We could have been Canada, by Adam Gopnik is an interesting article that looks at the ideology of the American Revolution urging us to ask whether the Revolution was a bad idea and whether the injustices and violence that is part of American life persists not despite the virtues of the founding fathers but because of them. To the author, the Revolution might have been a needless and brutal aspect of slaveholder’s panic mixed with Enlightenment arguments producing a nation that was always marked for violence, disruption, and demagogy. This article shatters our long-held beliefs and makes us question what we always believed to be true because like all good articles, it makes effective use of rhetorical skills as explained below:
Logos: Gopnik, in most parts of the article, relies on logic to convince the reader on the merits of his argument. He begins by pointing to Canada and Australia both British colonies like America, which peacefully evolved from England as a possible destiny for the United States if it had no revolution. To him, without the Revolution, slavery might have ended in the country sooner and more peacefully without the need for the civil war, as was the case and politically, we could have a social-democratic commonwealth that stretched from the North to the south (Gopnik).
To prove how what could have been obvious has remained hidden, the author points out how false revisionist history of the reconstruction had been taught to elementary school children where they were told of how Northern carpetbaggers and local scalawags descended on defenseless south. As such, the Revolution remains the last bulwark of national myth (Gopnik).
Furthermore, Gopnik dissects the ideas of Justin du Rivage’s “Revolution Against Empire” who argues that the Revolution was not a colonial rebellion against the mother country but was instead an episode in a much larger political quarrel that engulfed the Empire. To Justin, there were the authoritarian reformers and the radical Whigs on the opposite end of the spectrums with both groups trying to gain the upper hand in supplanting the establishment Whigs. The authoritarian reformers were a group of elite intellectuals and aristocrats more attached to English institutions committed to reforms to ensure that the Empire operated more efficiently. To them, extended taxation within the Empire was central, and they believed in taxation without representation, arguing that colonists had traded votes with little property for no vote with much wealth. The chief reason for the taxes was a protection racket that worked where the colonists were guaranteed protection of the British navy, thus ensuring the colonist’s commercial activities. The radical Whigs, on the other hand, though implanted within the establishment, were more sympathetic to enlightenment ideas because of principles and the need for self-preservation from mobs, and they did view colonists as consumers. Alexander Hamilton, who trusted banks and credit as a means of creating new wealth, is presented as a good example of a Radical Whig. The authoritarian reformers on their part saw debt as being toxic because it, on one part they feared that it created chaos, and on the other hand, it was a tool for upending the established hierarchy. Therefore, in the civil war, the loyalists were simply authoritarian reformers who lost the battle, and the patriots were radical Whigs who won. The clash was never a rebellion against a distant country as presented today but rather an ideological split locked in a battle to control the English speaking world (Gopnik).
Lastly, to prove that the Revolution was nothing more than a slaveholders panic to events in England, Gopnik points out that despite writing the bill of rights, both Washington and Jefferson went ahead to retrieve their slaves who had joined the British side in the war to escape slavery but had been captured when they lost the battle. Indeed, if the founding father were as committed to the bill of rights as they claimed, perhaps they could have, in the very least, left those slaves to go free even f they did not abolish slavery (Gopnik).
Ethos: Gopnik also relies on Ethos or credibility of a writer or source for his argument. We see that Gopnik dissects the Ideas of Justin du Rivage on the Revolution. He points out to us that Du Rivage’s book begun as part of his Yale PhD thesis, and as a scholarly piece of work, the ideas must have been reviewed critically and with evidence and as such could be relied on (Gopnik).
In addition, Gopnik who was raised both in the United States and Canada, relies on his personal experience to highlight the differences between the two nations. For example, he tells us that in his Philadelphia grade school, they paraded with flags singing comes the flag, being taught that brave American hid behind the woods fighting red coats yet in Canada they were taught in the 9th grade the history of uneasy compromise the nation had to make and the constant need to find temporary nonviolent solutions to intractable divides (Gopnik).
Pathos: Lastly Gopnik uses pathos which is an appeal to emotions to make his arguments. He describes how as children they paraded flags singing here comes the flag to show why Americans are emotionally attached to the idea of the flag representing freedom (Gopnik).
Besides, Gopnik shows how the brutality of the Revolution planted the seeds of violence in the country. He vividly describes how a group of captured redcoats are bayoneted to death their screams for mercy being sufficient to melt the heart of a Tartar or a Turk, a poignant reminder of how indifferent to suffering an American in the 18th Century could be. Therefore, to Gopnik, the Revolution was a quarrel of white people against other white people which degenerated into violence and cruelty stopping only to rape their enemy’s wives and daughters. Lastly, he also points out that though the first nations and the Freed African American received a raw deal in Canada, it was always far less violent for them than it was on this side of the border (Gopnik).
Conclusion
Gopnik’s article turns what we have always known to be rue on its head and he successfully does this by relying on all here rhetorical skills. However, it is also apparent that because of the target audience, the author relies more on logic as he intends to persuade using facts and common sense.
Work Cited
Gopnik, Adam. “We Could Have Been Canada.” The New Yorker, 8 May 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/we-could-have-been-canada.