America’s Revolutionary Mind | C. Bradley Thompson

Transcript:

C. Bradley Thompson: And the famous quotation from John Adams that he wrote in 1815, when he asked the question, what was the revolution? He then asked another question. Was it the war? And his answer to that question was no, the American revolution was not the war. He said the true, the real American revolution took place in the minds and souls of the American people as a result of these English acts that were being passed and the Americans came to develop a new understanding of rights.

And that understanding of rights was that rights are. Grounded in nature, the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. I think the single most important thing to, for us to remember is that it was the principles contained in the Declaration of Independence and the revolution itself that actually began the process of ending slavery.

Matt Kane: Joining me today is C. Bradley Thompson, an author of many works, but today we’ll be specifically focusing on his 2019 work titled, America’s Revolutionary Mind, A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration that Defined It, which is this month’s AMAC Book Club Book of the Month. Brad, thank you for joining me today.

Welcome.

C. Bradley Thompson: Hi, Matt. Delighted to be on the show with you.

Matt Kane: So tell us, Just right off the bat, how is the American mind revolutionized in your words?

C. Bradley Thompson: Well, I think the best way to think about the American Revolution and how it was revolutionized was, is to begin with a quotation, a famous quotation from John Adams that he wrote in 1815 when he asked the question, what was the revolution?

And he then asked another question, was it the war? And his answer to that question was no. The American revolution was not the war. He said the true, the real American revolution took place in the minds and souls of the American people in the 15 years before shots were ever fired at the battles of Lexington and Concord.

And I think that’s how we should think about the American revolution. It was a revolution in the mind of the American people, which is to say it was a revolution in their moral. Principles. So in those 15 years before Lexington and Concord, something happened in the minds of the American people. And that’s what my book is all about trying to understand what it was that took place in the American mind with regard to their moral principles, during that 15 year period.

Matt Kane: So I want to ask you a two part question. First, what were the moral causes? Tell us a little bit more about the moral causes of the American Revolution and why they’re still relevant today, roughly 250 years later.

C. Bradley Thompson: Sure. So beginning in 1764, the British Parliament began passing a series of laws over the course, of the next, 15, years or so.

and those laws included the famous sugar. Stamp, Declaratory, Townsend, T, Coercive, and Prohibitory Acts. And all of those acts, to one degree or another, in one way or another, violated the rights of the American colonists. And so, what those laws did is they triggered in the minds of the American people a reconceptualization of how to understand the idea, the very idea, up until that point, up until the 1760s, the American colonists had always viewed themselves to have the so called rights of Englishmen.

But those rights of Englishmen are grounded in history, in the history of the English people. And, as a result of these English acts that were being passed, you could say they were being passed by the British deep state, the deep state was passing all these rights violating laws and the Americans came to develop a new understanding of rights and that understanding of rights was that rights are grounded in nature.

They came up with the idea of natural rights, rights to the rights to life, liberty. Property and the pursuit of happiness and those rights, rather than being historically contingent, those rights are considered to be absolute, certain, permanent and universal and which means, of course, to, to, answer the last part of your question, if, if what the founding fathers, the revolutionaries Said was true than those rights still apply to Americans in 2025, those rights, those so called natural rights, are, are rights that are universal and permanent and which ought to be defended by the American people, in the 21st century.

Matt Kane: Right, human rights don’t come from government, they come from God, and as you just mentioned in great detail, they believed in natural rights, the founding fathers that were, but they did also own slaves, so there’s a bit of a contradiction there, and I’d like to hear your thoughts about, that contradiction, as I just said, but it’s, does, does their ownership of slaves suggest that their ideals didn’t always necessarily align with their purpose?

Actual actions, or was that just how the times were during that era?

C. Bradley Thompson: Well, it’s a bit of both, right? So you have to remember that in 1776, slavery had existed in the American colonies for well over 100 years. maybe 125 plus years. So slavery was a part of American life up until that point. But you also have to remember that, during the entire colonial period, we’re not talking about the United States of America.

We’re talking about British slavery. And, or European colonies in America. And, and we also have to remember is that slavery was essentially one of the oldest institutions in the history of the world, right? And so in the context of the 17th or the 18th centuries, history, slavery existed all over the world.

I think the single most important thing to, for us to remember is that it was the, the principles contained in the declaration of independence. And the revolution itself that actually began the process of ending slavery. And, it is, it is true, right? Many American revolutionaries did not own slaves.

Many were absolutely opposed to slavery. All right. So let’s take the hard case, the hard case, people like Thomas Jefferson, the author himself of the declaration of independence, who owned slaves. Jefferson inherited his slaves, but Jefferson knew more than anyone else that slavery was wrong, that it was immoral, right?

And that it ought to be, abolished. The problem for Jefferson and really for the entire revolutionary generation was this. How do you do that? Right? It’s what I call the post emancipation problem. Right? So if there are 2 million slaves in in America, at this time, and then later 3 million slaves and you you want to you know that slavery is wrong.

You know, it’s immoral and you want to abolish it. The question is the 64, 000 question is how do you do that? How do you? Abolish slavery without causing mass social dislocation. How do you do it most importantly, without creating a race war? How do you do it such that the situation for both slave owners and whites, generally speaking in America and the freed slaves actually have better lives.

Then before that was a hard problem and and some revolutionaries like Jefferson couldn’t solve that. Couldn’t resolve that problem. Last thing I’ll say is this as a result of the publication of the Declaration of Independence beginning in 1776, every single state in the north. Began the process of gradually emancipating the slaves in their states, such that by 1803, slavery no longer existed in the north.

Right? And then they also attempted to do it gradually via the Constitution as well. For instance, the clause in the Constitution, which about which ends the international slave trade to America in 1808.

Matt Kane: If there was one thing about this book that people should know, or it could be a couple of things, I know it’s probably hard to summarize into one, but if there was one thing that people should know before reading your book, what would you like that to be?

C. Bradley Thompson: I think two things. First, I think it’s probably the most comprehensive, treatment of the causes, nature, and meaning of the American Revolution published 50 years. That would be one. And then secondly, the, the Emphasis, the new emphasis, unlike any other, historian or scholar of the American Revolution before, is the emphasis.

On the American revolution as a moral revolution. My book is a, what I call a moral history of the American revolution. And there is no other book ever written on the American revolution that uses that approach to studying the nature causes and meaning of the revolution.

Matt Kane: we’re happy to feature that as this month’s AMAC book club of the month book, as we just mentioned.

So I want to thank you for your time today. Tell our listeners where they can purchase your books and where they can also find you personally on social media.

C. Bradley Thompson: Absolutely. the easiest place to find my books, in particular America’s Revolutionary Mind. is probably on Amazon sometime and local booksellers might have it.

And I would say that, that people can find me, online on social media on my sub stack. I have a sub stack. the name is the redneck intellectual, and you can just Google the redneck intellectual or, the URL is the redneck intellectual, all one word dot com.

Matt Kane: Great. And we’ll be sure to direct our members to those areas.

So to all of our listeners out there, be sure to also like, and subscribe to all of our AMAC accounts so that you don’t miss any of our great content throughout the year. I’m Matt Kane until next time.