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July 4, 2011: Why America’s Founders Originally Rebelled & Their Thoughts Today

We Must Return to the Founder's Values to Save America the Beautiful

July 4, 2011: Why America’s Founders Originally Rebelled & Their Thoughts Today

 - Kelly O'Connell  Sunday, July 3, 2011

Somewhere between confusion and ignorance lies the teaching many Americans receive today on the motives of the Founders of the USA. The American Revolution was really a battle over ideas between the Old and New Worlds. And the chief idea being fought over in the 1770s was that of Liberty.

Colonists considered themselves heirs of the rights of freeborn Englishmen. This powerful conviction was torn-asunder by the decisions of mad King George and an arrogant Parliament. The English realized too late that principled Americans would be willing to fight and die for such beliefs as the right to representative government and the sanctity of private property.

Amazingly, we again today must reassert our rights to such concepts as Life, Liberty and Property, against a tyrannical government or allow our children to eke out an existence as slaves of an all-powerful state.

I. Primary Goal of American Revolution: Preservation of Liberty

The singular concern of American colonists­their overarching goal­was to maintain their liberty, according to Bernard Bailyn, Professor Emeritus of Early American History at Harvard. Bailyn’s T he Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes, and is considered the single most important work on this topic in the last half century. Bailyn claims the Founders exhibited “a cluster of convictions focused on the effort to free the individual from the oppressive misuse of power, from the tyranny of the state.”

II. Overview of American Revolutionary Influences

The general influences of Americans supporting the Revolution were as follows:

A. England’s “Unwritten Constitution” & Legal History: This includes Magna Carta, Bill of Rights and Parliamentary style of government.
B. Classical Thinkers - The American Founders read Classical authors. Writes one author:

The typical education of colonial times began at about age eight. Students lucky enough to attend school normally learned Latin and Greek grammar. They read the historians Tacitus and Livy, Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, and translated the Latin poetry of Virgil and Horace. They were expected to know the language well enough to translate from the original into English and back again to the original in another grammatical tense. Classical Education also stressed the seven liberal arts: Latin, logic, rhetoric (the “trivium”), as well as arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the “quadrivium”).

C. Enlightenment - Many Americans read widely in the European Enlightenment including the French philosophers, British empiricists­like Locke, and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as Frances Hutcheson.
D. British Puritan Revolution Pamphlets­(see below).
E. Christianity­Both the Constitution in general, and specifically the concept of Federalism­were based upon the Biblical concept of “Covenant.”

Says Bailyn, the Americans, already much adjusted to greater levels of freedom than their continental British brethren, had long suspected England was attempting to surreptitiously deny their English rights. Colonists suspected the Anglican clergy would be used to undermine the State’s religious freedoms; whereas petty bureaucrats sent from the mother country would succeed in taxing them to death. Other issues bedeviling the colonists included being under a foreign standing army.

III. Revolutionary Writers and Themes

Colonial mid-18th century American writers were influenced by the works of Classical thinkers and 17th century English Revolutionaries, like John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government and John Milton’s political writings, such as his The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. These thinkers hallowed ideals of natural rights and individual liberty. Colonial American Revolutionary tracts were massively influenced by such British libertarian articles and pamphlets, widely distributed in the American colonies.

For instance, American libertarianism was taught via Cato’s Letters, a English newspaper article series. These libertarian writers translated John Locke’s sublime political writings for a more general audience. Thus did some men learn they had natural rights of life, liberty, and property, which governments must not poach. Bailyn proved the American Revolution was both genuinely radical and revolutionary, calling it “the transforming libertarian radicalism” of the American Revolution.

III. Defining Events: Property Rights Versus Tax Acts

The tinder which helped spark the Revolution aflame was taxation. Many remember the war-cry: “No taxation without representation!” Yet the issue was larger than just taxes. According to the Revolutionary mindset, it was not just the amount of taxes taken, but the very fact that England deigned to do such a taking, period. In fact, on author argued smaller taxes were even more devilish since they were less likely to be protested, but still as much a subjugation.

There were many different tax acts which drew outcries:

The Sugar Act- 1764­Strictly collected on molasses, a very common import, and placed taxes on other common goods, including sugar, silk, and wine.

The Stamp Act­1765 - This tax had nothing to do with stamps, but rather taxed every printed document used in the colonies. This included licenses, newspapers, and fliers. If it was printed, it had a tax.

The Townshend Acts- 1766- This series of acts put taxes on commonly used goods, including on tea, paint, paper, lead, almost everything used in daily life in the colonies.

The British taxation of American goods was seen as putting colonists in bondage…” Taxation without representation is slavery!” It sparked the Boston Tea Party protest, a precursor to the War. When such writers as John Locke stated that all men were free, he meant any freeman could also own property.

IV. Constitutionalism

We must study the Constitution itself to understand what the Founders were trying to achieve in the Revolution. In T he Origins of American Constitutionalism, Donald S. Lutz claims American constitutionalism begins with the charters and covenants forming the American colonies.

Lutz says the US Constitution was neither inherited from the British or simply invented by the Federalists in the summer of 1787, but influenced by both. He claims the Constitution comes from a tradition of American colonial charters and documents of political theory beginning 150 years prior to 1787. Lutz argues this via close textual analysis of such documents as the Mayflower Compact, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Rode Island Charter of 1663, the first state constitutions, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation.

American Constitutionalism largely comes from radical Protestant interpretations of Judeo-Christian concepts first secularized into political agreements and incorporated into constitutions and bills of rights. This rich tradition also claims aspects of English common law and English Whig theory. Individual writers were also influential, such as Montesquieu, Locke, Blackstone, and Hume.



V. Values of the Founders & Their Use Today

The following ten ideals were used by the Founders to build the nation of America from whole cloth.

A. General Regime of Liberty.

Patriot Patrick Henry once said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Yet, today, we see constant encroachment of government into every area possible, often in the name of “security.” But the Founders would never accept trading freedom for comfort!

B. Principled Government Stands Upon Popular Consent

The Declaration says, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers fr.....” Yet we see many government programs, such as Obamacare, being forced upon the people with only a minority of support.

C. Rule of Law

Only a commitment to run a government upon the rule of law can help men overcome institutional despotism, according to Rutherford’s Lex Rex (Law is King) and the Founders. And yet, today, American justice often depends just upon irrelevant factors, like one’s race­such as when AG Eric Holder declined to prosecute Black Panthers when they menaced citizens at the voting booth in 2008.

D. Limited Government

The Founder knew that without a limited government, kings become gods rather quickly. This is why the Constitution is established to be a law settling all disputes. Yet, today we have leaders like Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark who says, “The Federal Government can, yes, do most anything in this country.”

E. Free Speech

Freedom of expression was a presumption to all the Founder, who then enshrined the concept in the First Amendment. Yet the government now claims it would like to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to regulate what can be said on American airwaves.

F. Freedom of Religion

Most Founders self-identified as Christian, and blocking a state-sanctioned church was important to them in the interest of encouraging all sects equally. But Obama’s strange fixation with Islam cannot do anything but whither America’s ancestral faith.

G. Capitalism

Against the default socialism of the current administration, America was established upon a premise of Capitalism. This is why the Constitution has a Contracts Clause...No State shall pass any Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 10). But Obama’s socialism can only be established when the rights of property are extinguished.

H. Federalism & State’s Rights

Federalism is the idea of separation of powers on a national, regional and local level. It is one of the reasons America has been so successful. Yet, Obama claims to have new insights, ie “ progressive federalism,” meaning states can preempt the Constitution to be more leftist, allowing for more aggressive Global Warming standards, for example. This also explains Obama suing Arizona when he didn’t like their laws, as well.

I. Republicanism

One of the chief ideas of the Founders was leadership by wise elders within the context of a popularly elected government. This notion is seen in the diffusion of power through the many institutions across America, such as the Electoral College. Yet Obama has no interest in such a model. For instance, his economic “stimulus” model, in all its crazy and ignorant application, puts a trillion dollar’s investment in the hands of a few govt. flunkies, instead of the People.

J. Separation of Powers

The Founders believed that power must be separated to avoid tyranny. But Obama seems positively enraged when members of the legislature or judiciary disagree with his executive branch. For example, his dressing down the Supreme Court for defying his ideas at the State of the Union was a supreme act of childish pique. Also, his unilateral decision to go to war with Libya without any input from Congress is another nonsensical example of his tyrannical notion of the US government.

K. Property Rights

The great insight of Locke into the nature of building wealth for an entire society was defending the rights of private property for all men. Yet Obama, in each speech, seems to relish in the notion of “ redistributing wealth.” Not only would the Founders be furious at such ignorant and un-American posturing, history proves economic and human rights disasters always follow hard on the heels of socialism and communism.

Author
Kelly O'Connell

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/38140



 

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on July 4, 2011 at 8:04pm

God Bless America!

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