One interesting thing about the American revolution: America the democratic republic was rebelling against England the parliamentary democracy. For all the talk of kings, by 1776 the country the Americans created wasn't so different from the country they came from. The court system went from English common law as its foundation to English common law as its foundation. Granted there wasn't a king at the top, but in the grand scheme of things with all the things that were kept that's almost a trivial detail.
If anything, the Americans took the fundamentals of the existing English system and kept them, throwing in just a dash of French revolution into the mix (minus the beheadings...mostly) to end up with a system that was mostly English but integrating some aspects of the French.
Even the concept of a constitution that limits the power of government is baked into the English constitutional monarchy that arguably started with the magna carta.
Remembering all this I think changes the character of what happened in 1776, making it a more evolutionary change wrapped in revolution rather than a revolutionary change.
If anything, the Americans took the fundamentals of the existing English system and kept them, throwing in just a dash of French revolution into the mix (minus the beheadings...mostly) to end up with a system that was mostly English but integrating some aspects of the French.
Even the concept of a constitution that limits the power of government is baked into the English constitutional monarchy that arguably started with the magna carta.
Remembering all this I think changes the character of what happened in 1776, making it a more evolutionary change wrapped in revolution rather than a revolutionary change.
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