ジョン・ディッキンソンの政治行動を通してみたアメリカ独立革命の性格について
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概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
When the Assembly began to denounce the proprietary system, especially the Penn family, and drafted a proposal for royal government, Dickinson argued that it was dangerous for colonies to increase the royal power over colonies at that time. He confessed that he did not oppose to the end of proprietary rule itself, but he insisted, at the same time, that it could not be accomplished without endangering the liberties of the province. On the eve of the Revolution, proponents for royal government had subduced their voices. When American colonies broke into revolution, especially when it later came to be apparent that the Revolution would end in the successful independence of colonies, the forces of anti-royal government now led by Dickinson underwent a remarkable change. Dickinson's fear turned from the proprietary system to the action of rioting frontiersmen and artisans which seemed to have no limitation due to the destruction of a central power, that is, from an external oppression to an internal revolution. As Charles H. Lincoln points out in plain words, "he was shrewd enough to see that independence meant the control of his own State by the less cultured elements, and he could not act in harmony with them." When the severance from Britain had come to be inevitable, the serious fear of internal, disorder from rioting led Dickinson to draft the Articles of Confederation, under which a Congress wras to be granted practically unlimited powers with the exception of laying taxes and duties. Dickinson, whose behavior was seemingly mutable, kept his consistent position in defending the interests of the upper class including the eastern merchants led by Galloway and Franklin. It is the dual character of the American Revolution that brought the changes in practical policies of the prominent statesman. He always pursued his conservative belief in guarding the interests of the ruling class, first from the external oppression of British mercantilism and second from the internal insurgence by rioting common people.
- 社会経済史学会の論文
- 1971-09-20