Early Communistic sentiment in America

[furrylitldevil]

In doing some research into the economic causes and influences to the drafting of the Constitution, I came across a letter written by General Henry Knox to George Washington in 1786.

The new nation was going through a depression as a result of the Revolutionary War, and the Articles of Confederation made no stipulation for a standardized national currency, so each state had their own individual forms of money. All these factors made for an unreliable (at best) economic climate, and many farmers and small merchants were unable to pay back loans in the form of paper money, as a result, many homes, property, equipment, and other assets were seized by the government and given to the creditors as payment on loans. This caused a feeling of hopelessness in the lower classes, and many rebellions swept across the northern New England states in protest of the current Economic system, the feeling was summed up in the Knox letter to Washington:

"The people who are the insurgents have never paid any, or but very little taxes-But they see the weakness of government; They feel at once their own poverty, compared with the opulent, and their own force, and they are determined to make use of the latter, in order to remedy the former. Their creed is 'That the property of the United States has been protected from the confiscations of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and there ought to be the common property of all. And he that attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and justice, and ought to be swept from off the face of the earth.'"

Their logic was, if the Revolutionary Army had prevented the seizure of lands by England, than the lands of America should be the property of all Americans. Flawed logic, I know, but interesting none the less.

[camero]

1. Not really flawed logic

The Indians had the same logic that the land was the whole tribe's and not anyone's in particular. It was also the basis of the Homestead Act. Land was freely given, you just had to live on it for seven years.

[furrylitldevil]

2. Flawed in the sense that

if the army's job was to prevent lands from being seized by England, then the lands should belong to all people who were members of the army, not all American citizens. At least, that's the way I would interperate it.

[camero]

3. Context though

You have to figure what the Revolutionary Army was in those days. Mostly small bands of militias. Which meant pretty much everyone had a hand in the fight for independence. The Redcoats were the ones to be kicked out is how I am reading that.

It would also include the people who brought aid and comfort to the Revolutionary force.

[furrylitldevil]

5. The army that won the Revolution

was not militia-based. This is a common misconception that America won the war using guerrilla-style tactics when in fact they had an actual standing army that won a majority of the battles, and all of the major conflicts had nothing to do with militias.

And yes, it is a matter of context as to the military-congress-elected officials-people chain of thought, but if that is followed, then the only people with a right to property are the ones who already had property in the first place, since property ownership was a prerequisite to voting and electing representation in those days.

[camero]

7. I had to read that again

At first I thought yes maybe he was speaking of the Army but his letter speaks of the people who were rebelling against the economic system. But I can see your point. I was simply seeing it as everyone helped to free the country from England and not just the Army.

[markses]

4. That's not a logical flaw

But a difference of interpretation, or definition. One could just as easily say that the Army is protecting the land as proxies of the people of the former colonies, and not as its own incorporate unit. In fact, for the army to be an army at all, it would ostensibly be acting as representative of the people as a whole, rather than as its own organism, in which case, it wouldn't be an army but something like a brigand group.

In any case, there is no "flawed logic" in Knox's version.

[furrylitldevil]

6. To get nitpick-ey, it's not Knox's logic that is flawed

but the sentiment of the revolutionaries. At the beginning, it states that many people who thought that way had paid either little or no taxes, which would not qualify them as voters, and thus, not entitle them to lands protected by the governmentally-backed military.