WEBVTT NOTE 1. Spreading the News in Lexington and Concord 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.980 Conceived in Liberty, Volume 4, The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784, by Murray N. Rothbard. 2 00:00:13.980 --> 00:00:19.200 These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot 3 00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:27.640 will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands it now 4 00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:31.800 deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. 5 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:36.560 Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. 6 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:41.340 Yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, 7 00:00:41.340 --> 00:00:44.520 the more glorious the triumph. 8 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:46.480 Tom Paine. 9 00:00:46.480 --> 00:00:49.400 Volume 4, Preface. 10 00:00:49.400 --> 00:00:51.880 What? Another American history book? 11 00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:56.360 The reader may be pardoned for wondering about the point of another addition 12 00:00:56.360 --> 00:01:02.800 to the seemingly inexhaustible flow of books and text on American history. 13 00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:08.980 One problem, as pointed out in the bibliographical essay at the end of Volume 1, is that the 14 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:16.720 survey studies of American history have squeezed out the actual stuff of history, the narrative 15 00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:20.200 facts of the important events of the past. 16 00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:25.800 With the true data of history squeezed out, what we have left are compressed summaries 17 00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:31.240 and The Historian's Interpretations and Judgments of the Data. 18 00:01:31.240 --> 00:01:37.480 There is nothing wrong with the historians having such judgments. Indeed, without them, 19 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:44.520 history would be a meaningless and giant almanac, listing dates and events with no causal links. 20 00:01:44.520 --> 00:01:50.400 But without the narrative facts, the reader is deprived of the data from which he can 21 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:58.640 can himself judge the historian's interpretations and evolve interpretations of his own. 22 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:05.720 A major point of this and the other volumes is to put the historical narrative back into 23 00:02:05.720 --> 00:02:08.360 American history. 24 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:14.040 Facts of course must be selected and ordered in accordance with judgments of importance 25 00:02:14.040 --> 00:02:20.560 and such judgments are necessarily tied into the historian's basic world outlook. 26 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:26.760 My own basic perspective on the history of man and of fortiori on the history of the 27 00:02:26.760 --> 00:02:34.320 United States is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged 28 00:02:34.320 --> 00:02:42.200 between liberty and power, a conflict by the way which was seen with crystal clarity by 29 00:02:42.200 --> 00:02:46.960 by the American Revolutionaries of the 18th Century. 30 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:55.240 I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself, or, with 31 00:02:55.240 --> 00:03:01.960 Lord Acton, as the highest political good, but also as the necessary condition for the 32 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:09.960 flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes, moral virtue, civilization, the 33 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:14.460 of Arts and Sciences, Economic Prosperity. 34 00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:19.760 Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life. 35 00:03:19.760 --> 00:03:25.820 But liberty has always been threatened by the encroachments of power, power which seeks 36 00:03:25.820 --> 00:03:34.540 to suppress, control, cripple, tax, and exploit the fruits of liberty in production. 37 00:03:34.540 --> 00:03:42.360 Power then, the enemy of liberty, is consequently the enemy of all the other goods and fruits 38 00:03:42.360 --> 00:03:50.860 of civilization that mankind holds dear. And power is almost always centered in and focused 39 00:03:50.860 --> 00:03:57.180 on that central repository of power and violence, the state. 40 00:03:57.180 --> 00:04:03.560 With Albert J. Nock, the 20th century American political philosopher, I see history as centrally 41 00:04:03.560 --> 00:04:10.560 In those eras of history when liberty, social power, has managed to race ahead of state 42 00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:28.240 power and control, the country and even mankind have flourished. In those eras when state 43 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:37.000 Power has managed to catch up with or surpass social power, mankind suffers and declines. 44 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:43.460 For decades, American historians have quarreled about conflict or consensus as the guiding 45 00:04:43.460 --> 00:04:50.240 leitmotif of the American past. Clearly, I belong in the conflict rather than the consensus 46 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:57.400 camp with the proviso that I see the central conflict as not between classes, social or 47 00:04:57.400 --> 00:05:13.360 The Social or Ideological Conflicts have been ancillary to the central one, which concerns 48 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:20.480 who will control the state and what power will the state exercise over the citizenry. 49 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:25.980 To take a common example from American history, there are, in my view, no inherent conflicts 50 00:05:25.980 --> 00:05:32.980 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. 51 00:05:55.980 --> 00:06:03.860 It is only through and by state action that class conflicts can ever arise. 52 00:06:03.860 --> 00:06:08.740 This volume deals with the exciting events of the American Revolution, perhaps the most 53 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:12.580 fateful years in American history. 54 00:06:12.580 --> 00:06:18.540 While the military history of the war necessarily takes first rank, it is not simply a recital 55 00:06:18.540 --> 00:06:20.620 of the battles. 56 00:06:20.620 --> 00:06:26.740 Intertwined with the tactics and the strategy of the war were ideological conflicts over 57 00:06:26.740 --> 00:06:33.000 how the war should be fought and what sort of government and society should emerge after 58 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:35.060 the war was over. 59 00:06:35.060 --> 00:06:40.440 In particular, important light is shed on both the battles and the military strategy 60 00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:48.060 of the war by incorporating the latest historical researches applying what we now know about 61 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:55.260 about the importance of guerrilla vis-a-vis conventional interstate warfare for the waging 62 00:06:55.260 --> 00:06:58.340 of a revolutionary armed struggle. 63 00:06:58.340 --> 00:07:05.100 The military histories of the revolution, written before the 1960s, are hopelessly inadequate 64 00:07:05.100 --> 00:07:12.340 because they fail to grasp this vital dimension in explaining the course of the fighting. 65 00:07:12.340 --> 00:07:17.200 In addition to the history of the warfare itself, this volume discusses the political 66 00:07:17.200 --> 00:07:23.520 Financial History of the period, in particular the conflicts over the kinds of state governments 67 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:30.340 to be constructed, and the drive of the nationalist for a strong central government. 68 00:07:30.340 --> 00:07:35.840 This period culminates in the adoption of the Articles of Confederation and in the rise 69 00:07:35.840 --> 00:07:38.920 to power of Robert Morris. 70 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:44.640 Also discussed are the oft-neglected financial history of the war, the ruinous inflation 71 00:07:44.640 --> 00:07:51.720 and Price Controls, and the Political-Financial Manipulations of Morris and his Associates. 72 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:57.480 The book also deals with the Western lands question, which will take on fateful importance 73 00:07:57.480 --> 00:08:03.640 in the nineteenth century. It concludes by assessing the impact of the Revolution on 74 00:08:03.640 --> 00:08:10.640 America and Europe, and by asking the question, was the Revolution truly radical? My intellectual 75 00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:26.640 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. 76 00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:37.640 Here I would just like to mention for his methodology of history Ludwig von Mises, especially his much neglected volume Theory and History. 77 00:08:37.640 --> 00:08:53.640 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. 78 00:08:53.640 --> 00:09:01.200 As for my personal debts, I am happy to be more specific. This series of volumes would 79 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:07.980 never have been attempted, much less seen the light of day without the inspiration, encouragement 80 00:09:07.980 --> 00:09:15.320 and support provided by Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr., now of the Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 81 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:22.040 Indiana. I hope that he won't be overly disappointed with these volumes. I am grateful to the Foundation 82 00:09:22.040 --> 00:09:28.440 for Foreign Affairs, Chicago, for enabling me to work full-time on the volumes, and to 83 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:34.840 David S. Collier of the Foundation for his help and efficient administration. 84 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:40.120 Others who have helped with ideas and aid in various stages of the manuscript are Charles 85 00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:47.640 G. Koch and George Pearson of Wichita, Kansas, and Robert D. Kephart of Kephart Communications 86 00:09:47.640 --> 00:09:51.160 Incorporated, Alexandria, Virginia. 87 00:09:51.160 --> 00:09:57.260 To my first mentor in the field of American history, Joseph Dorfman, now professor emeritus 88 00:09:57.260 --> 00:10:03.460 at Columbia University, I owe in particular the rigorous training that is typical of that 89 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:06.500 keen and thorough scholar. 90 00:10:06.500 --> 00:10:13.880 But my greatest debt is to Leonard Peligio, editor of The Literature of Liberty, San Francisco, 91 00:10:13.880 --> 00:10:19.300 whose truly phenomenal breadth of knowledge and insight into numerous fields and areas 92 00:10:19.300 --> 00:10:23.860 of History are an inspiration to all who know him. 93 00:10:23.860 --> 00:10:29.460 Over the years in which this manuscript took shape, I was fortunate in having several congenial 94 00:10:29.460 --> 00:10:36.420 typists, in particular, Willette Murphy Clausner of Los Angeles and the now distinguished intellectual 95 00:10:36.420 --> 00:10:43.940 historian and social philosopher Dr. Ronald Hamowy of the University of Alberta. 96 00:10:43.940 --> 00:10:49.020 I would particularly like to thank Louise Williams and Joanne Ebeling of New York City 97 00:10:49.020 --> 00:10:53.340 for their often heroic services in typing this manuscript. 98 00:10:53.340 --> 00:11:00.100 The responsibility for the final product is, of course, wholly my own, Murray N. Rothbard, 99 00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:04.160 November 1978. 100 00:11:04.160 --> 00:11:09.020 Chapter 1 Spreading the News of Lexington and Concord 101 00:11:09.020 --> 00:11:17.340 The news of the victorious battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 hit the world 102 00:11:47.340 --> 00:11:57.340 And finally, they were smashed by a triumphant array of enthusiastic, individualistic, American farmers on the retreat from Concord. 103 00:11:57.340 --> 00:12:07.340 As historian, Arthur Tortello has put it, the British had marched out of Boston in force, the British had fired to kill first. 104 00:12:07.340 --> 00:12:15.260 As historian, author Tortello has put it, the British had marched out of Boston in force. 105 00:12:15.260 --> 00:12:18.060 The British had fired to kill first. 106 00:12:18.060 --> 00:12:20.700 The British had destroyed property. 107 00:12:20.700 --> 00:12:23.340 There had been bloodshed and death. 108 00:12:23.340 --> 00:12:28.180 All this established beyond any doubt that the Americans had been the victims. 109 00:12:28.180 --> 00:12:34.380 At the same time, and this was equally important, the Americans were also the victors. 110 00:12:34.380 --> 00:12:43.380 The half-believed argument that the American colonists would never stand up to British regulars was thoroughly shattered. 111 00:12:43.380 --> 00:12:51.380 But the facts had to be dressed up for popular consumption, especially before the British could turn on their engines of propaganda. 112 00:12:51.380 --> 00:13:01.380 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. 113 00:13:01.380 --> 00:13:07.300 It was essential and much more difficult to try to command the support of the other colonies 114 00:13:07.300 --> 00:13:13.340 for the revolution, colonies whose leadership had always been suspicious of the radicalism 115 00:13:13.340 --> 00:13:17.740 and individualism of the Bay Colony. 116 00:13:17.740 --> 00:13:24.140 While John Hancock, John Adams and Sam Adams departed for the crucial meeting of the Second 117 00:13:24.140 --> 00:13:31.140 Continental Congress scheduled for May 10, the leadership of radicalism in Massachusetts 118 00:13:31.140 --> 00:13:37.980 was left in the capable hands of Dr. Joseph Warren. A brilliant young man educated in 119 00:13:37.980 --> 00:13:44.980 liberty under Edward Gutz Holyoke at Harvard, Warren had been the only political leader 120 00:13:45.300 --> 00:13:52.300 to participate in the first line of fighting over the whole course of the flight from Concord. 121 00:13:52.300 --> 00:13:57.640 Now the toast of Massachusetts, Warren set up civil headquarters at Cambridge on the 122 00:13:57.640 --> 00:14:27.640 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, 123 00:14:27.640 --> 00:14:57.640 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, 124 00:14:57.640 --> 00:15:03.520 take the first opportunity in their power to ravage this devoted country with fire and 125 00:15:03.520 --> 00:15:12.520 sword. Our all is at stake. Death and devastation are the certain consequences of delay. An 126 00:15:12.520 --> 00:15:18.560 hour lost may deluge your country in blood and entail perpetual slavery upon the few 127 00:15:18.560 --> 00:15:25.280 who may survive the carnage. He concluded by urging the speediest possible enlistment 128 00:15:25.280 --> 00:15:31.840 in a Massachusetts Army. The British troops had scurried from the Charlestown Peninsula 129 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:38.640 back to the safety of Boston across the river. And so the first task of the rebels was to raise 130 00:15:38.640 --> 00:15:46.880 an army to lay siege to Boston and contain the British forces within that city. That army sprang 131 00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:54.320 up literally overnight as during April 20 militia from all over the province poured into Cambridge 132 00:15:54.320 --> 00:16:00.560 where Artemis Ward and others appointed as generals by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress 133 00:16:00.560 --> 00:16:06.960 now made their headquarters. Militia also poured in rapidly from Connecticut and New Hampshire 134 00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:14.800 and in a few days many thousands arrived from these two colonies. As a result in an incredibly 135 00:16:14.800 --> 00:16:23.600 brief time 20,000 eager militia men formed an army laying siege to Boston. The provincial army 136 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:31.600 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. 137 00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:40.600 Although it had a leader, Artemis Ward, it was as yet a force of individualists, each coming and leaving on his own responsibility. 138 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:46.600 The Massachusetts Provincial Congress met quickly on April 22. 139 00:16:46.600 --> 00:16:53.200 Now that an army, albeit an individualistic army, could at least temporarily ham in the 140 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:59.120 British force at Boston, Joseph Warren, the new president of the Congress, turned to the 141 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:06.280 vital barrage of education and propaganda directed to the other American colonies. Warren 142 00:17:06.280 --> 00:17:11.960 and the radicals realized the vital importance of public support and enthusiasm, and hence 143 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:41.960 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. 144 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:55.960 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. 145 00:17:55.960 --> 00:18:09.960 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. 146 00:18:09.960 --> 00:18:15.960 Its chairman was none other than Dr. Benjamin Church, later discovered to be a secret traitor 147 00:18:15.960 --> 00:18:22.760 and informer, who felt he had to go out of the way to proclaim his devotion to the revolutionary 148 00:18:22.760 --> 00:18:23.760 cause. 149 00:18:23.760 --> 00:18:32.820 Church's report, issued on April 26, reveled in fake atrocity stories, always an effective 150 00:18:32.820 --> 00:18:35.720 device for whipping up hatred of the enemy. 151 00:18:35.720 --> 00:18:42.040 Dr. Warren, when editing the report, added further touches to the manufactured atrocities 152 00:18:42.040 --> 00:18:45.220 in an appeal to the people of Boston. 153 00:18:45.220 --> 00:18:50.320 Special teams of couriers swiftly carried the church report throughout the colonies, 154 00:18:50.320 --> 00:18:55.880 and the newspaper press hastened to publish the story, liberally adding further atrocity 155 00:18:55.880 --> 00:18:57.920 tales of their own. 156 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:03.540 Many papers, refusing to wait for their weekly publication date, issued handbills as extra 157 00:19:03.540 --> 00:19:09.040 and other editions as soon as the news arrived. Often the printed account was edged in heavy 158 00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:15.220 black borders and headlines such as bloody news and bloody butchery by the British troops 159 00:19:15.220 --> 00:19:24.220 abounded. Isaiah Thomas, editor of the fiery radical Massachusetts Spy, had moved his press 160 00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:29.980 from Boston to Worcester. From there he fired off a blast that was reprinted in newspapers 161 00:19:29.980 --> 00:19:36.340 throughout the colonies. Thomas called on Americans to forever bear in mind the Battle 162 00:19:36.340 --> 00:19:45.020 of Lexington, where British troops, unmolested and unprovoked, wantonly fired upon and killed 163 00:19:45.020 --> 00:19:51.040 a number of our countrymen. No piteous cries, thundered Thomas, could divert the British 164 00:19:51.040 --> 00:19:57.860 troops from their design of murder and robbery. And the radical New York Journal mocked bitterly 165 00:19:57.860 --> 00:20:05.160 that the kind intentions of our good mother, our tender indulgent mother, are at last revealed 166 00:20:05.160 --> 00:20:12.660 to all the world, for this mother was a vile imposter, an old abandoned prostitute, crimsoned 167 00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:19.820 oar with every abominable crime, shocking to humanity. The Tory press, in the face of 168 00:20:19.820 --> 00:20:26.140 the intensity of popular feeling, was extremely circumspect about the events at Lexington 169 00:20:26.140 --> 00:20:33.820 and Concord. In Boston, it ceased publication altogether, and the papers in New York refused 170 00:20:33.820 --> 00:20:36.180 to carry the British side of the case.