Historians continue to debate how many Americans in 1776 supported or opposed independence. Forty years after the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Second Continental Congress, one of its authors and former president of the United States, John Adams, wrote that one third were in favor; one third were opposed; and one third were “lukewarm.” However, Adams was not referring to the American Revolution but to the French Revolution. The error was included in a book written in 1908 and has been repeated by many ever sense.
Although attempting to determine public opinion in 1776 is challenging, most studies have concluded that fifteen to twenty percent of colonists opposed independence and approximately forty percent actively supported it. Between 60,000 and 80,000 Loyalists fled after the Revolutionary War. Most likely, the largest percent of colonists were “fence-sitters.” John Adams (correctly quoted) wrote to a fellow Patriot years later, “Divided we ever have been, and ever must be.”
If the colonists were divided in their sentiments, so too were the British in theirs. Seven weeks transpired between approval of the Declaration and the time it reached the British people in late August 1776; but when it did, it dominated British media. Many newspapers published the Declaration in full without comment. Others printed it with editorial asides, generally in sarcastic or dismissive terms. The Scots Magazine, arguably the oldest magazine in the world, printed the Declaration with a running commentary, mocking “unalienable rights” as the “unalienable right of talking nonsense.” It further excoriated the authors of the Declaration, mockingly asserting that “to say that a man with life hath a right to be a man with life is so purely American, so nonsensical” that “no other brain upon the face of the earth will admit the idea.”
One of the most comprehensive critiques was written in late 1776 by John Lind, an influential London barrister, political activist, and pamphleteer closely associated with Lord North, then prime minister of England. Vehemently opposed to American independence, he wrote a vituperative refutation of the Declaration. Titled An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress, its approximately 130 pages attacked the Patriots’ concepts of natural law and natural rights and countered one by one the twenty-eight grievances listed in the Declaration.
Generally, British public opinion was a mix of disbelief, anger, betrayal, and lack of understanding of politics in the colonies. Nevertheless, the colonies were not without support. Richard Price, a British moral philosopher, economic thinker, and Presbyterian minister wrote an extensive analysis of the American position at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. His 152-page tome, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution and the Means of Making It a Benefit to the World, argued that the revolution “begins a new era in the history of mankind – a revolution by which Britons themselves will be the greatest gainers.”
The war, he wrote, “did great good” by “disseminating just sentiments of the rights of mankind and the nature of legitimate government…exciting a spirit of resistance to tyranny which has emancipated one European country and is likely to emancipate others…and occasioning the establishment in America of forms of government more equitable and more liberal than any the world has yet known.” [Italics in the original.]
At its termination, he concluded, “the war has done still greater good…by preserving the new governments from that destruction in which they must have been involved had Britain conquered…by providing a place of refuge for oppressed men in every region of the world…and laying the foundation there of an empire which may be the seat of liberty, science, and virtue, from whence there is reason to hope these sacred blessings will spread until they become universal.”
For Price, “the American Revolution may prove the most important step in the progressive course of human improvement.” However, for all of his hope and optimism, Price cautioned against errors in the future. Writing on these at length, he cautioned against incurring public debt; internal division among the states; a “true great an inequality” in the distribution of property; excessive connections and fascination with European countries; paper currency; a government bank; and slavery and the slave trade.
His conclusion appealed to the character of the people of America – that they should not lose their “virtuous and simple manners by which alone Republics can long subsist” and must shun “false refinement, luxury and impiety…excessive jealousy and clashing interests.” Wisdom and warnings from a foreign observer of our foundations, now 250 years old, remind us that one of our own issued another warning three years later when asked what kind of government the Constitution created. “ A republic,” responded Benjamin Franklin, “if you can keep it.” Establishing a republic was easy, preserving it is the real challenge. Today it is OUR challenge.