In a Defiant Stance

The minimum of violence accompanying the success of the American Revolution resulted in large part, argues this book, from the conditions of law the British allowed in the American colonies. By contrast, Ireland's struggle for independence was prolonged, bloody, and bitter largely because of the repressive conditions of law imposed by Britain. Examining the most rebellious American colony, Massachusetts Bay, Professor Reid finds that law was locally controlled while imperial law was almost nonexistent as an influence on the daily lives of individuals. Indeed, there was "whig law" in Massachusetts from 1765 to 1775, so that even the Boston mob was an agency of generally nonviolent revolution. In Ireland the same English common law, because of imperial control of legal machinery, produced an opposite result. The Irish were forced to resort to secret, underground violence. The author examines various Massachusetts Bay institutions--the governorship, the council, the grand jury, the traverse jury, the magistrates-to show the consequences of whig party control, in contrast to the situation in 18th-century Ireland. The nature of imperial legislation is shown to have impaired the effectiveness of the British army and navy as police forces in America. A general conclusion is that law, the conditions of positive law, and the matter of who controls the law may have more significant effects on the course of events than is generally assumed. John Phillip Reid is the author of two books on early American judges in addition to two on Cherokee law, most recently A Better Kind of Hatchet (Penn State, 1976). Professor of Law at New York University, he is a graduate of Georgetown and Harvard Law, and holds a master's degree in history from New Hampshire as well as a doctorate in law from NYU.