An Interview by the Journal of the American Revolution

I published an article on the Journal of the American Revolution. As JAR just launched their own podcast, I was invited to be interviewed for my article. I felt extremely honored for this invitation. The interview has been done last Thursday, and I was told that it will be out in two months. You will have to listen to it to get the full content, but I would like to offer a teaser here.

Q: Tell us about your background.

A: I am a PhD candidate at Saint Louis University. I am originally from Taiwan. I received my bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Taiwan. My master’s thesis was about Edmund Burke’s American policy. After that, I went to Utah State University to study U.S. history. After receiving a master’s degree at Utah State, I came to Saint Louis University for PhD degree. I am here with my wife and three kids.

Q: What first drew your interest into this topic?

A: First of all, I had great interest in eighteenth century ever since I was in college. I thought I wanted to be an intellectual historian on the Enlightenment movement. Then, I figured out that many people focused on the enlightenment in France, and some people even claimed that there was no enlightenment in England. So, I started to study English Enlightenment, and chose to study Edmund Burke. While I studied Edmund Burke’s opinions on the American Revolution, I found that I am more interested in the American Revolution than in Edmund Burke. Then I decided to switch to the American Revolution. Again, I found that most people talked about the Patriots or the Revolutionaries, so I decided to study the Loyalists. Many people might know, that Taiwan is an ambiguous nation because China keeps trying to claim its sovereignty over Taiwan. Because of the cultural and historical connection between China and Taiwan, people in Taiwan are divided. Some people want peace and tend to look for more connection to China, and some people want China and international society recognize the independence of Taiwan. I guess you might be able to recognize the similarity between 18th century North America and 21st century Taiwan. While most of the people around me want independence, I think it important to understand those who want to have more connection to China. In a similar manner, while Americans view those Patriots as the founders of this nation, I really want to know Loyalists’ side of this story. What did they think about the Revolution? Why did they want to remain loyal to Britain? What did that mean?

Q: Define the term “loyalist”

A: That is a huge question! Sometimes I really don’t like to categorize people, but for the convenience of writing and also for readers, it is very difficult to avoid categorizing people into different groups. But the truth is, people are not numbers in statistics, but have real feeling and complex ideas and sometimes make ambiguous choices. In the context of the American Revolution, I will define “loyalist” as the people who did not want to separate from the mother country, which means they want to remain loyal to Great Britain, no matter how many complaints they might have towards the British. In this definition, I exclude those who did not know what they wanted in terms of the issue of independence.

Q: Who was William Smith?

A: William Smith was a pretty interesting example in this story. He was a firm American Whig. Like Thomas Jones complained a lot in his History, Smith was among the leadership of many resistance movements happened in New York after 1763. Even before the Stamp Act, Smith led the protest against the request of an American Bishop of the Anglican Church, and against the establishment of King’s College. He, William Livingston, and John Morin Scott co-found and co-edited a weekly journal called Independent Reflector promoting the idea of liberty and defending colonial rights. He also married a daughter of Livingston Family. Therefore, his attitude toward the Revolution had been regarded as suspicious and ambiguous. Before the Revolution, he wrote two volumes of history of New York. Governor Cohen was really unhappy about what he wrote in his history. He even wrote a letter to Smith’s father complaining about it. Smith’s father could only say that he could not control what his son wrote. We can see that he had almost every reason to become a Patriot; however, he chose a complete opposite way.

Q: How was his perspective different from Jones?

A: They were definitely not friends. You can tell that by reading all the criticism that Jones wrote about Smith. They both believed that the British parliamentary acts were mistakes, and Great Britain should not attempt to alter the proven colonial system. Jones admitted the necessity and importance of rights and liberty while complaining the mistakes that the Britain made; however, Smith was even more empathetic to the American claims. In his historical memory and his justification of the Loyalist cause, he did not alter this basic assumption, which was that the British government made mistakes in altering their imperial policies and breaking the old norm that had sustained this imperial relationship. That was what he meant by examining the revolution by “Whig principles.” He criticized almost every action that the British had taken in this crisis. Smith believed that the sources of the animosities was “the pride and avarice of Great-Britain, in assuming an authority, inconsistent with the compact by which the empire had been long profoundly united.” Smith claimed that colonial resistance was justifiable since, “representations and petitions having been tried without effect, what could be expected from the more influence of dissuasions against the purchase of the duties article?” The British reaction to the colonial resistance, such as the Coercive Acts, for him, was “utterly unjustifiable, and an infraction of the league.” However, he believed that “it was the duty of the American Assemblies, and of the Congress acting for the whole continent … to tender a plan to the Mother Country, for restoring peace.” Even though the Britain made so many mistakes, he did not believe that it would justify the Patriots to reject British sovereignty altogether, and even to launch a rebellion.

He accused the Patriots of overstating their claims of rights. Patriots claimed an exclusive right of legislation not only in taxation, but also in internal polity. Smith believed such claim “was a departure in terms from the original league; since it left no authority to the Parliament of Great-Britain over the Plantations.” America would therefore become the ally of Britain, not a member of the Empire. Smith suspected, the Congress’s action was directed by their desire for power. He blamed the Congress for radicalizing the conflict while there were still chances for reconciliation. He believed that Congress would have done a better work if while it expressed its complaints to the King, it had also shown that it did not mean to “exclude Parliament from participating in the regulations respecting the internal polity of the Colonies.”

Jones was more conservative. Although he did have complaints about the Great Britain, he kept his complaints in minimum, and tried to point out the irony that the Continental Congress, while claiming to pursuit liberty, refused to allow different opinions and persecute those who did not support them. On the other hand, Smith applied Whiggish principles within the limitation of his cultural presuppositions. He tried to be a defender of liberty. But for him, liberty and rights were rooted in a specific social and political context, which was the British constitution. He believed that the true liberty had to be sought within the British system. For him, it was like: Yes! I want liberty, but I want “British liberty” as a British subject. I do not want “American liberty” that is not a part of “British liberty” because I do not know what it is, and it can be a chaos.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I am writing my dissertation now. And this is a part of one of my dissertation chapter. In my dissertation, I search for the cultural roots of New York Loyalism. I analyze Loyalist writings and dig into the cultural assumptions behind their political ideology. I have finished two chapters: my first chapter and last chapter. My first chapter defines and explain how we should view loyalism as a cultural phenomenon, and my last chapter talks about how their historical memories reflected their cultural presuppositions. The chapter I am working on right now is about the Anglican Loyalists like Thomas Jones. I explore how their religious worldview influenced the way they applied their cultural tools. We all are familiar with the discussion about whether the America was and still is a Christian country, or whether it was founded on Christian principle. Many people believe and argue that the American Revolution was inspired by God, especially a Christian God. And the Constitution was God-given, or at least God-inspired. However, the Anglican Loyalists also used religious rhetoric to argue for the Loyalist cause. The chapter I am working on right now is about how they used religious argument to criticize the Revolutionaries and strengthen the Loyalist cause.

This is part of the script I prepared for this interview. There will be more questions and answers in the interview. I will post the link to the interview when it is ready.