Just watched the movie "The Patriot," and out of curiosity looked up a British view of

[Sweeney]

10. We didn't get the revolution we were promised,

but they got the friend they didn't deserve. That is about the size of it.

The English revolution was betrayed by their great general Cromwell as well. They might have had our revolution two hundred years sooner, and been in better shape to conquer the world and hold us to their bosoms. In their case as in ours the goal of the revolution was to recapture the past, and when we have our next revolution it will be once more to capture the Declaration of Independence and the promises of equality and liberty and happiness.

The successful revolutions are driven by the desires of conservative humanity to capture the past. Those who can hold that carrot before their nose have only the goal of capturing and securing the future for themselves and for all. When the future is most in doubt is when people can be motivated to find the best part of the past. Those who see the goal have it already in their grasp. Jefferson saw the goal, and his was a conscious attempt to change a form of government, and this was perhaps the first and finest example of this formal consciousness.

It is so much easier to accomplish a goal when you understand exactly what you are doing, and these revolutionaries did. And in the end it does not matter how well it succeeded, or how badly it was betrayed in the constitution. What matters is: They declared it, and they enforced their declaration, and so all argument to the contrary is moot.