American Scientist

This year’s 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence provides an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the American Revolution. It is common to represent revolutions in military terms. This perspective is exemplified by a famous full-length portrait of George Washington by the painter and naturalist Charles Willson Peale, who was commemorating the general’s victories at the Battles of Princeton and Trenton that were the turning point of the war. However, such a representation is too narrow. When Washington resigned as commander in chief in 1783, he wrote a letter to the state legislatures that said little about military battles but—befitting his previous career as a land surveyor—gave an overview of the broader intellectual landscape of the American Revolution. He wrote: