Free Republic

What history we recall on the Fourth of July typically involves stirring words of freedom, and rightly so. But why stop there? After all, not every colonist in 1776 was a patriot, and at this particularly fractured political moment, we might do well to remember that, according to contemporary accounts, one third of Americans wanted revolution, one third were loyal to the crown and one third could go either way. Loyalists did more than talk; they formed Tory regiments and fought alongside the British, against their fellow Americans. Even those who did support breaking from Britain could be surprisingly lax...