Of course we are all patriots, but if Southerners can still rally to The Lost Cause with some enthusiasm, why can we not try to see the views of the Loyalists during the American Revolution? Why is Benedict Arnold considered a traitor when he was simply loyal to his allegiance to the Crown? Of course the victors determine the historical record. But the revolutionaries were largely motivated by as many selfish as altruistic things, like non-interference with slavery, the three-way trade in slaves, molasses and sugar, the non-payment of taxes to support the British army which protected them from the French and their Native American allies, the residue of the Puritan Revolution with its bitter anti-Catholicism, ambitions in Canada, etc., etc. I remember Robert R. Palmer at Princeton in the late '50s remarking that America was lucky its anti-revolutionaries fled to Canada or the West Indies or Europe. The anti-revolutionaries in France returned after 1800 and 1815 and became a force for reaction for more than a century -- right up to 1944. Some of their supporters are still there!
Of course we are all patriots, but if Southerners can still rally to The Lost Cause with some enthusiasm, why can we not try to see the views of the Loyalists during the American Revolution? Why is Benedict Arnold considered a traitor when he was simply loyal to his allegiance to the Crown? Of course the victors determine the historical record. But the revolutionaries were largely motivated by as many selfish as altruistic things, like non-interference with slavery, the three-way trade in slaves, molasses and sugar, the non-payment of taxes to support the British army which protected them from the French and their Native American allies, the residue of the Puritan Revolution with its bitter anti-Catholicism, ambitions in Canada, etc., etc. I remember Robert R. Palmer at Princeton in the late '50s remarking that America was lucky its anti-revolutionaries fled to Canada or the West Indies or Europe. The anti-revolutionaries in France returned after 1800 and 1815 and became a force for reaction for more than a century -- right up to 1944. Some of their supporters are still there!