned to the
vital barrage of education and propaganda directed to the other American colonies. Warren
and the radicals realized the vital importance of public support and enthusiasm, and hence
The emergence of agitation and propaganda in this new type of war. Here was not a usual war begun by one government against another. Here was a people's war of revolution, waged against the existing state apparatus, begun without benefit of governmental or even organized direction. To continue, demanded public support throughout the colonies for the Massachusetts cause.
The first act of the Massachusetts Congress, therefore, was to appoint two committees, one to investigate the facts of Lexington and Concord, the other to draw up a narrative of what had happened there.
Interestingly enough, while the Committee of Inquiry was making a careful investigation of the facts, the Narrative Committee was already writing its rather distorted report and with little reference to the inquiry.
Its chairman was none other than Dr. Benjamin Church, later discovered to be a secret traitor
and informer, who felt he had to go out of the way to proclaim his devotion to the revolutionary
cause.
Church's report, issued on April 26, reveled in fake atrocity stories, always an effective
device for whipping up hatred of the enemy.
Dr. Warren, when editing the report, added further touches to the manufactured atrocities
in an appeal to the people of Boston.
Special teams of couriers swiftly carried the church report throughout the colonies,
and the newspaper press hastened to publish the story, liberally adding further atrocity
tales of their own.
Many papers, refusing to wait for their weekly publication date, issued handbills as extra
and other editions as soon as the news arrived. Often the printed account was edged in heavy
black borders and headlines such as bloody news and bloody butchery by the British troops
abounded. Isaiah Thomas, editor of the fiery radical Massachusetts Spy, had moved his press
from Boston to Worcester. From there he fired off a blast that was reprinted in newspapers
throughout the colonies. Thomas called on Americans to forever bear in mind the Battle
of Lexington, where British troops, unmolested and unprovoked, wantonly fired upon and killed
a number of our countrymen. No piteous cries, thundered Thomas, could divert the British
troops from their design of murder and robbery. And the radical New York Journal mocked bitterly
that the kind intentions of our good mother, our tender indulgent mother, are at last revealed
to all the world, for this mother was a vile imposter, an old abandoned prostitute, crimsoned
oar with every abominable crime, shocking to humanity. The Tory press, in the face of
the intensity of popular feeling, was extremely circumspect about the events at Lexington
and Concord. In Boston, it ceased publication altogether, and the papers in New York refused
to carry the British side of the case.