The American Idea of England, 1776-1840: Transatlantic Writing

Abstract

The American Revolution may have severed a formal political connection with Britain, but it could not destroy what Richard Rush called 'a tie ... light as air, and unseen; but stronger than links of iron'. The Anglo-American relationship was far too broad and equally too deep and complex to be instantly obliterated simply by political change, however fervently proposed and dramatically achieved. Family attachments, professional and intellectual associations, the pull of history, economic links, and an ongoing affinity with English values and culture, especially the English language - according to New England theologian and writer Timothy Dwight, 'this mighty advantage' - meant that independence simply created a new set of circumstances under which an Anglo-American relationship could be reconstituted, revisited and revised. What had changed, of course, was that political severance also created a new nation. Susan Manning describes the Declaration of Independence as having 'sustained a double identity for America in both a unifying and a seceding frame'. Certainly attached to England through history, heritage and culture; nevertheless, the new nation was forced into existence while still bereft of a readily definable individual character. The political and cultural directions of the nation were neither wholly clear nor agreed upon, and the stories needed to articulate a developing nationhood were yet to be written and embraced by the people. Clearly, it was one thing to achieve political separation and to muster a purposeful sense of unity in the process - John Adams's 13 clocks striking together; it was quite another to understand, and live out, the full and diverse implications of independence.