At a recent conference at the College of William & Mary commemorating the 250^th and “transatlantic relations,” I was tasked with bringing considerations of war and peace to bear on the American war for independence. I speak and write not as a historian but as a student of the venerable “just war” tradition. Yet, to probe this near 2000-year-long conversation in the Western cultural heritage on justifying war invariably demands that one indeed become a student of history, with its important lessons.

I began taking early American history more seriously some years back when co-editing, with political historian Mark David Hall, a volume under the title America and the Just War Tradition, which assessed the major wars of U.S. involvement through the lens of just-war thinking. What we were not expecting for this volume was the conclusion of the initial essay, on the American war for independence – an essay with the subtitle “The Unjust Motivations and Outcomes of the American Revolutionary War” and written by a senior military faculty member and history professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, who argues that the Revolutionaries should not have gone to war.

What is surprising, at least from the American standpoint, is the number of voices maintaining that the American Revolution was not justified. These voices are diverse, ranging from legal and political historians, to cultural critics, to theologians. The war for independence, as it turns out, is rather more complicated than most Americans might grant, provoking strong debate – then and now – with scholars coming down on both sides. And we may grant that popular narratives tend to romanticize its causes, its violence, and its effects.

Was the war for American independence a just war? And by what criteria? Were the colonists justified in using force to defend themselves and separate from the British empire? For the sake of accuracy, I shall refer to the conflict as a “war for independence” and not a “revolution” or “revolutionary war,” since it was not technically a “revolution” as, say, its French and Russian counterparts, but rather, in its essence, a defensive war in the interest of self-governance and independence. One may reasonably argue that the American founders were committed to maintaining a moral-legal tradition, common law, and natural rights based on natural-law assumptions; they were not wishing to tear down traditions, institutions, and norms. The American “revolution” was undertaken not to change social-political structures but to preserve them. In the words of one historian, the colonists revolted not against the English constitution but on behalf of it.

Was the conflict unique? Absolutely. But was it a “revolution”? Technically speaking, no – at least that is my own position.

The tradition of “just war” – or more accurately, justified war – extends, as suggested, for the better part of two millennia down to the present day. Just-war thinking is best understood not as a “theory,” as so much of the literature describes it, but as a tradition – a living tradition but a tradition nonetheless. A tradition can be compared to a river. A river takes different forms along its path – lakes, tributaries, eddies, streams and creeks – yet it is the same water at every location. In the same way, the “just war” tradition, which is comprised of moral criteria or conditions that in unity need to be satisfied for conflict to be justified, is unchanging, even when its application takes on new shapes or forms. (In our era, the tradition has needed application as we encounter terrorist regimes and terrorist non-state actors.) The moral wisdom of the tradition, it needs accentuating, has a stabilizing effect in an age of relativism, utilitarianism, and geopolitical challenges. The question is whether those in public office and positions of authority will seek that enduring wisdom.

Classically speaking, two groups of criteria comprise the tradition: ius ad bellum (i.e., justice in going to war) and ius in bello (justice in conducting war). More recently, a third category has received attention by just-war scholars, and understandably so: ius post bellum (post-conflict justice). Classically, three primary moral criteria must be satisfied for conflict to be considered justified: just cause, legitimate authority, and right intention. Most discussions of war’s justification include other – secondary – considerations such as last resort and reasonable chance of success. These conditions are “secondary” not because they are not important but because they derive their identity from the three “primary” moral conditions. They are, by their nature, prudential considerations.

Since most of the voices claiming that the Revolutionary War was not justified tend to focus on the primary criterion of just cause and the prudential consideration of last resort, I will direct my comments to these two criteria.

Was there just cause for the war of independence? That is, were the colonists justified in actively resisting Great Britain? Just cause classically – from Aquinas to Grotius to Locke – has generally concerned itself with three basic elements: self-defense or defense of territory, recovery of what was unjustly taken, and retributive justice, i.e., punishment for wrong-doing. Those arguing that the war of 1775-1783 was not justified share the wider conviction that at issue was not simple “freedom from tyranny”; rather, the conflict was more complicated. As evidence thereof, not all colonists were patriots; some 40-45 % were. Loyalists comprised roughly 15-20 % of colonial population, and there were many who were neutral.

A primary argument against the justice of the war is that the patriots’ grievances – some 27 of which are listed in the Declaration of Independence – were not serious enough to warrant armed resistance. Specifically, taxes were not unduly burdensome; in fact, they were higher elsewhere in the empire. Thus, Patriot complaints about the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townshend duties, the Intolerable Acts, etc. were (and remain) unpersuasive. Correlatively, the colonists, it is argued, were remarkably “free” in the empire and not an “oppressed” people, subject to abject “tyranny.”  Further, it might be argued that “rebellion” is not the same as “war between sovereign states.” Virtually all people in the “against” camp argue that the real cause of American rebellion was the British government’s “bungling,” misinformation, or ignorance. In fact, perhaps the most celebrated just-war scholar in England today, Oxford ethicist Nigel Biggar, makes this very argument.

The argument for the war’s justification proceeds on several levels. While the loyalist insistence that American colonists’ taxation was not burdensome is true as far as it goes, it seems to miss the point. The Patriots’ chief complaint was not heavy tax per se but rather the fact that Parliament had no authority to impose taxes on them. Why? Because colonists were not represented in Parliament. Therefore, Parliament could not impose taxes, whether for war debt (the Seven Years’ War) or sugar or tea or military purposes. Up until the early-mid 1760s, it needs emphasizing that all colonists were “loyalists” and glad for the mother country; there is no talk of “independence.” Following the 1765 “Stamp Act Congress” and repeal of the Stamp Act, Parliament immediately passed the Declaratory Act which asserted that it had “full power and authority . . . to bind the colonies and the people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever.” The wording is important.

Significantly, English statesmen such as Prime Minister William Pitt and Edmund Burke, both before the war and afterward, would condemn British obstinacy. For example, in a 1766 speech before Parliament, Pitt condemned the language of “in all cases whatsoever” in the Declaratory Act. Burke, in 1792 (i.e., eight years after the war’s end) stated his conviction clearly in “An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs” that the colonists were “purely on the defensive” in their resistance. In 1767, the Townshend duties resulted in several of the founders who were lawyers – James Wilson, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson – publishing arguments to the effect that Parliament had no authority to impose either “internal” or “external” taxes on the colonies. Another wave of protests forced Parliament to repeal most of those duties in 1770 with one exception, a tax on tea, in order to reinforce that it had authority to tax the colonists. Again, the issue for the colonies was not the amount but rather the matter of authority. In the words of James Madison in Memorial and Remonstrance, “the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence . . . may force him to conform to . . . [anything else] in all cases whatsoever.”

A further argument for just cause of resistance by the founders, often overlooked, is the issue of religious liberty. Even when 98 % of the colonists were Protestant, most were viewed by the Crown as dissenters. Why? Because King George III was the head of the Church of England. Yes, Anglicanism was the established church in several of the colonies, yet the sheer diversity of religious conviction in the colonies is telling. Why did the colonists’ ancestors come to America in the first place? Religious liberty and the dictates of conscience. Protestant resistance political theology was thus a significant factor in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. While early Americans’ fears may strike us today as exaggerated, they were not then, given the recent history of religious wars and persecution that characterized the European experience. And we forget that John Locke was forced to seek exile in the Netherlands in the 1680s, a time of convulsive political and religious conflict. For the American colonists, the European experience and recent history were surely ever on their minds. 

With two and a half centuries of hindsight, not a few historians have argued, with some merit, that the patriots’ fears were exaggerated. At the same time, it needs emphasizing that American patriots were not denying allegiance to the mother country; this they affirmed. There was no talk of “independence” up until the 1770s, even when the series of provocative measures by the British government characterized the decade prior. For this reason, it is important to note the various petitions and appeals made by the colonists in the early 1770s leading up to the outbreak of conflict. This raises the prudential just-war criterion of “last resort.”

To grapple with “last resort” is to reckon with the gravity of acts of force and to ask: Have all reasonable efforts to utilize non-military (i.e., diplomatic, economic, and political) alternatives been exhausted? The operative word here is “reasonable,” for, taken literally and not “reasonably,” we can never reach “lastness,” or we can never know that we have reached it. (This, of course, illustrates the pacifist error: there is always one more act of diplomacy, dialogue, political negotiation, etc. to be tried.)

Several items of note in terms of “last resort” need identifying, for they represent specific and tangible steps toward redressing conflict that was building and toward conciliation. I will simply list several. One is the “Olive Branch Petition,” adopted by the Second Continental Congress in July of 1775, which King George III refused to read. Then, a month later, he issued the “Proclamation of Rebellion,” which declared the colonies to be in open revolt. A second item is the “Declaration of the United Colonies on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms,” also published a year before the Declaration of Independence, which reiterated the colonists’ attempts to be reconciled. Therein is no talk yet of independence, only a listing of grievances. A third is William Pitt’s speech to the House of Lords in November of 1777, in which the former Prime Minister passionately implored the British government to withdraw British troops from Boston to ease colonial tensions, noting that Britain’s attempt to “conquer” was futile. “If I were an American,” he famously declared, “I never would lay down my arms – never.” Pitt, of course, surely had in the back of his mind Britain’s use of German mercenaries – some 30,000 in number, who comprised about a quarter of British land forces in America – a fact that would have galvanized colonists who were still neutral.

A fourth is Edmund Burke’s March 22, 1775 “Speech on Moving Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies,” in which Burke urged Parliament to abandon military coercion and restore peace with America through negotiation. A fifth example of evidence of last resort is found in the Declaration of Independence itself, which concludes with reminders that the colonists had repeatedly petitioned for redress, but their pleas were “answered only by repeated injury.” 

Before concluding, permit me to mention two “forgotten founders” of the American cause—John Dickinson and John  Witherspoon. They need recognition at this point because they embody the spirit of “last resort.” A lawyer, first-rate thinker, and the “penman of the American Revolution,” Dickinson drafted both the aforementioned “Olive Branch Petition,” in which he assures the Crown of colonists’ allegiance and longsuffering, and the aforementioned “Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms,” which was a response to Lexington and Concord. Therein he wrote, “We for ten years incessantly and ineffectually besieged the Throne as supplicants; we reasoned, we remonstrated with parliament, in the most mild and decent language. . . The indignation of the Americans was roused, it is true; but it was the indignation of a virtuous, loyal, and affectionate people. . . We resolved again to offer an humble and dutiful petition to the King, and also addressed our fellow-subjects of Great Britain. We have pursued every temperate, every respectful measure . . .” Up to the very signing of the Declaration of Independence, Dickinson was divided – between loyalty to the mother country and commitment to independence.

Witherspoon needs an inordinate amount of attention, which time does not allow. Suffice it to say that this Scotsman, an educator and theologian and only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, was called to be the 6^th president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton), where he personally instructed future college presidents, governors, members of the Continental Congress, and even one U.S. President (James Madison). Witherspoon’s contributions helped shape the ideology and moral foundation of the early American republic as perhaps no one else. What needs stating is that Witherspoon was against the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, yet for the American rebellion in 1776. In several 1774 essays Witherspoon expresses esteem, honor, and respect for the British Crown while lamenting how misled, misinformed, and unjust certain policies toward the colonies were.

Both Dickinson and Witherspoon capture, it seems to me, the spirit of last resort.

Queen Elizabeth II, reflecting on the American Revolution during an address in Philadelphia in July of 1976 as part of the bicentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence, had this to say:

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the time and the manner of yielding what it is impossible to keep … But the lesson was learned . . . to respect the right of others to govern themselves in their own way. This was the outcome of the experience learned the hard way in 1776. Without that great act in the cause of liberty performed in Independence Hall two hundred years ago, we could never have transformed our Empire into a Commonwealth.

These are wise words. One can only ask, if the Queen of England can acknowledge the seeming justice of the American war for independence, perhaps we as well can rest in this conviction. Based on the moral and prudential criteria of the long-standing tradition of “just war,” it is reasonable to conclude that the war for independence, despite – yes – problems, moral blemishes, even atrocities on both sides, was justified.

As we commemorate the 250^th, we find ourselves divided over what America was or should be, irrespective of our political views. Political winds notwithstanding, let us – as people who, with many of the founding fathers, affirm the providence of God and His involvement in the affairs of men and nations – pray that gratitude replaces our grievances, that reconciliation replaces resentment, and that we as Americans might use our freedom for the common good and service to those in need around the globe. And as it concerns our commemoration of the 250th, may “transatlantic relations” be inspired and enriched at this crucial time in history.