ABSTRACT
The American Revolution reflected England's heritage of 1688, the heritage of mature self-government. Never were people's Burkean founding fathers more British than when they were revolting against George III. Burke favored their Revolution as defending the traditional rights of freeborn Englishmen against newfangled royal usurpations. In contrast with the liberal 1930's, several major historians of the 1950's like Daniel Boorstin and Clinton Rossiter are rediscovering our conservative origins. Hamilton, Adams, and their Federalist party sought to establish in the new world what they called a "natural aristocracy", based on property, education, family status, and sense of ethical responsibility. Being founders of a nation without titles or feudal past, they could hardly establish any other aristocracy than an untitled "natural" one. The stability which the Constitution of 1787 achieved for years to come may be contrasted with the instability that followed the more democratic, anti-conservative French Constitution of only two years later.
