American Counter Revolution?

This is an OTL discussion.

Ok so. I just had an idea which I am going to look more into and think of writing some things on. I really like it.

So, was there a "Counter Revolution" after the ARW? Or were the forces that would have directed the Counter Revolutionary effort redirected into the empty lands that are now English speaking Canada? Is Canada the American Counter Revolution?
 
What exactly do you mean by Counterrevolution?

People opposed to independence? Certainly, there were plenty, some of whom took up arms on behalf of the British. As you said, many of those fled to Canada and elsewhere after the war. And after the war, the British had little interest in retaking the US.

People who opposed the establishment of a Republic? There was some discussion of appointing a foreign king or crowning one of our own, but it never got beyond political discussions, especially as no one seems to have been an obvious, willing candidate.

People who were ok with the governing structure, but wanted to reform it? We famously had the Constitutional Convention which replaced the Articles of Confederation, so that was a thing.

Disaffected soldiers who wanted to overthrow the government, Napoleon style? There was Shays' Rebellion, as well as the Newburgh Conspiracy.

I guess part of the issue is that the American Revolution was far less revolutionary in its objectives than e.g. the French Revolution. While establishing a Republic was certainly revolutionary, it was not particularly threatening to most of the remaining powers that be (or so they felt, anyway). Once independence had been established, people either came to terms with it or left. Compare that with the French Revolution, which threatened to lead to the overthrow and execution of monarchs everywhere, as well as the destruction of the Church.
 
What exactly do you mean by Counterrevolution?

People opposed to independence? Certainly, there were plenty, some of whom took up arms on behalf of the British. As you said, many of those fled to Canada and elsewhere after the war. And after the war, the British had little interest in retaking the US.

People who opposed the establishment of a Republic? There was some discussion of appointing a foreign king or crowning one of our own, but it never got beyond political discussions, especially as no one seems to have been an obvious, willing candidate.

People who were ok with the governing structure, but wanted to reform it? We famously had the Constitutional Convention which replaced the Articles of Confederation, so that was a thing.

Disaffected soldiers who wanted to overthrow the government, Napoleon style? There was Shays' Rebellion, as well as the Newburgh Conspiracy.

I guess part of the issue is that the American Revolution was far less revolutionary in its objectives than e.g. the French Revolution. While establishing a Republic was certainly revolutionary, it was not particularly threatening to most of the remaining powers that be (or so they felt, anyway). Once independence had been established, people either came to terms with it or left. Compare that with the French Revolution, which threatened to lead to the overthrow and execution of monarchs everywhere, as well as the destruction of the Church.

You are right to a large extent. But though very different from the french revolution, the american revolution was in fact quite radical. Just consider what happened to the considerable Estates that were held by british nobles in the 13 colonies.
 
This is an OTL discussion.

Ok so. I just had an idea which I am going to look more into and think of writing some things on. I really like it.

So, was there a "Counter Revolution" after the ARW? Or were the forces that would have directed the Counter Revolutionary effort redirected into the empty lands that are now English speaking Canada? Is Canada the American Counter Revolution?

Larry E. Tise wrote a book entitled *The American Counterrevolution, 1783–1800: A Retreat from Liberty.* His thesis was that the American Revolution opened up a new world of potential liberty for all (not just in America but throughout the world) including women and blacks--and that this was counteracted in the late eighteenth century by a reaction against Liberty and for Order. (Contributing causes were bloody revolutions in France and Haiti, as well as less bloody but still unsettling events like the Whiskey Rebellion in the US, all of which called for a reappraisal of the idea of liberty.) In itself, this thesis is not totally new, but unlike those who see Jefferson's "Revolution of 1800" as restoring the spirit of the Revolution after the Federalist period of reaction, Tise sees Jefferson as an arch-counterrevolutionary for spreading the belief (through *Notes on Virginia*) that blacks could never be freed except on condition of their exile from the United States. https://books.google.com/books?id=T1F1H2KUj80C&pg=PA449

As one might expect, Tise has drawn mixed reviews: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3479
http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/105/1/208.1.extract
 
Larry E. Tise wrote a book entitled *The American Counterrevolution, 1783–1800: A Retreat from Liberty.* His thesis was that the American Revolution opened up a new world of potential liberty for all (not just in America but throughout the world) including women and blacks--and that this was counteracted in the late eighteenth century by a reaction against Liberty and for Order. (Contributing causes were bloody revolutions in France and Haiti, as well as less bloody but still unsettling events like the Whiskey Rebellion in the US, all of which called for a reappraisal of the idea of liberty.) In itself, this thesis is not totally new, but unlike those who see Jefferson's "Revolution of 1800" as restoring the spirit of the Revolution after the Federalist period of reaction, Tise sees Jefferson as an arch-counterrevolutionary for spreading the belief (through *Notes on Virginia*) that blacks could never be freed except on condition of their exile from the United States. https://books.google.com/books?id=T1F1H2KUj80C&pg=PA449

As one might expect, Tise has drawn mixed reviews: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3479
http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/105/1/208.1.extract

I'm pretty skeptical. As others have pointed out, that and this thread kinda rest on the theory that there was great driving ideological change behind the American Revolution, and I don't necessarily think that's the case. There would eventually be ideological change caused by the revolution, most notably a shift towards democracy, but that ideal still took decades to work itself into prominence, and I'm unconvinced either it or any other ideology other than self-rule was at the forefront of the causes of the revolution.

Canada was in some sense a counter-revolution, and while it was a counter-revolution against independence and republicanism, it wasn't really comparable to the French Counter-Revolution, because the American Revolution only created dramatic changes at the very top of the social structure. The colonies shook off their old governing allegiance, created a new one, and socially carried on much as before. Remember that those great British estate owners who owned half of entire states were not deprived of those estates because they owned great estates, they were deprived of them because they fled back to England and supported the crown. Great social changes for the average American would come about slowly, in an evolutionary style, decades later.
 
The problem with any American counter-revolution is that, well, the American Revolution just wasn't all that revolutionary. You don't have anything like the disaffected peasantry of France or the entrenched nobility (and peasantry) of Russia and nowhere near the massive and traumatic changes that gripped those two societies.
 
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