Ohio State history professor Jason Opal is also a member of the University’s America 250 Steering Committee.
From the perspective of 2026, a time of deep pessimism in America, what is most striking about 1776 is how optimistic the patriots sound.
With the stroke of a feather, their self-anointed Congress simply declared that the “United Colonies” had assumed “a separate and equal station” with other nations and were thus entitled to do “all Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”
Even more striking is how much of their optimism came from the international law of that time.
For starters, though, we should remember that hope and health are good partners, and that the free population of the 13 colonies was, by the standards of the time, extremely healthy.
Plague, the ancient destroyer of worlds, had never crossed the Atlantic. Smallpox, the speckled angel of death for indigenous peoples, was rare among the settlers. Famine was unknown. The people of the 13 colonies married younger, had more children and lived longer than their European counterparts.
Much as there was “no Bound to the prolific Nature of Plants or Animals,” wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751, the settlers of this New World Eden were doubling their numbers every 25 years – to the great advantage of the British Empire, he predicted.
Franklin was wrong. Twenty-five years later, in 1776, the colonial population had more than doubled, reaching 2.5 million: larger than the Swiss Confederation or the Dutch Republic. Proud of their health and wealth, the colonists had also grown impatient with Britain’s increasingly military-style rule over them.
“Our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world,” boasted the English émigré Tom Paine in “Common Sense,” published in January of the fateful year. America, he was sure, would escape the rotting farce of monarchy by naming its fruitful people as the ultimate source of authority.
A less brutal world
Of course, such Republican beliefs constituted treason in British law, the punishment for which was death by hanging (with post-mortem decapitation).
Yet even John Adams, one of the grumpier patriots, spent the summer of 1776 drafting a boilerplate treaty with foreign nations, based on the principles of “Peace” and “Friendship” he expected on the global stage.
What enabled the patriots’ optimism here was “the law of nations,” a general term for the code of international conduct that European rulers had originally devised in the 1600s to prevent Catholics and Protestants from killing each other.
Basically, this code called on “civilized states” to stop interfering in the religious and political affairs of their (Christian) neighbors. It set forth non-violent ways to handle disputes over everything from tariffs to refugees and generally described the European world as a loose confederation rather than a terrifying jungle.
No obscure theory, the law of nations became a pillar of European culture in the 1700s as the Enlightenment made people believe that nations were becoming less brutal and more lawful.
In the “savage” past, argued the Swiss author Emer de Vattel in his 1758 classic, “The Law of Nations,” “monstrous heroes” had raped and pillaged with impunity. But now, even rivals like Britain and France favored diplomacy and commerce over war. They also spared POWs and civilians when conflict broke out.
Peace, not violence, was man’s natural state. Lawfulness, not force, was man’s superpower. And no matter if they formed monarchies or republics, Vattel made clear, “men are naturally equal.”
So were nations: “A dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small republic is no less a sovereign state than the most powerful kingdom.” While sovereigns had every right to repress rebellions within their territories, nations could also change their governments if their leaders violated their self-evident rights.
Whereupon other nations could and should recognize them, Vattel declared.
The world as a decent place
No wonder that Benjamin Franklin noted that Vattel’s book was “continually in the hands” of the congressional delegates at the end of 1775. No wonder that American leaders embraced independence the next year believing that the law of nations was on their side even if British law was not.
Indeed, John Adams’ “Plan of Treaties” became the basis for foreign recognition of the United States, starting with France and the Dutch Republic. And once the fighting stopped, the Americans duly recognized George III as a legitimate sovereign in his own right.
None of this makes the patriots’ defiance of the Crown 250 years ago any less daring. They were committing treason, and they knew it.
Rather, the importance of the law of nations in 1776 should remind us that a nation’s capacity for hope, whether then or now, requires some hope in other nations, some faith that the world is a decent place where law, and maybe even justice, will someday prevail.
Jason Opal is a professor of history at Ohio State University and dean of its Mansfield campus. He is also a member of the University’s America 250 Steering Committee.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: America was hopeful and proud 250 years ago. Are you? | Opinion
Reporting by Jason Opal, Guest Columnist / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Jason Opal, Guest Columnist | USA TODAY Network
