The Art of the Possible blog has been home to some great debates over the American Revolution. Was it justified? Was it overly idealistic? Was it, ultimately, a failure?

The narrative of the American Revolution is of course fascinating for libertarians. As I've argued in the past, the Constitution is hardly a libertarian document. It represents the triumph of the centralizing Federalists over the more decentralized Anti-Federalists. The ratification of the Constitution was the political end to the original libertarian instincts of the revolution; the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion was a more direct military end to the remaining libertarian impulses in the population of small farmers and tradesmen. Can we learn anything from this episode of American history?