May
21
Ep. 0061: The American Revolution Part IV: 1778-81
Join CJ as he discusses:
- The increasingly influential counterrevolutionary faction among the independence leaders, as exemplified by John Adams & his essay, “Thoughts on Government”
- The largely mythical “Conway Cabal” against George Washington
- The fate of radical & guerrilla warfare advocate Gen. Charles Lee
- The impact of French & Spanish intervention
- Baron Von Steuben’s effects (for good & ill) on the Continental Army
- Benedict Arnold’s Betrayal
- The British switch to a Southern strategy, which initially goes well for them
- How the British began to get bogged down by partisan warfare and chaos in the Backcountry, and how clever American commanders such as Nathanael Greene and Daniel Morgan were able to turn the tide
- The retreat of the British Southern Army to Yorktown, VA, and their ultimate surrender to a Franco-American force in 1781, ending major military operations of the war
External Links
- John Adams’ “Thoughts on Government”
- Coincidentally, as I was finishing up recording & editing this episode (which has a fair amount of anti-Washington stuff in it), Stefan Molyneux put out a lengthy presentation called “The Truth About George Washington” that has a lot of dirt about the man from before, during, & after the War of Independence
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I am very impressed by tje series so far, through Yorktown. I am interested in knowing more about the Evangelical libertarians. Were they mostly baptists?
If memory serves, I think there also may have been some renegade Congregationalist and Presbyterian ministers among them, too.
Do you have a breakdown of religious persuasion for Tories and Whigs (percentages) approx. for each kind of protestant in arms (or without them) for each group? I have a good idea but I bet yours is better.
No, and I doubt it’s possible to have estimates of specific percentages, but everything I’ve seen indicates that there was a strong (though definitely not 100%) correlation between Whigs and dissenting denominations on the one hand, and Tories and the established church (which was the Church of England in the majority of the colonies) on the other.
My 2006 book *Cristian Theology of Public Policy: Highlighting the American Experience* (I would send you a copy for free if I were still living in the USA) fits nicely with your recounting of the history (and Rothbard’s I imagine). Locke was also influenced by Helwys y Smyth, Arminian Baptists who fled England for Holland in the early 1600s. I am trying to help Chilean Baptists understand the totally libertarian roots, and their willingness to defend themselves by force of arms against tyrants who want to deny natural rights. Have you looked up Luke 22:36-38 and 1 Corinthians 7:20-23 lately? They provide a very libertarian prescription for self-defense, among other verses. This baptist idea is not only found in early American baptists, but also among the Vaudois (Waldenses) in Europe, mainly persecuted alpine dwellers that sent missionaries to many other parts of Europe. I have recently finished two books on them. Very libertarian as well, insofar as I can tell, rudimentary in doctrine of course. You can get the free PDFs online: *The Israel of the Alps: A Complete History of the Waldenses and Their Colonies* by Alexis Muston and also *A history of the Vaudois church from its origin, and of the Vaudois of Piedmont to the present day* by Antoine Monastier,