8 - Prepping the Next Generation of “Republican Machines”

Summary

At the beginning of “An account of the influence of the military and political events of the American Revolution on the Human body,” Benjamin Rush listed ten “circumstances” that altered the nature of American bodies (and minds) during the 1770s and 1780s. It is a long list, but worth taking a few moments to consider in Rush's language and its relationship to his thoughts on medicine and politics.

• 1. The revolution interested every inhabitant of the country of both sexes, and of every rank and age that was capable of reflection. An indifferent, or neutral, spectator of the controversy was scarcely to be found in any of the states.

• 2. The scenes of war and government, which it introduced, were new to the greatest part of the inhabitants of the United States, and operated with all the force of novelty upon the human mind.

• 3. The controversy was conceived to be the most important of any that had ever engaged the attention of mankind. It was generally believed, by the friends of the revolution, that the very existence of freedom, upon our globe, was involved in the issue of the contest in favor of the United States.

• 4. The American revolution, included in it the care of government, as well as the toils and dangers of war. The American mind was, therefore, frequently occupied, at the same time, by the difficult and complicated duties of political and military life.

• 5. The revolution was conducted by men, who, had been born free, and whose sense of the blessings of liberty was of course more exquisite than if they had just emerged from a state of slavery.

• 6. The greatest part of the soldiers in the armies of the United States, had family connections and property in the country.

• 7. The war was carried on by Americans against a nation, to whom they had long been tied by the numerous obligations of consanguinity, laws, religion, commerce, language, interest, and a mutual sense of national glory.