Conservative Reaction Mark Twain once said, “The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” Leaders of the Continental Congress never sought to restructure society. The Revolution relied on and encouraged radicalism in order to persuade the common people to join their cause. But after the Revolution, Congress was more focused on stability and the protection of private property rather than social transformation. The American Revolution espoused ideals that could be seen as radical for the time period, particularly the idea of republicanism, but these days it is described more as a conservative Revolution in that it was resistant against change. In respect to whether the American Revolution was a radical or a conservative event we must consider colonists’ motivations in deciding to become independent from Great Britain. When the first Continental Congress formed, delegates were not yet disposed to renounce Britain’s authority over the colonies and had wished to remain loyal to the British monarchy. Congress simply wanted to return to the situation they had previously enjoyed before 1763 and since that time …show more content…
In fact, once independence was declared, “the new state constitutions retained the basic form of their old colonial governments” (140); further demonstrating that beyond overthrowing the British monarchy in favor of a representative Republic, not much had changed. The Revolution was also intended—in part—to remove the legal distinction between economic classes, although this idea never seemed to be truly practiced considering Congress was still largely comprised of upper to middle class, affluent white men. It is true that after the Revolution men were afforded more opportunity to become wealthy but no dramatic redistribution of wealth took place. On the contrary, the disparity between rich and poor increased during the 1780’s