The American Counterrevolution, 1783-1800: A Retreat from Liberty. By Larry E. Tise. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books,1998. Pp. 1, 634. Illustrations, chronology. $49.95.) Larry Tise's big book is misleadingly titled. A work that considers Suzanne Necker, Catherine the Great, and the Emperor Charlemagne seeks to be about much more than America, counterrevolution, or the years between 1783 and 1800. Tise argues that the rich, all-important, and ultimately tragic saga of the late eighteenth century can be properly understood only with an international focus. For his story is not about America exactly. Rather, he seeks to invoke and dissect the spirit of a time: the late eighteenth century, the age of the democratic revolution, the years when a generation embraced freedom and revolt. And in the end he hopes to show that this generation of men, women, blacks, and whites narrowed its horizons, forsook its legacy, and retreated from liberty. To tell this tale Tise introduces a vast dramatis personae. The book is primarily an impressive series of biographical sketches. Tise casts his net wide, and one virtue is that he strays off the well-traveled path. The best parts of the book are his discussion of lesser-known figures-what they hoped for, how they became swept up in these chaotic and intoxicating times-particularly the stories of Catherine Littlefield Greene and Eli Whitney. The argument is straightforward. By 1790 the West was poised to unleash an avalanche of freedom and liberty. The age of the Enlightenment, of revolution, of reflection on the rights of man, and, as Tise reminds us, woman, promised to break with the cruelty and suffering of the human past. But by mid-decade many feared that this fervor for freedom threatened to flair out of control. A chilling desire for order, for counterrevolution, set in. Robert Fulton abandoned his menage a trois with Ruth and Joel Barlow and turned to money-making schemes; James Madison thanked his distant God he had prepared for the worst with such a conservative constitution. Strong, independent, black men and women such as Olaudah Equiano continued to assert their rights as avenues for equality and dignity disappeared. And so there was a great divide, and Tise is confident he can answer that always-important question Which side were you on? whether one was a friend of liberty (a revolutionary) or a friend of order (a counterrevolutionary). Revolutionaries included the Barlows to the last, Catherine the Great (a strong independent and excellent role model, Tise suggests, for the girls of the late eighteenth century), Mary Wolstonecraft, Catherine Littlefield Greene, and Sarah and Benjamin Franklin Bache. Counterrevolutionaries included Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Timothy Dwight, and Jonathan Witherspoon. There are, however, problems with this analysis. One becomes a counterrevolutionary by turning away from the revolutionary legacy Tise describes. But this legacy, however appealing, seems much more the creation of Tise than of people in the late eighteenth century. His American Revolution, for example, is not one that I recognize. It was fought unabashedly for democracy. It was one where before the counterrevolutionary Jefferson wrote Notes on the State of Virginia it was generally presumed by nearly everyone north and south that the principles of the American Revolution dictated the eventual eradication of slavery from the United States. It was also generally presumed that the elimination of slavery meant the extension of the rights of citizenship to free blacks (451). Rarely have I wished as much that a scholar backed the passive voice with citation, though there is none here. Tise's assertion of John Adams's counterrevolutionary credentials also suggests to me an overly dramatic analysis. …
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Jan 1, 2023
Albrecht Classen 
Open Access