and ideas--the articulated world view--that lay behind the manifest events of the time. . . . I found myself studying . . . nothing less than the ideological origins of the American Revolution (Bailyn x).
Of course, one could just as easily argue that these pamphlets were merely advertisements for the coming revolution, and, in that regard, were propaganda. In other words, these documents present the arguments for the revolution in their most ideal form. An advertisement for an automobile appeals to the psychological and emotional needs of potential buyers; it does not examine the nuts and bolts of the car or consider design flaws or possible problems with the vehicle. The same can be said of original documents upon which Bailyn bases his study.
To some extent, Bailyn acknowledges the idealized picture presented by these documents. He places at the center of his argument the conclusion that the fathers of the revolution were sincere in their writings and impassioned by the sense that they were indeed faced with a conspiratorial and corrupt British effort to enslave them. This is somewhat ironic considering that many of the revolutionaries were themselves slaveholders, wealthy landowners, and hardly in danger of being enslaved. Nevertheless, Bailyn argues that when the pamphleteers used words such as "slavery," "corruption" and "conspiracy" to express the threats they perceived from the British, they were being not propagandists but sincere, anti-authoritarian radicals. In short, he accepts the ideals of the revolutionaries as genuine an
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