Pivotal role played by workers and farmers in American Revolution

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The hoopla surrounding the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the U.S.

Constitution will undoubtedly neglect to mention the class antagonisms within th In this first of a two-part series, the revolutionary initiative of the workers and farmers is examined — both for its ettectiveness against the English throne and the fear it inspired among merchants, plantation owners, and businessmen within Enraged Pennsylvania troops mutiny against officers in 1781. Such incidents were not infrequent because American rich tried to renege on promises of land, Send to: 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110.

4 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1987 Working people fought the American Revolution. Mechanics and tradesmen organized and led the early stages of the struggle. Workers and small farmers were the troops that carried the revolution to victory.

But no working people attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The great majority of delegates were large landowners, merchant capitalists, and lawyers who built personal fortunes serving the wealthy.

Their deliberations were held in secret. An armed sentry was posted at the door. The majority of the population was left out. "We the People" were betrayed.

The American Revolution came about through the convergence of two movements. One was the effort of the landowning and merchant classes to rule without the repressive control of Britain. The second was the struggle of the workers and small farmers for land, democracy, and the means to make a living.

The first movement was triumphant. The second was only partly successful.

These movements were not always complementary. Especially in the backcountry subsistence-farming regions, many people saw the major source of their oppression in the control exercised by a handful of wealthy colonial families. The Name Address City State Zip Tel. policies of the British more remote.

The small farmers rebel New York, for example, still bore the heritage of the Dutch feudal landowners. Their descendants ruled domains of millions of acres. Property qualifications were so high in New York that only half the white male population could vote.

In northeastern New York in the 1760s, Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys led a rebellion against the "attorneys and other gentlemen" who oppressed the people. They asked the British to support their cause, which eventually split off the territory of Vermont.

Land-hungry tenant farmers in the Hudson Valley also rebelled, turning to the British for aid against the landlords.

The small farmers and agricultural workers of North Carolina, centered in the mountainous western counties, formed a movement of "Regulators" in opposition to the merchants, large slave-owning planters, and colonial officials. In the 1760s, the North Carolina farmers organized armed detachments to prevent the collection of taxes and the confiscation of tax delinquents' property.

Finally, in 1771, several thousand Regulators were defeated by an army using cannon. The battle had further consequences five years later when the North Carolina merchants and planters opted to join the 6 months for $3.

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struggle for independence from Britain. Most of the small farmers of the region chose to side with the British or remain neutral.

Black slaves were likewise divided in their loyalties. Thousands of slaves joined the imperial armies when the British commander in Virginia offered them freedom. The Continental Army was forced to lift its ban on Black enlistment; the Black soldiers were offered freedom "after independence." By the end of the war, some 5000 Blacks had joined the revolutionary troops.

"The mob" takes on the British Anti-British feeling was strongest in the towns and in the coastal regions where crops were grown for export. These areas were most affected by the duties and restrictions on trade that Parliament passed beginning in the 1760s.

Working people took the initiative in organizing the struggle against the British. They called themselves Regulators, Associators, or (more commonly) Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty.

These groups, which became the radical wing of the movement, were usually led by middle-class tradesmen and politicians-and occasionally by people of means. But to most of the privileged classes, these revolutionaries were known as "the mob."

"The merchants in Boston," an aristocrat complained in 1770, "are now out of the question in all debates at their town meeting-which is carried on by a mob of the lowest sort of people!"

During the 1760s, the merchants and planters successfully encouraged the lower classes to build mass demonstrations against the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on business documents and public records.

In 1765, however, a group of workers and sailors in New York City went "too far." They threw bricks at the fort and hung the lieutenant governor in effigy. That summer, a procession of several thousand shipworkers, mechanics, and apprentices in Boston also went "out of bounds." The workers burnt down the house of the British stamp agent.

These events alarmed wealthy people throughout the colonies. If the workers are allowed to attack property, they asked, where will they stop! "No taxation without representation" was a potentially dangerous demand to which the American ruling classes were as vulnerable as the British.

Merchants urge moderation

New York landowner and merchant Gouverneur Morris pointed out that if agitation should continue against the British, "we shall be under the domination of a riotous mob. It is to the interest of all men, therefore, to seek for reunion with the parent state."

At the time, a boycott on British goods was in place against Parliament's efforts to place a tax on tea and other commodities. In 1770, after the British offered some concessions, the New York merchants were able to break the boycott in their city. As a result, they lost influence in the popular In 1773, however, the British passed a new act giving a monopoly on tea to the East India Company. Tea was to be dumped onto the American market at a lower price than that paid for smuggled tea. The Tea Act angered the American merchants, who had grown rich from smuggling.

Many merchants felt newly compelled to make common cause with the radicals. Some participated in the boycott movement for the time being, but hoped to steer the course of the struggle toward more moderate ends-including a compromise with the British.

In New York, in 1774, the merchants set up a group to try to capture leadership of the movement. But the workers countered by organizing their own Committee of Mechanics.

as well as for complete non-cooperation with the British. This call for a combined struggle won a large following. • Workers organize militia In the same year, workers led by the Mechanics Association of Philadelphia organized an armed militia to fight for "our just rights and privileges." A united front with the back-country farmers was formed. These "Associators" soon helped to form a new Pennsylvania government "on the authority of the people alone."

When the First Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, many of the merchants and planters still hoped the spirit of compromise would prevail. To their dismay, the majority of delegates were radicals, often elected with the support of the mechanics' associations. Symbolically, the congress was held in Carpenters Hall instead of in the more regal Statehouse.

But a shift began to take place. On the one hand, the British hardened their position. Boston was placed under virtual military rule. After the British attacked the militia at Lexington and Concord, Mass., those merchants and planters who were still wavering were forced to take sides. Most of them turned toward a pro-independence position.

On the other hand, the workers and small farmers were not strong enough to lead the revolution for any length of time. Their day had not yet come. The early organizers of the revolution-the mechanics, the Sons and Daughters of Liberty-were relegated to a subordinate place behind the periwigged "Founding Fathers" of the history books.

But the working classes continued to make themselves heard—not only in the war against the British but in rebellions against their new "republican" leaders. These events, which led up to the writing of the Constitution, will be described in next month's Socialist Action.

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wrote John Jay to Washington. "I am uneasy and Let us look briefly at some of the democratic parts of the constitution that these delegates wanted to change. Article Five, in referring to Congress, states that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more

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revolutionary forces. the revolutionary camp.

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The committee called for "equal rights for the classes hitherto excluded from voting"