The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Bailyn argues that most of the important writing of the American Revolution appeared in pamphlets. He defines the pamphlet form to explain why it was uniquely suited to topical polemics. Pamphlets could be written by one person, allowing a complete freedom of expression not possible in most periodicals. Pamphlets were easy to manufacture quickly and cheaply. Their greatest asset was flexibility in size, with the middle length most used by Revolutionary writers. The Revolutionary pamphlets generally fell into three categories: the largest number were responses to the significant events of the time, such as the Stamp Act; another group were series of individual exchanges with other pamphlet-writers, including arguments, rebuttals, and counter-rebuttals; and a final group consisted of commemorative orations, such as printed sermons delivered on election days, but by the mid-1760s celebrations of political anniversaries, such as the repeal of the Stamp Act, also were included. Since the pamphlets expressed the beliefs and goals of those who supported the Revolution, they reveal the contemporary meaning of that event more than any other group of documents.

The American pamphlets do not compare as literature to the quality of British pamphlets, because the American pamphleteers were amateurs, unlike the professional British writers, such as Defoe and Swift.