Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
Liberty Divided: When Two Visions of the British Empire Became Irreconcilable
Dr. Beienberg illuminates how the American Revolution fundamentally began as a constitutional dispute between competing interpretations of British liberty, with each side drawing legitimately different conclusions from the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This sophisticated civil war of ideas centered not on the amount of taxation but on the profound question of where governing authority should properly reside in the British Empire.
• British authorities viewed Parliament as supreme within the Empire, understanding the Glorious Revolution as establishing Parliament's authority over the monarchy
• Americans understood the Glorious Revolution as establishing decentralized power, reinforced by generations of "salutary neglect"
• Colonial documents like the Virginia Resolves and First Continental Congress Declaration claimed "exclusive" authority over internal affairs and taxation
• Early state constitutions consistently affirmed local "police powers" - the authority to govern for health, welfare, safety, and morals
• Edmund Burke and other British figures sympathized with the American constitutional position
• The conflict wasn't simply good versus evil - colonists were divided roughly into thirds supporting revolution, remaining loyal to Britain, or staying neutral
• The Revolution represents a tragedy of two sets of "good guys" with irreconcilable visions of proper constitutional order
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My name is Jonas, from Michigan, and I'm in fifth grade. My question is how did the Americans and British disagree on the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain? That's a really great question. So we have our expert, Dr Beienberg, back to answer that. Dr Beienberg, what do you think?
Speaker 2:think yeah. So it's a really good question, because there's a way that I think that Americans sometimes view the American Revolution as really one between one group that is obviously the good guys and one group that is obviously the bad guys. Certainly that's the depiction one sees in, say, the dreadful Mel Gibson film the Patriots, which is a bunch of mustache-twirling evil Brits slaughtering poor Americans.
Speaker 1:And they also change the ending, because that's not how it ended. And they changed many things.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I have some problems with the John Adams miniseries, but it did on the whole is, I think, a better take on these things. But the Americans and the British and it's worth emphasizing, americans is an odd term to use at the time, precisely for what I'm going to say in just a second, which is that the American Revolution is in some sense a civil war over a disagreement about what the British Constitution meant. And this is why, quite strikingly, one sees many individuals in Parliament and beyond that who actually take the side of the Americans or at least are quite sympathetic to their critiques. So in some sense it's a disagreement, at least at the beginning, between two different groups of people who both identify as British, about what British liberty ought to mean. I am ultimately sympathetic to the American take on that. I'm not saying the American Revolution was a mistake, but I don't think that it's fair or right to view the British necessarily as just fundamentally villainous tyrants. And so the disagreement fundamentally was about whether power in the British Empire was ultimately supposed to be concentrated in Parliament or supposed to be decentralized among different legislatures. And strikingly, both of these understandings come back from about 100 years before the American Revolution, in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, which, along with Magna Carta, which I know will be talked about in another podcast, is often regarded as one of the sort of formative moments of British political liberty.
Speaker 2:And so in the Glorious Revolution, parliament effectively chases out the last of the Stuart monarchs for what they view as overly centralizing power in the British monarchy and they invite in, I guess technically, in some sense still Stuart monarchs, but William and Mary. Mary is the daughter of the deposed British king, and William and Mary come and take the crown with basically a set of conditions given by Parliament. And those conditions given by Parliament are that the British monarchy going forward will be limited, it will have constraints set on it, it will not be like the French. And so the British understand the Glorious Revolution to be about the supremacy of parliament, which is an elected branch, over the king in a sense, or at least a balance between them. So they understand this is fundamentally about Parliament's authority to govern and they again view Parliament as, in contrast with, say, the French system, right, parliament is politically elected, even if there's some sort of shady boroughs, but it's fundamentally about political communities voting for things, controlling things, instead of just being sort of dictated to from a monarch.
Speaker 2:But the Americans have a somewhat different take on the Glorious Revolution, because one of the things that the British king tries to do during that same period is basically collapse many of the colonies into one sort of super colony that could be more easily governed from afar. And so there's, in effect, an American theater to the Glorious Revolution, which is a British Civil War Not that long, but it's still in some sense a civil war. But the American theater is about chasing out this royally appointed governor who's trying to smush the colonies into one sort of super colony. And so in a sense, you can see how the Americans understand the Glorious Revolution to be about decentralizing power against what's happening across the pond. And after that, effectively, there's a period that gets referred to later as solitary neglect. Now, that's a sort of old-timey word, but basically being left alone is a good thing, is sort of the way you would. That's a sort of old timey word, but basically being left alone is a good thing, is a sort of the way you would translate that to sort of modern English.
Speaker 2:The British parliament more or less leaves the colonies alone, and so, joined with that understanding of the glorious revolution, the Americans begin to understand the British empire as one of decentralized power, where they are loyal to the king and parliament can run foreign policy. But most affairs, most taxing, most sort of local stuff, should be done by the various legislatures. And so you can see, in a sense these are both very defensible interpretations of this glorious revolution. But they're completely incompatible theoretically. Is power ultimately concentrated within parliament or is legislative power decentralized throughout the empire? There ultimately can only be one answer to that question from a theoretical sense. And so over the course of the 17th everybody knows the story the British government is short on funds, or at least unable.
Speaker 2:They're able to pay off their current debts, but they're concerned that they're not going to be able to take on additional debts should basically war reignite. It's not that they literally can't pay their old debts, they can but they're concerned that if their credit gets bad. So they're looking for additional revenue sources in the wake of the Seven Years' War what the Americans call the French and Indian War and so they start putting taxes on things and the things produced or things that are being sold in America. And the Americans freak out about this, not necessarily because of the quantity of the taxes. I mean, if that were the case, we would have had 100 more American revolutions by then, by now. It's not about the quantity of the taxes, but it's because, as Edmund Burke, who later becomes one of the leading critics of the French Revolution, he's a he's a famous parliamentarian and later a famous political theorist. Burke says, the Americans are very invested in this idea of political liberty. And quite interestingly he says, and they're always looking in terms of thinking about precedence If we allow the government to do this today, what's it going to do tomorrow? If we allow the government to do this today, what's it going to do tomorrow? And so he says they're concerned about this implicit idea of us directly taxing them, that this is going to mean we can directly exercise all power over the colonies. And so, early on, the Americans are protesting this.
Speaker 2:So, for example, you can look at the Virginia Resolves on the Stamp Act in 1765, in which they say effectively, raising revenue is something that is properly held by the local governments that it is such a fundamental part of politics. And they describe a phrase, and the different documents use slightly different formulations. Some of them they say the phrase internal polity and others say police powers, and what this means is effectively the presumptive authority to govern for health, welfare, safety and morals. Now, police powers doesn't mean badge and a nightstick like police officers today, but it means effectively, where does most governing authority lie? And so in the Virginia Resolves and the Stamp Act in 1765, in the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress in 1774, which I'll come back to, various state constitutions, they will repeatedly insist that this power is supposed to lie with the local legislatures. Another document that actually has this is the Fairfax Resolves of 1774, which are written by George Mason and signed by George Washington.
Speaker 2:So you can look through these documents in the 1760s and 1770s where the Americans are saying, in effect, look Britain, you have legitimate foreign policy authority to basically stop us from trading with France. You want to put tariffs and things to screw the French. That's legitimate. But raising revenue is something that people's legitimate representatives can do. And they say and this cannot be done by parliament, even if and several of the documents say, even if we were represented in parliament, because they increasingly have understood this to be about fundamentally local government, where you know your local problems, about fundamentally local government, where you know your local problems. And they say that even if we sent some number of representatives of there, most of the people in parliament would not be able to understand our problems. The British, by contrast, even when they repeal the Stamp Act, famously passed the Declaratory Acts in 1766, where they say fine, we'll spot you the revenue issue in terms of the dollars, but we continue to theoretically insist on the unquestioned authority to govern your colonies.
Speaker 2:And so I would argue, in effect, this is fundamentally what the American Revolution is about, at least at the beginning. It gets sort of expanded in terms of its political theory, ideas of natural law, but at least at the beginning it starts as a disagreement on constitutionalism. And so I want to just briefly read kind of a couple of the places that you see this. I've alluded to them before but the Declaration of Resolves of the First Continental Congress, which is in some ways I think the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. So it's the First Continental Congress, right, we all know the Second Continental Congress's Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 2:But they say I'll skip over some of the words here but they say English colonists are entitled to a free and exclusive Note. The word exclusive meaning it's not a shared power but one that they think is only held by the local legislature exclusive power of legislation in the several provincial legislatures, in all cases of taxation and internal polity. Again, this idea of police powers or basic governing authority. Then they say the British Parliament should be restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, trade with France, but excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue. So we see that language of internal polity there.
Speaker 2:But strikingly, if you look at the state constitutions that are passed in the 1770s, they say similar language. So the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 similarly declares the sole and again exclusive right of a free, sovereign and independent state to have every power, jurisdiction and right not delegated to the United States of America. That gets picked up in New Hampshire's constitution. You see the same kind of language pop up in the Pennsylvania and Vermont constitutions Sole, inherent and exclusive right of governing and regulating internal police of the state. This actually pops up in about half of the state constitutions, strikingly most of the New England ones and strikingly relatively few of the southern constitutions, which I think also pushes back against the narrative some people have which is like federalism and states' rights is effectively just a rationalization to the south. I mean it's a clumsy method, but if you were to look at the state constitutions that declare this, it arguably points the other way.
Speaker 2:If you were to look at the state constitutions that declare this, it arguably points the other way, right. Which is to say, this is such a fundamental belief across the American colonies but it's one that the British government very strongly disagrees with. And eventually the American protests are originally to the king, saying king, please stop the parliament from exercising authority it doesn't legitimately have. And the problem is that George III, again as somebody who is well-versed and believes in British constitutionalism, sides with parliament and says no, this is actually the proper lesson of the Glorious Revolution that parliament does have legitimate authority over you. So ultimately the American Revolution doesn't end this way necessarily, but it certainly begins, at least as a disagreement between Parliament and the colonies on whether power in the British Empire is concentrated or divided. And obviously the Americans conclude divided and they continue that not just in the Articles of Confederation but as one of the core values of the US Constitution later.
Speaker 1:So the term salutary neglect is something that's tell me if this would be right. So you have a classroom of 13 students, right? They have a teacher. The teacher does what she thinks she or he thinks is best for the classroom. If there's problems within the 13 students, they talk to the teacher and then all of a sudden somebody from the district office comes in and starts telling them they have to do all of these things. Would that be kind of akin to what was going on right, Like the classroom was functioning just right, they were doing everything they were supposed to and then all of a sudden somebody from far away comes in and starts telling them they have to do things.
Speaker 2:I think that the lengthy temper I think that's a good analogy, but I think that the particularly important part is how long it was right. The British system is very much based on this idea of precedence and practice, and so it's not just you've been left alone for a couple of months or a couple of years.
Speaker 1:What if it was like since kindergarten and then, all of a sudden, in 12th grade, they changed all the rules for you to graduate?
Speaker 2:Right. This is inconsistent with your sort of entire understanding of what the world looks like. So for them, they have three generations effectively Three, three and a half generations of Parliament is governing England. We're governing ourselves, we have our charters. Again, this is one of the reasons this pops up in the Declaration of Resolves and the Declaration of Independence, because they view this as still, fundamentally, we were given basically self-governing authority.
Speaker 2:But Parliament's basically take is that was the king. That's not necessarily binding on us in the same way, the king that's not necessarily binding on us in the same way, Just like the English Bill of Rights Parliament does not view as binding on itself. It's a constraint on the monarchy, whereas the Americans increasingly understand those not to be. In some sense, the British understand the English Bill of Rights as almost a separation of powers document. This is a constraint on the king, not really on parliament. The Americans understand the English Bill of Rights as a constraint on government, as a constraint particularly on the central government. They have their own charters, their own. They start spooling up their own bills of rights, their own declarations of rights.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so it's basically you've been left alone by the higher powers you seemingly forever, for at least as far as your great, as far as your grandfather's time, right, which is effectively all the interaction you're going to have. Right, two people are going to know their great grandfathers, right. So it's their understanding of practice, it's their understanding of history, it's their understanding of the charters. So you can see why in the Declaration and Resolves they go back and they say in the 1774 First Continental Congress, right, they say yeah, this is a violation of natural law. So that's a theme that gets sort of picked up and emphasized in the Declaration of Independence, which is more about kind of a natural law reasoning than British legal principles. British legal principles don't disappear from the Declaration of Independence, but the emphasis flips. But it's a violation of natural law, it's a violation of our charters and it's a violation of what they understand English liberty to be.
Speaker 2:So it's again a debate about what English liberty is where the British want to say most of them, about what English liberty is where the British want to say most of them, liberty is our collective government in parliament, which is elected governing. That's what's really important. Is a free people having government, and the Americans would agree with all of that. But they say part of being a free people is your power actually being distributed. So it's really just again an actual, I think, good faith constitutional disagreement. I think the Americans have the better case, as Edmund Burke and others suggest, but it's not again the sort of evil mustache twirling, wig wearing, you know villains, red wearing villains, just out to like pick on poor Americansicans. And so this is also why so many americans side with the british right. The the different historians have have quibbled over what the ratio is, is it? John adams writes? It's basically 30, 30, 30 at one point, one third, one third, one third revolutionary, one third being yes the patriots, theists, and then the people who are like whatever.
Speaker 2:Right. Others have disagreed on what the numbers are, but there is fundamentally a tripartite, whether it's equally balanced or tips the other way. And this is part of where Canada gets much of its initial population from British citizens raised in the colonies who thought Parliament got this right. And so for them. You know they're hostile to the patriots and the revolutionaries because they view these as effectively traitors to British liberty, which is weird for us and I think that they're sort of wrong on the merits. But it's a very defensible case and so, you know, there's often the description that in foreign policy there's bad guys and bad guys.
Speaker 2:The fundamental tragedy of the American Revolution in some ways is that it's two different sets of basically good guys. I think in some way Again, I don't mean to be ambivalent or neutral between them I think the Americans have a better case. I'm very sympathetic to Burke's argument on that and the historian Jack Green, who we recently had give a talk here, was actually is this what I assume is his sort of major last work he's going to be putting together is going through and finding internal British letters and discussions from folks saying actually the Americans have this right on the merits. So I'm really looking forward to when that book comes out. But yeah, so it's fundamentally a disagreement about liberty, which is a good conversation to have.
Speaker 1:But history is written by the victors, and since we were the victors, I say we, because I am currently benefiting from this. We like to do that, but it's again, like everything else, way more complicated, yeah.
