Property in the American Revolution

Abstract

J Boucher was an Anglican clergyman who served parishes in Maryland and Virginia and was a tutor to Washington’s stepson before he fled to England in 1775 as a frightened loyalist. By 1797, when he published a book entitled A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, he had come to appreciate what a momentous event both he and the world had experienced. America had created the very idea of revolution and had influenced the French Revolution. In fact, said Boucher, the French Revolution was the “acknowledged and most distinguished offspring” of the American Revolution. “In point of principle,” he could not see “a shade of difference between the American Revolution and the French rebellion.”1 Boucher, of course, exaggerated. The two revolutions were very different. But in at least one respect, the American Revolution did resemble the French Revolution. It saw an end to the private ownership of public power and a transformation in the meaning of property.2 In the old society of the North American colonies in the British Empire, people conceived of property in traditional, proprietary terms. When people talked about property in public—such as property qualifications for the suffrage or