“What still seems less that honest is the moral superiority that Northerners generally, and New Englanders in particular, arrogated to themselves by the 1860s. They had become the nation’s moral arbiters: a position to which the appointed themselves.”
NEers in particular. They think that because they “agitated” the Revolution they are the final say in what is really American.
Think about it. While I was steeped in history due to my history-loving mom (dad liked too, but mom was a degreed), if I had left it to the public schools AND general societal norms, I’d think the Pilgrims were the first English in the NA colonies and that the RevWar was fought mostly around New England, while somehow the Congress met in Philly.
They were good at starting things but not actually finishing. Including that VERY early, they took a “liberal” turn which basically betrayed the experiment.
BTW, I do think John Adams is due much more credit than he gets, even if he is a NEer.
“...[New Englanders] were good at starting things but not actually finishing. Including that VERY early, they took a “liberal” turn which basically betrayed the experiment.
... I do think John Adams is due much more credit than he gets, …”
The roots of Progressivism predate the Seven Years War. Some silly ideas take longer to kill of than others.
New Englanders have helped themselves to extra shares of credit forgetting AWI going into its hot phase. They don’t deserve that much; there were Committees of Correspondence all over the Atlantic-Coast colonies, and groups equivalent to the Sons of Liberty in a lot of places. Paul Revere was the least successful alarm rider in terms of distance covered and people alerted; some made it into New York & Pennsylvania and points south over stretches longer than a week.
A big deal is made of the Boston Tea Party but it ruined only private property, in small amounts. The big story of those days was the Gaspee Affair of June 1772, in which Rhode Island smugglers burnt a Royal Navy sloop to the waterline and (supposedly) mortally wounded her captain (he survived). The ringleaders were caught and were to be sent out of the Colonies, back to England for trial; “transportation” to foment prosecution became another cause celebre on the lengthening list of grievances the Colonists were stacking up, against the Crown.
Paul Revere wouldn’t even be remembered today if his name did not rhyme with “Listen my children and you shall hear...” He was a minor figure, court-martialed for cowardice after the Penobscot Expedition - the biggest American fiasco of the war, thanks mostly to folks from Massachusetts. New Englanders stay mum about it even now.
I’m slower to praise John Adams. His intellect was pretty sharp but he was too-pie-in-the-sky and dreamy. Without his wife Abigail, he’d have come to nothing: she managed the finances, ran the farm, hoed the garden, and kept him from ruining everything by one goofy scheme or another. All while bearing and rearing the offspring.