3 reasons the American Revolution wasa mistakeUpdated by Dylan Matthews on July 2, 2015, 12:00 p.m. ET @dylanmatt

dylan@vox.comdylan@vox.com

George Washington crosses the Delaware, makes the world a worse place in the process. Emanuel Leutze

This July 4th, I'm celebrating by taking a plane from the US to the

United Kingdom. The timing wasn't intentional, but I embrace the

symbolism. American independence in 1776 was a monumental

mistake. We should be mourning the fact that we left the United

Kingdom, not cheering it.

Of course, evaluating the wisdom of the American Revolution means

dealing with counterfactuals. As any historian would tell you, this is

messy business. We obviously can't be entirely sure how America

would have fared if it had stayed in the British Empire longer, perhaps

gaining independence a century or so later, along with Canada.

But I'm reasonably confident a world where the revolution never

happened would be better than the one we live in now, for three main

reasons: slavery would've been abolished earlier, American Indians

would've faced rampant persecution but not the outright ethnic

cleansing Andrew Jackson and other American leaders perpetrated,

and America would have a parliamentary system of government that

makes policymaking easier and lessens the risk of democratic

collapse.

Abolition would have come faster without independence

The main reason the revolution was a mistake is that the British

Empire, in all likelihood, would have abolished slavery earlier than the

US did, and with less bloodshed.

Abolition in most of the British Empire occurred in 1834, following the

passage of the Slavery Abolition Act (

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833). That left

out India, but slavery was banned there too in 1843 (

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Slavery_Act,_1843). In England

itself, slavery was illegal at least going back to 1772 (

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart). That's decades

earlier than the United States.

John Singleton Copley depicts a black loyalist soldier in The Death of Major Peirson.

John Singleton Copley (http://preserve.lib.unb.ca/wayback/20141205155437/http://atlanticportal.hil.unb.ca/acva/blackloyalists/en/context/gallery/copley.html)

This alone is enough to make the case against the revolution. Decades

less slavery is a massive humanitarian gain that almost certainly

dominates whatever gains came to the colonists from independence.

The main benefit of the revolution to colonists was that it gave more

political power to America's white male minority. For the vast majority

of the country — its women, slaves, American Indians — the difference

between disenfranchisement in an independent America and

disenfranchisement in a British-controlled colonial America was

negligible. If anything, the latter would've been preferable, since at

least women and minorities wouldn't be singled out for

disenfranchisement. From the vantage point of most of the country,

who cares if white men had to suffer through what everyone else did

for a while longer, especially if them doing so meant slaves gained

decades of free life?

FOR WHITE SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE SOUTH … THEWAR WAS "A REVOLUTION, FIRST ANDFOREMOST, MOBILIZED TO PROTECT SLAVERY"

It's true that, had the US stayed, Britain would have had much more to

gain from the continuance of slavery than it did without America. It

controlled a number of dependencies with slave economies — notably

Jamaica and other islands in the West Indies — but nothing on the

scale of the American South. Adding that into the mix would've made

abolition significantly more costly.

But the South's political influence within the British Empire would

have been vastly smaller than its influence in the early American

Republic. For one thing, the South, like all other British dependencies,

Dunmore's Proclamation.

lacked representation in Parliament. The Southern states were

colonies and their interests were discounted by the British

government accordingly. But the South was also simply smaller as a

chunk of the British Empire's economy at the time than it was as a

portion of America's. The British Crown had less to lose from the

abolition of slavery than white elites in an independent America did.

The revolutionaries understood this. Indeed, a desire to preserve

slavery helped fuel Southern support for the war. In 1775, after the war

Library of Congress ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DunmoresProclamation.jpg)

had begun in Massachusetts, the Earl of Dunmore, then governor of

Virginia, offered the slaves of rebels freedom if they came and fought

for the British cause. Eric Herschthal (

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/american_military_history/2013/11/battle_of_hampton_and_lord_dunmore_s_proclamation_how_fear_of_a_slave_revolt.single.html)

a PhD student in history at Columbia, notes that the proclamation

united white Virginians behind the rebel effort. He quotes Philip

Fithian, who was traveling through Virginia when the proclamation was

made, saying, "The Inhabitants of this Colony are deeply alarmed at

this infernal Scheme. It seems to quicken all in Revolution to

overpower him at any Risk." Anger at Dunmore's emancipation ran so

deep that Thomas Jefferson included it as a grievance (

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/american_military_history/2013/11/battle_of_hampton_and_lord_dunmore_s_proclamation_how_fear_of_a_slave_revolt.html)

in a draft of the Declaration of Independence. That's right: the

Declaration could've included "they're conscripting our slaves" as a

reason for independence.

For white slaveholders in the South, Simon Schama writes in Rough

Crossings (

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060539178/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?

pf_rd_p=1944687522&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-

1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1402206976&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1CHR7A89MV54ZR6QTKZ8)

his history of black loyalism during the Revolution, the war was "a

revolution, first and foremost, mobilized to protect slavery."

Slaves also understood that their odds of liberation were better under

British rule than independence. Over the course of the war, about

100,000 African slaves (

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2narr4.html) escaped, died, or

were killed, and tens of thousands enlisted in the British army, far

more than joined the rebels. "Black Americans' quest for liberty was

mostly tied to fighting for the British — the side in the War for

Independence that offered them freedom," historian Gary Nash writes

in The Forgotten Fifth ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Forgotten-

Fifth-Americans-Revolution/dp/0674021932/ref=pd_sim_14_1?

ie=UTF8&refRID=14WE20TFJGADTCJ8X65H), his history of African

Americans in the revolution. At the end of the war, thousands who

helped the British were evacuated (

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2narr4.html) to freedom in Nova

Scotia, Jamaica, and England.

This is not to say the British were motivated by a desire to help slaves;

of course they weren't. But American slaves chose a side in the

revolution, the side of the Crown. They were no fools. They knew that

independence meant more power for the plantation class that had

enslaved them and that a British victory offered far greater prospects

for freedom.

Independence was bad for Native Americans

Starting with the Proclamation of 1763, the British colonial

government placed firm limits on westward settlement in the United

States. It wasn't motivated by an altruistic desire to keep American

Indians from being subjugated or anything; it just wanted to avoid

border conflicts.

But all the same, the policy enraged American settlers, who were

appalled that the British would seem to side with Indians over white

men. "The British government remained willing to conceive of Native

Americans as subjects of the crown, similar to colonists," Ethan

Schmidt writes in Native Americans in the American Revolution (

https://books.google.com/books?

id=hQhvBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=american+revolution+bad+for+native+americans&source=bl&ots=E8klO5kLBm&sig=25zTWf36EhCYBgUazQMIdRzTiO0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HlWUVY-

LDcOy-

Pro-British Mohawk leader Joseph Brant.

AHI6oDgBQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=american%20revolution%20bad%20for%20native%20americans&f=false)

"American colonists … refused to see Indians as fellow subjects.

Instead, they viewed them as obstacles in the way of their dreams of

land ownership and trading wealth." This view is reflected in the

Declaration of Independence, which attacks King George III for

backing "merciless Indian Savages."

American independence made the Proclamation void here. It's not

void in Canada — indeed, there the 1763 Proclamation is viewed as a

George Romney ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Brant_painting_by_George_Romney_1776.jpg)

fundamental document providing rights to self-government to First

Nations tribes. It's mentioned explicitly in the Canadian Charter of

Rights and Freedoms (Canada's Bill of Rights), which protects "any

rights or freedoms that have been recognized by the Royal

Proclamation of October 7, 1763" for all aboriginal people. Historian

Colin Calloway writes in The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the

Transformation of North America (

http://www.amazon.com/Scratch-Pen-Transformation-America-

American/dp/0195331273/) that the Proclamation "still forms the

basis for dealings between Canada's government and Canada's First

Nations."

WHEN A CAUSE IS OPPOSED BY THE TWO MOSTVULNERABLE GROUPS IN A SOCIETY, IT'SPROBABLY A BAD IDEA

And, unsurprisingly, Canada didn't see Indian wars and removals as

large and sweeping as occurred in the US (

http://alterdestiny.blogspot.com/2007/07/was-american-revolution-

bad-for-america.html). They still committed horrible, indefensible

crimes. Canada, under British rule and after, brutally mistreated

aboriginal people, not least through government-inflicted famines (

http://www.amazon.com/Clearing-Plains-Politics-Starvation-

Aboriginal/dp/0889773408) and the state's horrific seizure of children

from their families so they could attend residential schools. But the

country didn't experience a Westward expansion as violent and

deadly as that pursued by the US government and settlers. Absent

the revolution, Britain probably would've moved into Indian lands. But

fewer people would have died.

None of this is to minimize the extent of British and Canadian crimes

against Natives. "It's a hard case to make because even though I do

think Canada's treatment of Natives was better than the United

States, it was still terrible," the Canadian essayist Jeet Heer tells me in

an email (Heer has also written a great case against American

independence (

https://sanseverything.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/the-american-

revolution-a-mistake/)). "On the plus side for Canada: there were no

outright genocides like the Trail of Tears (aside from the Beothuks of

Newfoundland). The population statistics are telling: 1.4 million people

The Trail of TearsRobert Lindneux

of aboriginal descent in Canada as against 5.2 million in the USA. Given

the fact that America is far more hospitable as an environment and

has 10 times the non-aboriginal population, that's telling."

Independence also enabled acquisition of territory in the West

through the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican-American War. That

ensured that America's particularly rapacious brand of colonialism

ensnared yet more native peoples. And while Mexico and France were

no angels, what America brought was worse. Before the war, the

Apache and Comanche were in frequent violent conflict with the

Mexican government. But they were Mexican citizens. The US refused

to make them American citizens (

http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/war/wars_end_guadalupe.html)

for a century. And then, of course, it violently forced them into

reservations, killing many in the process.

American Indians would have still, in all likelihood, faced violence and

oppression absent American independence, just as First Nations

people in Canada did. But American-scale ethnic cleansing wouldn't

have occurred. And like America's slaves, American Indians knew this.

Most tribes sided with the British (

http://www.nps.gov/revwar/about_the_revolution/american_indians.html)

or stayed neutral; only a small minority backed the rebels. Generally

speaking, when a cause is opposed by the two most vulnerable

groups in a society, it's probably a bad idea. So it is with the cause of

American independence.

America would have a better system of government ifwe'd stuck with Britain

Honestly, I think earlier abolition alone is enough to make the case

against the revolution, and it combined with less-horrible treatment of

American Indians is more than enough. But it's worth taking a second

to praise a less important but still significant consequence of the US

sticking with Britain: we would've, in all likelihood, become a

parliamentary democracy rather than a presidential one.

And parliamentary democracies are a lot, lot better than presidential

ones. They're significantly less likely to collapse into dictatorship (

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-

Canadian opposition leader Thomas Mulcair at Toronto Pride last weekend.Rick Madonik/Toronto Star via Getty Images

doomed) because they don't lead to irresolvable conflicts between,

say, the president and the legislature. They lead to much less gridlock.

In the US, activists wanting to put a price on carbon emissions spent

years trying to put together a coalition to make it happen, mobilizing

sympathetic businesses and philanthropists and attempting to make

bipartisan coalition — and they still failed to pass cap and trade, after

millions of dollars and man hours. In the UK, the Conservative

government decided it wanted a carbon tax. So there was a carbon

tax ( http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/mar/24/carbon-tax-

electricity-bills-nuclear-windfall). Just like that. Passing big, necessary

legislation — in this case, legislation that's literally necessary to save

the planet — is a whole lot easier with parliaments than presidential

systems.

This is no trivial matter. Efficient passage of legislation has huge

humanitarian consequences. It makes measures of planetary

importance, like carbon taxes, easier to get through; they still face

political pushback, of course — Australia's tax got repealed, after all —

but they can be enacted in the first place, which is far harder in the US

system. And the efficiency of parliamentary systems enables larger

social welfare programs that reduce inequality and improve life for

poor citizens. Government spending in parliamentary countries is

about 5 percent of GDP higher ( http://q-

aps.princeton.edu/files/PresParlRed.pdf), after controlling for other

factors, than in presidential countries. If you believe in redistribution,

that's very good news indeed.

The Westminister system of parliamentary democracy also benefits

from weaker upper houses. The US is saddled with a Senate that gives

Wyoming the same power as California, which has over 66 times as

many people. Worse, the Senate is equal in power to the lower, more

representative house. Most countries following the British system

have upper houses — only New Zealand (

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/23/6831777/new-zealand-electoral-

system-constitution-mixed-member-unicameral) was wise enough to

abolish it — but they're far, far weaker than their lower houses. The

Canadian Senate and the House of Lords affect legislation only in rare

cases. At most, they can hold things up a bit or force minor tweaks.

They aren't capable of obstruction anywhere near the level of the US

Senate.

Michaëlle Jean, Queen Elizabeth II's former representative in Canada, who once ate a raw seal'sSophia Paris/MINUSTAH via Getty Images

Finally, we'd still likely be a monarchy, under the rule of Elizabeth II,

and constitutional monarchy is the best system of government known

to man. Generally speaking, in a parliamentary system, you need a

head of state who is not the prime minister to serve as a disinterested

arbiter when there are disputes about how to form a government —

say, if the largest party should be allowed to form a minority

government or if smaller parties should be allowed to form a coalition,

to name a recent example from Canada (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9309_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute)

That head of state is usually a figurehead president elected by the

parliament (Germany, Italy) or the people (Ireland, Finland), or a

monarch. And monarchs are better (

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/23/shut-

up-royal-baby-haters-monarchy-is-awesome/).

Monarchs are more effective than presidents precisely because they

lack any semblance of legitimacy. It would be offensive for Queen

Elizabeth or her representatives in Canada, New Zealand, etc. to

meddle in domestic politics. Indeed, when the Governor-General of

Australia did so in 1975 it set off a constitutional crisis (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis)

that made it clear such behavior would not be tolerated. But

figurehead presidents have some degree of democratic legitimacy

and are typically former politicians. That enables a greater rate of

shenanigans — like when Italian president Giorgio Napolitano

schemed, successfully, to remove Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister (

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203391104577124480046463576)

due at least in part to German chancellor Angela Merkel's entreaties

to do so.

heart ( http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/governor-general-applauded-denounced-for-eating-raw-seal/article4292531/). I'm a vegetarian and even I think that's badass.

Was this article helpful?

Napolitano is the rule, rather than the exception. Oxford political

scientists Petra Schleiter and Edward Morgan-Jones have found (

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/23/shut-

up-royal-baby-haters-monarchy-is-awesome/) that presidents,

whether elected indirectly by parliament or directly by the people, are

likelier to allow governments to change without new elections than

monarchs are. In other words, they're likelier to change the

government without any democratic input at all. Monarchy is, perhaps

paradoxically, the more democratic option.

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