This area covers the History of America. Please scroll down to learn more about our Nation's heritage.
Great Resource to Study U. S. History http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm
The development of American Citizenship 1608-1870 James H. Kettner; https://books.google.com/books?id=caXqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&dq=English+kings+since+1608&source=bl&ots=qAoSM2MJhY&sig=XQDDaDzG_sRonnXCmwkbJ6mc1xk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix7P2O7qnLAhXKNSYKHY1fAYoQ6AEISTAH#v=onepage&q=English%20kings%20since%201608&f=false
The development of American Citizenship 1608-1870 James H. Kettner; https://books.google.com/books?id=caXqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&dq=English+kings+since+1608&source=bl&ots=qAoSM2MJhY&sig=XQDDaDzG_sRonnXCmwkbJ6mc1xk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix7P2O7qnLAhXKNSYKHY1fAYoQ6AEISTAH#v=onepage&q=English%20kings%20since%201608&f=false
James Madison and the Necessary and Proper Clause
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“Necessary and proper” ranks among the most abused clauses in the Constitution. It has been dubbed the “elastic clause” because of the perception that it allows the scope of federal power to expand. The federal government began abusing this clause within years of ratification. In 1800, James Madison countered these early abuses, forcefully arguing that it’s not elastic at all and doesn’t give the government any additional powers.
The necessary and proper clause simply states that Congress has the power, “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
During the ratification debates, anti-federalist warned that the central government would abuse the clause to expand power, but supporters of the Constitution swore it would not. Even Alexander Hamilton argued that necessary and proper didn’t add to the government’s power. In Federalist #33, Hamilton addressed both the necessary and proper clause and the also oft-abused supremacy clause.
“It may be affirmed with perfect confidence that the constitutional operation of the intended government would be precisely the same, if these clauses were entirely obliterated, as if they were repeated in every article. They are only declaratory of a truth which would have resulted by necessary and unavoidable implication from the very act of constituting a federal government, and vesting it with certain specified powers.”
It didn’t take long for proponents of centralized federal power to turn to the necessary and proper clause to justify unconstitutional actions. In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Two of the acts relating to aliens gave the executive branch broad authority to deport non-citizens living in the U.S. without due process. Opponents argued the Alien Acts violated the Fifth Amendment and unconstitutionally vested judicial powers in the hands of the president. The Sedition Act essentially outlawed criticism of the president and Congress. It was a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Among their many arguments, supporters of the Alien and Sedition Acts pointed to the necessary and proper clause to justify this usurpation of power. James Madison took them to task in his Report of 1800.
The Report was a lengthy defense of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798. Madison drafted these resolutions in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. They asserted states “have the right, and are in duty bound to interpose” when the federal government engages in a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of undelegated powers. They also laid out a case condemning the acts as unconstitutional. In the Report of 1800, Madison addressed every justification used by supporters of the Alien and Sedition Acts in exacting detail, including their appeal to the necessary and proper clause. Madison echoed what Hamilton had written years earlier, arguing that the clause does nothing to expand the powers of the general government,
“The plain import of this clause is, that Congress shall have all the incidental or instrumental powers, necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the express powers; whether they be vested in the government of the United States, more collectively, or in the several departments, or officers thereof. It is not a grant of new powers to Congress, but merely a declaration, for the removal of all uncertainty, that the means of carrying into execution, those otherwise granted, are included in the grant.”
Madison went on to offer a simple 2-step process to determine the constitutionality of any federal action.
First:
“Whenever, therefore a question arises concerning the constitutionality of a particular power; the first question is, whether the power be expressed in the constitution. If it be, the question is decided.
If the a delegated power exists authorizing the federal action, that settles the issue. Nobody argues that the federal government can run the Post Office. Article 1 Sec. 8 explicitly authorizes this. But if we find no delegated power, Madison prescribes a second step.
“If it [the power] be not expressed; the next enquiry must be, whether it is properly an incident to an express power, and necessary to its execution. If it be, it may be exercised by Congress. If it be not; Congress cannot exercise it.”
In other words, if the federal action is absolutely necessary to carry out a power clearly spelled out in the Constitution, and it is a proper, or customary, way of doing so, then, as Madison put it, “it may be exercised by Congress. If it be not; Congress cannot exercise it.
Legal documents delegating power to an agent often contain a necessary and proper clause. It has a precise, specific legal definition that was well-understood in the founding era. in simplest terms, a necessary and proper clause authorizes an agent to exercise powers not explicitly spelled out in the legal document, but necessary to execute the specific authority given to him. It serves as a kind of shorthand and eliminates the need to list every incidental power the agent can exercise.
Imagine I enter into a contract with somebody to manage my grocery store. If I stipulates that she has all of the powers “necessary and proper” to running a grocery, I don’t have to to specify that she has the authority to pay a guy to clean the floors, or to hire a mechanic to fix a freezer when it goes down, or to pay the Coca Cola vendor, Those powers are proper and customary to running a grocery store. But necessary and proper powers wouldn’t give my new manager the authority to give away all of the food items in my store and turn it into a pornography shop. That would not be necessary, nor would it be proper.
Judges and elected officials have expanded the meaning of necessary and proper far beyond its meaning. They have effectively turned it into the anything and everything clause. Madison clearly argues this was not the intent.
Source; http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/07/16/james-madison-and-the-necessary-and-proper-clause/
The necessary and proper clause simply states that Congress has the power, “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
During the ratification debates, anti-federalist warned that the central government would abuse the clause to expand power, but supporters of the Constitution swore it would not. Even Alexander Hamilton argued that necessary and proper didn’t add to the government’s power. In Federalist #33, Hamilton addressed both the necessary and proper clause and the also oft-abused supremacy clause.
“It may be affirmed with perfect confidence that the constitutional operation of the intended government would be precisely the same, if these clauses were entirely obliterated, as if they were repeated in every article. They are only declaratory of a truth which would have resulted by necessary and unavoidable implication from the very act of constituting a federal government, and vesting it with certain specified powers.”
It didn’t take long for proponents of centralized federal power to turn to the necessary and proper clause to justify unconstitutional actions. In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Two of the acts relating to aliens gave the executive branch broad authority to deport non-citizens living in the U.S. without due process. Opponents argued the Alien Acts violated the Fifth Amendment and unconstitutionally vested judicial powers in the hands of the president. The Sedition Act essentially outlawed criticism of the president and Congress. It was a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Among their many arguments, supporters of the Alien and Sedition Acts pointed to the necessary and proper clause to justify this usurpation of power. James Madison took them to task in his Report of 1800.
The Report was a lengthy defense of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798. Madison drafted these resolutions in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. They asserted states “have the right, and are in duty bound to interpose” when the federal government engages in a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of undelegated powers. They also laid out a case condemning the acts as unconstitutional. In the Report of 1800, Madison addressed every justification used by supporters of the Alien and Sedition Acts in exacting detail, including their appeal to the necessary and proper clause. Madison echoed what Hamilton had written years earlier, arguing that the clause does nothing to expand the powers of the general government,
“The plain import of this clause is, that Congress shall have all the incidental or instrumental powers, necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the express powers; whether they be vested in the government of the United States, more collectively, or in the several departments, or officers thereof. It is not a grant of new powers to Congress, but merely a declaration, for the removal of all uncertainty, that the means of carrying into execution, those otherwise granted, are included in the grant.”
Madison went on to offer a simple 2-step process to determine the constitutionality of any federal action.
First:
“Whenever, therefore a question arises concerning the constitutionality of a particular power; the first question is, whether the power be expressed in the constitution. If it be, the question is decided.
If the a delegated power exists authorizing the federal action, that settles the issue. Nobody argues that the federal government can run the Post Office. Article 1 Sec. 8 explicitly authorizes this. But if we find no delegated power, Madison prescribes a second step.
“If it [the power] be not expressed; the next enquiry must be, whether it is properly an incident to an express power, and necessary to its execution. If it be, it may be exercised by Congress. If it be not; Congress cannot exercise it.”
In other words, if the federal action is absolutely necessary to carry out a power clearly spelled out in the Constitution, and it is a proper, or customary, way of doing so, then, as Madison put it, “it may be exercised by Congress. If it be not; Congress cannot exercise it.
Legal documents delegating power to an agent often contain a necessary and proper clause. It has a precise, specific legal definition that was well-understood in the founding era. in simplest terms, a necessary and proper clause authorizes an agent to exercise powers not explicitly spelled out in the legal document, but necessary to execute the specific authority given to him. It serves as a kind of shorthand and eliminates the need to list every incidental power the agent can exercise.
Imagine I enter into a contract with somebody to manage my grocery store. If I stipulates that she has all of the powers “necessary and proper” to running a grocery, I don’t have to to specify that she has the authority to pay a guy to clean the floors, or to hire a mechanic to fix a freezer when it goes down, or to pay the Coca Cola vendor, Those powers are proper and customary to running a grocery store. But necessary and proper powers wouldn’t give my new manager the authority to give away all of the food items in my store and turn it into a pornography shop. That would not be necessary, nor would it be proper.
Judges and elected officials have expanded the meaning of necessary and proper far beyond its meaning. They have effectively turned it into the anything and everything clause. Madison clearly argues this was not the intent.
Source; http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/07/16/james-madison-and-the-necessary-and-proper-clause/
A Republic, If You Can Keep It
June 11, 2014 By Dave Benner
During the fiery hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, a woman patiently waited in front of the locked doors at the Pennsylvania State House. Behind the shackles, a group of representatives of the states, meeting in secrecy, convened to debate and craft the United States Constitution. Many were left mystified as to which type of government would be proposed. By that time, most of the western world only knew monarchy.
The delegates decided upon a grand experiment of the ages: the proposition that man could govern himself. They decided upon a union of states rather than a national government, settling for “a more perfect union.” Throwing monarchy to the wayside, they employed the separation of powers doctrine to ensure that one center of power could not become too dominant over the others. They embraced federalism, and recognized that all powers not enumerated would be reserved to the states and the people.
Emerging from behind the doors, Benjamin Franklin, a man many knew as “Poor Richard Saunders” approached. When asked by the woman what form the new government would take, Franklin answered shrewdly: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Today, Franklin’s words seem especially prophetic. He realized that a vigilant populace was necessary to preserve liberty and the rigid boundaries of the Constitution. According to Franklin, this great experiment depended on maintaining the axioms decided upon in those summer days. Without such activism, the Constitution would read only as a dead letter.
Those who claim that the Constitution provided for democracy as the cornerstone to our political system are historically mistaken. A democracy is an assurance of mob rule, where minority factions lose their liberty through legislation, and when power is consolidated over the subdued masses. This arrangement was intentionally dismissed during the time of ratification. James Madison specifically addressed this issue in The Federalist #10:
“From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”[1]
Later in this essay, Madison illustrated the alternative: “the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, — is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it.”[2] A republic, according to Madison, “promises the cure for which we are seeking.”[3]
Then serving as James Madison’s coadjutor, John Jay noted: “Pure democracy, like pure rum, easily produces intoxication, and with it a thousand mad pranks and fooleries.”[4] In the Philadelphia Convention, Edmund Randolph said, “in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”[5]
Alexander Hamilton, the organizer of The Federalist essays, said the following of democracy at New York’s Ratifying Convention of 1788:
“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”[6]
In opposition to democracy, a republic ensures that minority rights are protected. Individuals embody the smallest minority on earth, and are not exceptions to this creed. The individual was supposed to be superior to the collective. Individual rights were recognized, collectivized rights were not.
Franklin wisely understood that the value of liberty necessitated a republican form of government.
I sometimes run into people that have become disenfranchised with the constitutional system. They contend that the Constitution is ineffectual and completely unsuccessful, often basing their claims on the propensity of government to violate its restrictions. While their claims find merit, these individuals often fail to identify a key platitude that explains how the federal government has degenerated throughout the last two centuries.
The Constitution doesn’t enforce itself, and Franklin’s reply proves that he was keenly aware of this fact. Instead, it takes the dedication of individuals and localities acting as agitators to hold federal officials accountable. The founders realized that the document does not protrude fangs or grow a scorpion’s tail to bite or sting a violating offender. Instead, it requires the actions of individuals to reject this tendency. It often requires great losses in property, fortune, and reputation to do so. Constitutions are no more supernatural than the paper they are written on.
Considering this, what if Patrick Henry was right in objecting to the Constitution? What if George Mason correctly noted that the government which would rise from the plaster of its mold would be repugnant? What if Robert Yates and John Lansing astutely realized that dubious representatives were plotting to overpower the states through a national takeover?
Despite the seemingly accurate prognostication of these men, we cannot simply abandon the constitutional system because the figures currently in power don’t respect the Constitution. Their aims must be obstructed through creative and flagrant methods, sparked by individuals and states. Indeed, Madison wrote that states should “present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”[7] Pernicious tenacities can still be opposed today if an indignant and vexed populace makes sure of it.
The impeachment power notated in Article II, Section IV was no suggestion, and can be fully utilized with enough political pressure. Nullification can prevent the federal government from enforcing unconstitutional actions within a state, and acts to protect individual liberty. Strength in the people’s numbers sets us free, and even the lofty resources of the federal government can’t counteract all forces aligned against unconstitutional policy. The federal government simply can’t enforce all it desires to when confronted with enough organized resistance.
Despite the brevity of Franklin’s response to the woman in Philadelphia, his words proved his immaculate foresight and provided a lesson to us all. As Samuel Adams said, “The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attack.” The continued health of our republic depends on it.
[1] The Federalist #10, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist, Edited by Jacob E. Cooke (Middletown: Wesleyan University, 1961), 61.
[2] Ibid, 64.
[3] Ibid, 62.
[4] John Jay to Judge Peters, March 14, 1815, in George Pellew, American Statesmen: John Jay(Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890), 324.
[5] James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987), 42.
[6] James Madison, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Volume II, Edited by Jonathan Elliot (Washington: Taylor & Maury, 1861), 250.
[7] The Federalist #46, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist, Edited by Jacob E. Cooke (Middletown: Wesleyan University, 1961), 319-320.
Tenth Amendment Center http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/06/11/a-republic-if-you-can-ke...
During the fiery hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, a woman patiently waited in front of the locked doors at the Pennsylvania State House. Behind the shackles, a group of representatives of the states, meeting in secrecy, convened to debate and craft the United States Constitution. Many were left mystified as to which type of government would be proposed. By that time, most of the western world only knew monarchy.
The delegates decided upon a grand experiment of the ages: the proposition that man could govern himself. They decided upon a union of states rather than a national government, settling for “a more perfect union.” Throwing monarchy to the wayside, they employed the separation of powers doctrine to ensure that one center of power could not become too dominant over the others. They embraced federalism, and recognized that all powers not enumerated would be reserved to the states and the people.
Emerging from behind the doors, Benjamin Franklin, a man many knew as “Poor Richard Saunders” approached. When asked by the woman what form the new government would take, Franklin answered shrewdly: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Today, Franklin’s words seem especially prophetic. He realized that a vigilant populace was necessary to preserve liberty and the rigid boundaries of the Constitution. According to Franklin, this great experiment depended on maintaining the axioms decided upon in those summer days. Without such activism, the Constitution would read only as a dead letter.
Those who claim that the Constitution provided for democracy as the cornerstone to our political system are historically mistaken. A democracy is an assurance of mob rule, where minority factions lose their liberty through legislation, and when power is consolidated over the subdued masses. This arrangement was intentionally dismissed during the time of ratification. James Madison specifically addressed this issue in The Federalist #10:
“From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”[1]
Later in this essay, Madison illustrated the alternative: “the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, — is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it.”[2] A republic, according to Madison, “promises the cure for which we are seeking.”[3]
Then serving as James Madison’s coadjutor, John Jay noted: “Pure democracy, like pure rum, easily produces intoxication, and with it a thousand mad pranks and fooleries.”[4] In the Philadelphia Convention, Edmund Randolph said, “in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”[5]
Alexander Hamilton, the organizer of The Federalist essays, said the following of democracy at New York’s Ratifying Convention of 1788:
“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”[6]
In opposition to democracy, a republic ensures that minority rights are protected. Individuals embody the smallest minority on earth, and are not exceptions to this creed. The individual was supposed to be superior to the collective. Individual rights were recognized, collectivized rights were not.
Franklin wisely understood that the value of liberty necessitated a republican form of government.
I sometimes run into people that have become disenfranchised with the constitutional system. They contend that the Constitution is ineffectual and completely unsuccessful, often basing their claims on the propensity of government to violate its restrictions. While their claims find merit, these individuals often fail to identify a key platitude that explains how the federal government has degenerated throughout the last two centuries.
The Constitution doesn’t enforce itself, and Franklin’s reply proves that he was keenly aware of this fact. Instead, it takes the dedication of individuals and localities acting as agitators to hold federal officials accountable. The founders realized that the document does not protrude fangs or grow a scorpion’s tail to bite or sting a violating offender. Instead, it requires the actions of individuals to reject this tendency. It often requires great losses in property, fortune, and reputation to do so. Constitutions are no more supernatural than the paper they are written on.
Considering this, what if Patrick Henry was right in objecting to the Constitution? What if George Mason correctly noted that the government which would rise from the plaster of its mold would be repugnant? What if Robert Yates and John Lansing astutely realized that dubious representatives were plotting to overpower the states through a national takeover?
Despite the seemingly accurate prognostication of these men, we cannot simply abandon the constitutional system because the figures currently in power don’t respect the Constitution. Their aims must be obstructed through creative and flagrant methods, sparked by individuals and states. Indeed, Madison wrote that states should “present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”[7] Pernicious tenacities can still be opposed today if an indignant and vexed populace makes sure of it.
The impeachment power notated in Article II, Section IV was no suggestion, and can be fully utilized with enough political pressure. Nullification can prevent the federal government from enforcing unconstitutional actions within a state, and acts to protect individual liberty. Strength in the people’s numbers sets us free, and even the lofty resources of the federal government can’t counteract all forces aligned against unconstitutional policy. The federal government simply can’t enforce all it desires to when confronted with enough organized resistance.
Despite the brevity of Franklin’s response to the woman in Philadelphia, his words proved his immaculate foresight and provided a lesson to us all. As Samuel Adams said, “The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attack.” The continued health of our republic depends on it.
[1] The Federalist #10, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist, Edited by Jacob E. Cooke (Middletown: Wesleyan University, 1961), 61.
[2] Ibid, 64.
[3] Ibid, 62.
[4] John Jay to Judge Peters, March 14, 1815, in George Pellew, American Statesmen: John Jay(Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890), 324.
[5] James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987), 42.
[6] James Madison, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Volume II, Edited by Jonathan Elliot (Washington: Taylor & Maury, 1861), 250.
[7] The Federalist #46, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist, Edited by Jacob E. Cooke (Middletown: Wesleyan University, 1961), 319-320.
Tenth Amendment Center http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/06/11/a-republic-if-you-can-ke...
John Adams on Property
Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors.
Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this?
Read more at http://politicaloutcast.com/2014/12/john-adams-property/#xk6AA5yKP8lSXRwy.99
Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this?
Read more at http://politicaloutcast.com/2014/12/john-adams-property/#xk6AA5yKP8lSXRwy.99
Closing Speech at the Constitutional Convention
September 17, 1787 Benjamin Franklin
Mr. President
I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right — Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."
In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administred.
On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.
WHAT IS THE U.S. CONSTITUTION?
The U.S. Constitution is the fundamental framework of America’s system of government.
The Constitution:
Creates a government that puts the power in the hands of the people
Separates the powers of government into three branches: the legislative branch, which makes the laws; the executive branch, which executes the laws; and the judicial branch, which interprets the laws
Sets up a system of checks and balances that ensures no one branch has too much power
Divides power between the states and the federal government
Describes the purposes and duties of the government
Defines the scope and limit of government power
Prescribes the system for electing representatives
Establishes the process for the document’s ratification and amendment
Outlines many rights and freedoms of the people
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTION AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?
Though connected in spirit, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are separate, distinct documents.
The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. It was a list of grievances against the king of England intended to justify separation from British rule.
The Constitution was written and signed in 1787. It was a charter of government that came to be ratified by the states, and it continues to be the supreme law of the land.
Both documents have played an important role in American history and the spread of democratic ideals around the world. They were both signed at Independence Hall, steps from where the National Constitution Center now stands.
WHEN AND WHERE WAS THE CONSTITUTION WRITTEN AND SIGNED?
The Constitution was written and signed in Philadelphia in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall. This was the same place the Declaration of Independence was signed.
The Constitution was written during the Philadelphia Convention—now known as the Constitutional Convention—which convened from May 25 to September 17, 1787. It was signed on September 17, 1787.
WHERE IS THE CONSTITUTION? IS IT AT THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER?
The National Constitution Center owns a rare, original copy of the first public printing of the Constitution. This printing was published in a newspaper, The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, on September 19, 1787—two days after the Constitution was signed.
The Constitutional Convention was conducted under an oath of secrecy, so this printing represents the first time that Americans—“We the People”—saw the Constitution.
The original signed, handwritten Constitution is at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
WHEN DID THE CONSTITUTION GO INTO EFFECT?
The Constitution did not go into effect the moment it was signed by the delegates. It needed to be approved by the people.
The Constitution went into effect once nine out of the 13 states ratified it, which occurred on June 21, 1788. Article V of the Constitution established the process for ratification.
WHO WROTE THE CONSTITUTION?
Because many of James Madison’s ideas made their way into the Constitution, he is often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution.” Indeed, he was a driving force of the convention throughout the summer of 1787, and his notes of the deliberations have provided valuable insights into the proceedings.
However, the Constitution was the result of months of passionate, thoughtful deliberation among the delegates. Many others besides James Madison made important contributions, particularly those who served on the Committee of Detail, which included Oliver Ellsworth, Nathaniel Gorham, Edmund Randolph, John Rutledge, and James Wilson; and those on the Committee of Style, which included Alexander Hamilton, William Johnson, Rufus King, and Gouverneur Morris. Other notable delegates included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington (who served as president of the convention).
WHY WAS THE CONSTITUTION WRITTEN?
In 1787, Congress authorized delegates to gather in Philadelphia and recommend changes to the existing charter of government for the 13 states, the Articles of Confederation, which many Americans believed had created a weak, ineffective central government.
From the start of the convention, however, it became clear that the delegates were forming an entirely new form of government.
The Preamble of this history-changing document makes it clear why it was written:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
http://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/historical-documents/perspectives-on-the-constitution-a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it
http://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/constitution-faqs/
September 17, 1787 Benjamin Franklin
Mr. President
I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right — Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."
In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administred.
On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.
WHAT IS THE U.S. CONSTITUTION?
The U.S. Constitution is the fundamental framework of America’s system of government.
The Constitution:
Creates a government that puts the power in the hands of the people
Separates the powers of government into three branches: the legislative branch, which makes the laws; the executive branch, which executes the laws; and the judicial branch, which interprets the laws
Sets up a system of checks and balances that ensures no one branch has too much power
Divides power between the states and the federal government
Describes the purposes and duties of the government
Defines the scope and limit of government power
Prescribes the system for electing representatives
Establishes the process for the document’s ratification and amendment
Outlines many rights and freedoms of the people
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTION AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?
Though connected in spirit, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are separate, distinct documents.
The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. It was a list of grievances against the king of England intended to justify separation from British rule.
The Constitution was written and signed in 1787. It was a charter of government that came to be ratified by the states, and it continues to be the supreme law of the land.
Both documents have played an important role in American history and the spread of democratic ideals around the world. They were both signed at Independence Hall, steps from where the National Constitution Center now stands.
WHEN AND WHERE WAS THE CONSTITUTION WRITTEN AND SIGNED?
The Constitution was written and signed in Philadelphia in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall. This was the same place the Declaration of Independence was signed.
The Constitution was written during the Philadelphia Convention—now known as the Constitutional Convention—which convened from May 25 to September 17, 1787. It was signed on September 17, 1787.
WHERE IS THE CONSTITUTION? IS IT AT THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER?
The National Constitution Center owns a rare, original copy of the first public printing of the Constitution. This printing was published in a newspaper, The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, on September 19, 1787—two days after the Constitution was signed.
The Constitutional Convention was conducted under an oath of secrecy, so this printing represents the first time that Americans—“We the People”—saw the Constitution.
The original signed, handwritten Constitution is at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
WHEN DID THE CONSTITUTION GO INTO EFFECT?
The Constitution did not go into effect the moment it was signed by the delegates. It needed to be approved by the people.
The Constitution went into effect once nine out of the 13 states ratified it, which occurred on June 21, 1788. Article V of the Constitution established the process for ratification.
WHO WROTE THE CONSTITUTION?
Because many of James Madison’s ideas made their way into the Constitution, he is often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution.” Indeed, he was a driving force of the convention throughout the summer of 1787, and his notes of the deliberations have provided valuable insights into the proceedings.
However, the Constitution was the result of months of passionate, thoughtful deliberation among the delegates. Many others besides James Madison made important contributions, particularly those who served on the Committee of Detail, which included Oliver Ellsworth, Nathaniel Gorham, Edmund Randolph, John Rutledge, and James Wilson; and those on the Committee of Style, which included Alexander Hamilton, William Johnson, Rufus King, and Gouverneur Morris. Other notable delegates included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington (who served as president of the convention).
WHY WAS THE CONSTITUTION WRITTEN?
In 1787, Congress authorized delegates to gather in Philadelphia and recommend changes to the existing charter of government for the 13 states, the Articles of Confederation, which many Americans believed had created a weak, ineffective central government.
From the start of the convention, however, it became clear that the delegates were forming an entirely new form of government.
The Preamble of this history-changing document makes it clear why it was written:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
http://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/historical-documents/perspectives-on-the-constitution-a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it
http://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/constitution-faqs/
A Southern View of Black History?
Though not everything that happened in the north was so great – Here’s Margaret Sanger in Silver Lake, NJ launching her career with a bunch of Democrats…
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Today, most Americans are taught Black History from a southern point of view. That is, they are exposed to the slave trade and the atrocities of slavery that were common in the South but hear nearly nothing about the many positive things that occurred in the North. |
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For example, who has been taught about Wentworth Cheswell -- the first black elected to office in America, in 1768 in New Hampshire? Or the election of Black American Thomas Hercules to office in Pennsylvania in 1793? Or that in Massachusetts, blacks routinely voted in colonial elections? Or that when the Constitution was ratified in Maryland, more Blacks than Whites voted in Baltimore? Such stories are absent from textbooks today. |
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History is properly to teach the good, the bad, and the ugly -- all of it; but students today usually get only the bad and the ugly, rarely the good.
For example, students are regularly told that the first load of slaves sailed up the James River in Virginia in 1619 and thus slavery was introduced into America, but few learn about the first slaves that arrived in the Massachusetts Colony set up by the Christian Pilgrims and Puritans. When that slave ship arrived in Massachusetts, the ship’s officers were arrested and imprisoned, and the kidnapped slaves were returned to Africa at the Colony’s expense. That positive side of history is untold today.
Similarly, most Americans are unaware that American colonies passed anti-slavery laws before the American Revolution, but that those laws were vetoed by Great Britain, who insisted on the continuance of slavery in America. In fact, several Founders who owned slaves while British citizens freed them once America declared her independence. Sadly, we have been taught to identify Founding Fathers who owned slaves but are unaware of the greater number who opposed slavery or worked with anti-slavery societies.
For example, students are regularly told that the first load of slaves sailed up the James River in Virginia in 1619 and thus slavery was introduced into America, but few learn about the first slaves that arrived in the Massachusetts Colony set up by the Christian Pilgrims and Puritans. When that slave ship arrived in Massachusetts, the ship’s officers were arrested and imprisoned, and the kidnapped slaves were returned to Africa at the Colony’s expense. That positive side of history is untold today.
Similarly, most Americans are unaware that American colonies passed anti-slavery laws before the American Revolution, but that those laws were vetoed by Great Britain, who insisted on the continuance of slavery in America. In fact, several Founders who owned slaves while British citizens freed them once America declared her independence. Sadly, we have been taught to identify Founding Fathers who owned slaves but are unaware of the greater number who opposed slavery or worked with anti-slavery societies.
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WallBuilders owns numerous documents showing these positive aspects of Black History, including of praiseworthy efforts to end oppression of African Americans. For example, the 1774 letter on the right is from Quaker John Townsend, who wrote to inquire after an African slave he had earlier sold. He wanted to reacquire that slave in order to "have the opportunity to set her free." (The Quakers, like several colonial denominations, firmly opposed slavery and pushed their members to do all possible to end the evil.) |
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In this 1782 document, Christopher Johnson, a soldier in the American Revolution, declares that he is "fully persuaded that freedom is the natural rights of all mankind & that it is my duty to do unto others as I would desire to be done by in the like situation." Having fought a war to win his own political freedom, and invoking the Golden Rule delivered by Jesus in Matthew 7:12, he freed (that is, manumitted) his slaves.
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In this 1837 document, Dorcas, a Black American who is "a free woman of color," petitions the court to recognize the legality of two slaves that were freed. According to the Tennessee Act of 1831, freed slaves were required to move out of the state, but the subsequent act of 1833 permitted slaves to remain in the state if they had received their freedom prior to 1831. In her letter, Dorcas affirms that "the said two slaves, Warner and Nancy" had received "their freedom long before the passage of the act of 1831" and asks the court to take appropriate action for ensuring their freedom. |
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On our website, there are many more such documents. and also many inspiring stories, illustrating a side of Black History of which few Americans are told today.
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBblackHistory.asp
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBblackHistory.asp
It is good to have the "lesser-knowns" published . . for it helps all understand how much these people invested in debate and thinking . .
Samuel Adams, letter to Elbridge Gerry, November 27, 1780
Governor Samuel Adams sitting in a chair: Let me entreat you, my dear Sir, not to think me unmindful of the several Favors I have received from you since I arrived in this City. I hate Protestations among Friends, and the making Apologies is so formal a Business, that I know not in what Manner to begin it. Yet it seems necessary that I should say something in Excuse for my not having written to you. Shall I tell you of my trembling Hand, & how unfit an Instrument it is to guide a Pen? I do assure you that writing is on that Account become painful to me.
I am persuaded you never doubted the Reality of my Friendship for you, and I solemnly affirm it has not abated a single Iota. Let this suffice on the Score of Apology, and permit me to hope that I shall receive your Letters frequently, while I remain here, which however will be only until next Spring. I shall then take my final Leave of Congress, & seek that Retirement from public Cares, which my Country seems to point out for me, & to which my own Inclination leads me.
I perceive it has been in your Option to take a Seat in either House of the General Assembly, or return to Congress. I cannot say in which of these Departments you will have it in your Power to render the most substantial Service to the Public. We feel the Want of you here; and yet I think you have wisely chosen a Seat for the present in the House of Representatives. Many Virtuous Men there may want that Information which you are able to give them. Possibly you may have much of the old Ground to go over again.
More in my Opinion, is necessary to be done, than conquering our British Enemies in order to establish the Liberties of our Country on a solid Basis. Human Nature, I am afraid, is too much debased to relish those Republican Principles, in which the new Government of the Common Wealth of Massachusetts appears to be founded. And may it not be added, that the former Government, I mean the last Charter, being calculated rather to make servile Men than free Citizens, the Minds of many of our Countrymen have been inured to a cringing Obsequiousness, too deeply wrought into Habit to be easily eradicated? Mankind is prone enough to political Idolatry.
Such a temper is widely different from that reverence which every virtuous Citizen will show to the upright Magistrate. If my Fears on this Head are ill grounded, I hope I shall be excused. They proceed from a cordial Affection for that Country to the Service of which I have devoted the greatest Part of my Life–May Heaven inspire the present Rulers with Wisdom & sound Understanding.
In all Probability they will stamp the Character of the People. It is natural for sensible Observers to form an Estimate of the People from the Opinion they have of those whom they set up for their Legislators & Magistrates.
And besides, if we look into the History of Governors, we shall find that their Principles & Manners have always had a mighty Influence on the People. Should Levity & Foppery ever be the ruling Taste of the Great, the Body of the People would be in Danger of catching the Distemper, and the ridiculous Maxims of the one would become fashionable among the other.
I pray God we may never be addicted to Vanity & the Folly of Parade! Pomp & Show serve very well to promote the Purposes of European & Asiatic grandeur, in Countries where the Mystery of Iniquity is carried to the highest Pitch, & Millions are tame enough to believe that they are born for no other Purpose than to be subservient to the capricious Will of a single Great Man or a few!
It requires Council & sound Judgment to render our Country secure in a flourishing Condition.–If Men of Wisdom & Knowledge, of Moderation & Temperance, of Patience Fortitude & Perseverance, of Sobriety & true Republican Simplicity of Manners, of Zeal for the Honor of the Supreme Being & the Welfare of the Common Wealth–If Men possessed of these & other excellent Qualities are chosen to fill the Seats of Government we may expect that our Affairs will rest on a solid & permanent Foundation.
Governor Samuel Adams sitting in a chair: Let me entreat you, my dear Sir, not to think me unmindful of the several Favors I have received from you since I arrived in this City. I hate Protestations among Friends, and the making Apologies is so formal a Business, that I know not in what Manner to begin it. Yet it seems necessary that I should say something in Excuse for my not having written to you. Shall I tell you of my trembling Hand, & how unfit an Instrument it is to guide a Pen? I do assure you that writing is on that Account become painful to me.
I am persuaded you never doubted the Reality of my Friendship for you, and I solemnly affirm it has not abated a single Iota. Let this suffice on the Score of Apology, and permit me to hope that I shall receive your Letters frequently, while I remain here, which however will be only until next Spring. I shall then take my final Leave of Congress, & seek that Retirement from public Cares, which my Country seems to point out for me, & to which my own Inclination leads me.
I perceive it has been in your Option to take a Seat in either House of the General Assembly, or return to Congress. I cannot say in which of these Departments you will have it in your Power to render the most substantial Service to the Public. We feel the Want of you here; and yet I think you have wisely chosen a Seat for the present in the House of Representatives. Many Virtuous Men there may want that Information which you are able to give them. Possibly you may have much of the old Ground to go over again.
More in my Opinion, is necessary to be done, than conquering our British Enemies in order to establish the Liberties of our Country on a solid Basis. Human Nature, I am afraid, is too much debased to relish those Republican Principles, in which the new Government of the Common Wealth of Massachusetts appears to be founded. And may it not be added, that the former Government, I mean the last Charter, being calculated rather to make servile Men than free Citizens, the Minds of many of our Countrymen have been inured to a cringing Obsequiousness, too deeply wrought into Habit to be easily eradicated? Mankind is prone enough to political Idolatry.
Such a temper is widely different from that reverence which every virtuous Citizen will show to the upright Magistrate. If my Fears on this Head are ill grounded, I hope I shall be excused. They proceed from a cordial Affection for that Country to the Service of which I have devoted the greatest Part of my Life–May Heaven inspire the present Rulers with Wisdom & sound Understanding.
In all Probability they will stamp the Character of the People. It is natural for sensible Observers to form an Estimate of the People from the Opinion they have of those whom they set up for their Legislators & Magistrates.
And besides, if we look into the History of Governors, we shall find that their Principles & Manners have always had a mighty Influence on the People. Should Levity & Foppery ever be the ruling Taste of the Great, the Body of the People would be in Danger of catching the Distemper, and the ridiculous Maxims of the one would become fashionable among the other.
I pray God we may never be addicted to Vanity & the Folly of Parade! Pomp & Show serve very well to promote the Purposes of European & Asiatic grandeur, in Countries where the Mystery of Iniquity is carried to the highest Pitch, & Millions are tame enough to believe that they are born for no other Purpose than to be subservient to the capricious Will of a single Great Man or a few!
It requires Council & sound Judgment to render our Country secure in a flourishing Condition.–If Men of Wisdom & Knowledge, of Moderation & Temperance, of Patience Fortitude & Perseverance, of Sobriety & true Republican Simplicity of Manners, of Zeal for the Honor of the Supreme Being & the Welfare of the Common Wealth–If Men possessed of these & other excellent Qualities are chosen to fill the Seats of Government we may expect that our Affairs will rest on a solid & permanent Foundation.
Have you ever read these words? . . . Very Important! [Emphasis added]
Samuel Adams, Speech in Philadelphia, August 1, 1776
Samuel Adams, young COUNTRYMEN AND BRETHREN: I would gladly have declined an honor, to which I find myself unequal. I have not the calmness and impartiality which the infinite importance of this occasion demands. I will not deny the charge of my enemies, that resentment for the accumulated injuries of our country, and an ardor for her glory, rising to enthusiasm, may deprive me of that accuracy of judgment and expression which men of cooler passions may Possess. Let me beseech you, then, to hear me with caution, to examine without prejudice, and to correct the mistakes into which I may be hurried by my zeal. |
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Truth loves an appeal to the common-sense of mankind. Your unperverted understandings can best determine on subjects of a practical nature. The positions and plans which are said to be above the comprehension of the multitude may be always suspected to be visionary and fruitless. He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all.
Our forefathers threw off the yoke of popery in religion: for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion. Are we sufficient for the comprehension of the sublimest spiritual truths, and unequal to material and temporal ones? Heaven hath trusted us with the management of things for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the present, or to know from our feelings the experience that will make us happy. “You can discern,” say they, “objects distant and remote, but cannot perceive those within your grasp. Let us have the distribution of present goods, and cut out and manage as you please the interests of futurity.” This day, I trust the reign of political protestantism will commence. We have explored the temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have bowed down to, has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone. We have this day restored the Sovereign, to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought, and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come.
Having been a slave to the influence of opinions early acquired, and distinctions generally received, I am ever inclined not to despise but pity those who are yet in darkness. But to the eye of reason what can be more clear, than that all men have an equal right to happiness? Nature made no other distinction than that of higher or lower degrees of power of mind and body. But what mysterious distribution of character has the craft of statesmen, more fatal than priestcraft, introduced?
According to their doctrine, the offspring of perhaps the lewd embraces of a successful invader, shall, from generation to generation, arrogate the right of lavishing on their pleasures a proportion of the fruits of the earth, more than sufficient to supply the wants of thousands of their fellow-creatures: claim authority to manage them like beasts of burden, and without superior industry, capacity, or virtue, nay, though disgraceful to humanity by their ignorance, intemperance, and brutality, shall be deemed best calculated to frame laws, and to consult for the welfare of society.
Were the talents and virtues, which Heaven has bestowed on men, given merely to make then more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all? Away then, with those absurd systems, which, to gratify the pride of a few, debase the greatest part of our species below the order of men. What an affront to the King of the universe, to maintain that the happiness of a monster, sunk in debauchery and spreading desolation and murder among men, of a Caligula, a Nero, or a Charles, is more precious in his sight than that of millions of his suppliant creatures, who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God! No! in the judgment of Heaven there is no other superiority among men, than a superiority in wisdom and virtue. And can we have a safer model in forming ours? The Deity then has not given any order or family of men authority over others, and if any men have given it, they only could give it for themselves. Our forefathers, ’tis said, consented to be subject to the laws of Great Britain. I will not, at present, dispute it, nor mark out the limits and conditions of their submission: but will it be denied that they contracted to pay obedience, and to be under the control of Great Britain, because it appeared to them most beneficial in their then present circumstances and situations? We, my countrymen, have the same right to consult and provide for our happiness, which they had to promote theirs. If they had a view to posterity in their contracts, it must have been to advance the felicity of their descendants. If they erred in their expectations and prospects, we can never be condemned for a conduct which they would have recommended had they foreseen our present condition.
Ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives, and religion of millions, depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments: who would send us to antiquated charters, of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honest industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check? Did they contract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect that justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed invaders which have been denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? Were we to hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted: our coasts harassed: our towns demolished and plundered, and our wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger and death, without our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers of self-preservation which God has given us? No man had once a greater veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were dear to me as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same religion and laws; I still view with respect the remains of the constitution as I would a lifeless body which had once been animated by a great and heroic soul. But when I am roused by the din of arms: when I behold legions of foreign assassins, paid by Englishmen to imbrue their hands in our blood: when I tread over the uncoffined bones of my countrymen, neighbors and friends: when I see the locks of a venerable father torn by savage hands, and a feeble mother, clasping her infants to her bosom, and on her knees imploring their lives from her own slaves, whom Englishmen have allured to treachery and murder: when I behold my country, once the seat of industry, peace, and plenty, changed by Englishmen to a theatre of blood and misery, Heaven forgive me, if I cannot root out those passions which it has implanted in my bosom, and detest submission to a people who have either ceased to be human, or have not virtue enough to feel their own wretchedness and servitude.
Men who content themselves with the semblance of truth, and a display of words, talk much of our obligations to Great Britain for protection! Had she a single eye to our advantage? A nation of shopkeepers are very seldom so disinterested. Let us not be so amused with words: the extension of her commerce was her object. When she defended our coasts, she fought for her customers, and convoyed our ships loaded with wealth, which we had acquired for her by our industry. She has treated us as beasts of burden, whom the lordly masters cherish that they may carry a greater load. Let us inquire also against whom she has protected us? Against her own enemies with whom we had no quarrel, or only on her account, and against whom we always readily exerted our wealth and strength when they were required. Were these colonies backward in giving assistance to Great Britain, when they were called upon in 1739, to aid the expedition against Carthagena? They at that time sent three thousand men to join the British army, although the war commenced without their consent. But the last war, ’tis said, was purely American. This is a vulgar error, which, like many others, has gained credit by being confidently repeated. The dispute between the Courts of Great Britain and France related to the limits of Canada and Nova Scotia. The controverted territory was not claimed by any in the colonies, but by the Crown of Great Britain. It was therefore their own quarrel. The infringement of a right which England had, by the treaty of Utrecht, of trading in the Indian country of Ohio, was another cause of the war. The French seized large quantities of British manufactures, and took possession of a fort which a company of British merchants and factors had erected for the security of their commerce. The war was therefore waged in defence of lands claimed by the Crown, and for the protection of British property. The French at that time had no quarrel with America: and, as appears by letters sent from their commander-in-chief, to some of the colonies, wished to remain in peace with us. The part therefore which we then took, and the miseries to which we exposed ourselves, ought to be charged to our affection for Britain. These colonies granted more than their proportion to the support of the war. They raised, clothed, and maintained, nearly twenty-five thousand men, and so sensible were the people of England of our great exertions, that a message was annually sent to the House of Commons purporting: “That His Majesty, being highly satisfied of the zeal and vigor with which his faithful subjects in North America had exerted themselves in defence of His Majesty’s just rights and possessions, recommended it to the House, to take the same into consideration, and enable him to give them a proper compensation.”
But what purpose can arguments of this kind answer? Did the protection we received annul our rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of being miserable?
Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to make your child a slave because you had nourished him in his infancy?
It is a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed: that demands as a reward for a defence of our property, a surrender of those inestimable privileges, to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value to that very property.
Political right and public happiness are different words for the same idea. They who wander into metaphysical labyrinths, or have recourse to original contracts, to determine the rights of men, either impose on themselves or mean to delude others.
Public utility is the only certain criterion. It is a test which brings disputes to a speedy decision, and makes it appeal to the feelings of mankind. The force of truth has obliged men to use arguments drawn from this principle who were combating it, in practice and speculation. The advocates for a despotic government, and non-resistance to the magistrate, employ reasons in favor of their systems drawn from a consideration of their tendency to promote public happiness.
The Author of Nature directs all his operations to the production of the greatest good, and has made human virtue to consist in a disposition and conduct which tend to the common felicity of his creatures. An abridgement of the natural freedom of man, by the institution of political societies, is vindicable only on this foot. How absurd, then, is it to draw argument from the nature of civil society for the annihilation of those very ends which society was intended to procure. Men associate for their mutual advantage. Hence the good and happiness of the members, that is, the majority of the members of any state, is the great standard by which everything relating to that state must finally be determined; and though it may be supposed that a body of people may be bound by a voluntary resignation (which they have been so infatuated as to make) of all their interests to a single person, or to a few, it can never be conceived that the resignation is obligatory to their posterity: because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the whole that it should be so.
These are the sentiments of the wisest and most virtuous champions of freedom. Attend to a portion on this subject from a book in our defence, written, I had almost said by the pen of inspiration. “I lay no stress,” says he, “on charters – they derive their rights from a higher source. It is inconsistent with common-sense to imagine that any people would ever think of settling in a distant country, on any such condition, or that the people from whom they withdrew should forever be masters of their property, and have power to subject them to any modes of government they pleased. And hadthere been express stipulations to this purpose in all the charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, be no more bound by them than if it had been stipulated with them that they should go naked, or expose themselves to the incursions of wolves and tigers.”
Such are the opinions of every virtuous and enlightened patriot in Great Britain. Their petition to Heaven is – “That there may be one free country left upon earth, to which they may fly, when venality, luxury, and vice, shall have completed the ruin of liberty there.”
Courage, then, my countrymen! Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth, for civil and religious liberty? Dismissing therefore the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances?
The doctrine of dependence on Great Britain is, I believe, generally exploded: but as I would attend to the honest weakness of the simplest of men, you will pardon me if I offer a few words on that subject.
We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one common cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances. There are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing Providence in our favor: our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels: so that we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us.
The hand of heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world! For can we ever expect more unanimity and a better preparation for defence: more infatuation of counsel among our enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves? The same force and resistance which are sufficient to procure us our liberties will secure us a glorious independence and support us in the dignity of free, imperial States. We cannot suppose that our opposition has made a corrupt and dissipated nation more friendly to America, or created in them a greater respect for the rights of mankind. we can therefore expect a restoration and establishment of our privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have received from their want of power, from their fears, and not from their virtues. The unanimity and valor, which will effect an honorable peace, can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary. He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he lets him loose without drawing his teeth and paring his nails.
From the day on which an accommodation takes place between England and America, on any other terms than as independent States, I shall date the ruin of this country. A politic minister will study to lull us into security, by granting us the full extent of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue, which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. In a state of tranquillity, wealth and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war, and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our assistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin, and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet remain among us! – remember that a Warren and Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of our countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth? If we 1ove wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude, than the animating contest of freedom – go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
To unite the supremacy of Great Britain and the liberty of America, is utterly impossible. So vast a continent and of such a distance from the seat of empire will every day grow more unmanageable. The motion of so unwieldy a body cannot be directed with any despatch and uniformity, without committing to the Parliament of Great Britain powers inconsistent with our freedom. The authority and force which would be absolutely necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order of this continent, would put all our valuable rights within the reach of that nation.
As the administration of government requires firmer and more numerous supports in proportion to its extent, the burdens imposed on us would be excessive, and we should have the melancholy prospect of their increasing on our posterity. The scale of officers, from the rapacious and needy commissioner, to the haughty governor, and from the governor with his hungry train, to perhaps a licentious and prodigal viceroy, must be upheld by you and your children. The fleets and armies which will be employed to silence your murmurs and complaints must be supported by the fruits of your industry.
And yet, with all this enlargement of the expense and powers of government, the administration of it at such a distance, and over so extensive a territory, must necessarily fail of putting the laws into vigorous execution, removing private oppressions, and forming plans for the advancement of agriculture and commerce, and preserving the vast empire in any tolerable peace and security. If our posterity retain any spark of patriotism, they can never tamely submit to such burdens. This country will be made the field of bloody contention till it gains that independence for which nature formed it. It is therefore injustice and cruelty to our offspring, and would stamp us with the character of baseness and cowardice, to leave the salvation of this country to be worked out by them with accumulated difficulty and danger.
Prejudice, I confess, may warp our judgments. Let us hear the decision of Englishmen on this subject, who cannot be suspected of partiality: “The Americans,” say they, “are but little short of half our number. To this number they have grown from a small body of original settlers by a very rapid increase. The probability is that they will go on to increase, and that in fifty or sixty years they will be double our number: and form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of States, all equal or superior to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which give dignity and happiness to human life. In that period will they be still bound to acknowledge that supremacy over them which we now claim? Can there be any person who will assert this, or whose mind does not revolt at the idea of a vast continent, holding all that is valuable to it, at the discretion of a handful of people on the other side the Atlantic? But if at that period this would be unreasonable, what makes it otherwise now? Draw the line if you can. But there is still a greater difficulty. Britain is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue, and its legislature consists of a body of able and independent men, who govern with wisdom and justice. The time may come when all will be reversed: when its excellent constitution of government will be subverted: when pressed by debts and taxes, it will be greedy to draw to itself an increase of revenue from every distant province, in order to ease its own burdens: when the influence of the Crown, strengthened by luxury and an universal profligacy of manners, will have tainted every heart, broken down every fence of liberty, and rendered us a nation of tame and contented vassals: when a general election will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs, and when the Parliament, the grand council of the nation, and once the faithful guardian of the state, and a terror to evil ministers, will be degenerated into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal, always ready to confirm any measures, and little more than a public court for registering royal edicts. Such, it is possible, may, some time or other, be the state of Great Britain. What will at that period be the duty of the colonies? Will they be still bound to unconditional submission? Must they always continue an appendage to our Government, and follow it implicitly through every change that can happen to it? Wretched condition indeed, of millions of freemen as good as ourselves! Will you say that we now govern equitably, and that there is no danger of such revolution? Would to God that this were true. But will you not always say the same? Who shall judge whether we govern equitably or not? Can you give the colonies any security that such a period will never come?” No! The period, countrymen, is already come. The calamities were at our door. The rod of oppression was raised over us. We were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our posterity. This day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view, only in speculation. This day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever unfolded. Millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defence and common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney! will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyments of that equal liberty, which you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recommending to mankind!
Other nations have received their laws from conquerors: some are indebted for a constitution to the sufferings of their ancestors through revolving centuries. The people of this country, alone, have formally and deliberately chosen a Government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced consent, bound themselves into a social compact. Here, no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name of hereditary authority. He who has most zeal and ability to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public. This is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings, and look boldly in the face of the sun.
Some who would persuade us that they have tender feelings for future generations, while they are insensible to the happiness of the present, are perpetually foreboding a train of dissensions under our popular system. Such men’s reasoning amounts to this – give up all that is valuable to Great Britain, and then you will have no inducements to quarrel among yourselves; or suffer yourselves to be chained down by your enemies, that you may not be able to fight with your friends.
This is an insult on your virtue as well as your common sense. Your unanimity this day and through the course of the war, is a decisive refutation of such invidious predictions. Our enemies have already had evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom, and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent: but fluctuation, contradiction, and inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments where every revolution in the ministry of a court produces one in the state. Such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they ever pursue measures directly opposite to those of their predecessors.
We shall neither be exposed to the necessary convulsions of elective monarchies, nor to the want of wisdom, fortitude, and virtue, to which hereditary succession is liable. In your hands it will be to perpetuate a prudent, active and just legislature, and which will never expire until you yourselves lose the virtues which give it existence.
And, brethren and fellow-countrymen, if it was ever granted to mortals to trace the designs of Providence, and interpret its manifestations in favor of their cause, we may, with humility of soul, cry out, Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy name be the praise. The confusion of the devices among our enemies, and the rage of the elements against them, have done almost as much towards our success as either our councils or our arms.
The time at which this attempt on our liberties was made, when we were ripened into maturity, had acquired a knowledge of war, and were free from the incursions of enemies in this country, the gradual advances of our oppressors enabling us to prepare for our defence, the unusual fertility of our lands and clemency of the seasons, the success which at first attended our feeble arms, producing unanimity among our friends and reducing our internal foes to acquiescence – these are all strong and palpable marks and assurances, that Providence is yet gracious unto Zion, that it will turn away the captivity of Jacob.
Our glorious reformers when they broke through the fetters of superstition, effected more than could be expected from an age so darkened. But they left much to be done by their posterity. They lopped off, indeed, some of the branches of popery, but they left the root and stock when they left us under the domination of human systems and decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attributed to Revelation alone. They dethroned one usurper only to raise up another: they refused allegiance to the Pope, only to place the civil magistrate in the throne of Christ, vested with authority to enact laws, and inflict penalties in his kingdom. And if we now cast our eyes over the nations of the earth we shall find, that instead of possessing the pure religion of the gospel, they may be divided either into infidels who deny the truth, or politicians who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition, or professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the oracles of truth.
The civil magistrate has everywhere contaminated religion by making it an engine of policy: and freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum. Let us cherish the noble guests, and shelter them under the wings of an universal toleration. Be this the seat of unbounded religious freedom. She will bring with her in her train, industry, wisdom, and commerce. She thrives most when left to shoot forth in her natural luxuriance, and asks from human policy, only not to be checked in her growth by artificial encouragements.
Thus by the beneficence of Providence, we shall behold our empire arising, founded on justice and the voluntary consent of the people, and giving full scope to the exercise of those faculties and rights which most ennoble our species. Besides the advantages of liberty and the most equal constitution, heaven has given us a country with every variety of climate and soil, pouring forth in abundance whatever is necessary for the support, comfort, and strength of a nation. Within our own borders we possess all the means of sustenance, defence, and commerce; at the same time, these advantages are so distributed among the different States of this continent, as if nature had in view to proclaim to us – Be united among yourselves, and you will want nothing from the rest of the world.
The more northern States most amply supply us with every necessary, and many of the luxuries of life – with iron, timber, and masts for ships of commerce or of war: with flax for the manufacture of linen, and seed either for oil or exportation.
So abundant are our harvests, that almost every part raises more than double the quantity of grain requisite for the support of the inhabitants. From Georgia and the Carolinas, we have, as well for our own wants as for the purpose of supplying the wants of other powers, indigo, rice, hemp, naval stores, and lumber.
Virginia and Maryland teem with wheat, Indian corn, and tobacco. Every nation whose harvest is precarious, or whose lands yield not those commodities, which we cultivate, will gladly exchange their superfluities and manufactures for ours.
We have already received many and large cargoes of clothing, military stores, etc., from our commerce with foreign powers, and in spite of the efforts of the boasted navy of England, we shall continue to profit by this connection.
The want of our naval stores has already increased the price of these articles to a great height, especially in Britain. Without our lumber, it will be impossible for those haughty islanders to convey the products of the West Indies to their own ports – for a while they may with difficulty effect it, but without our assistance, their resources soon must fail. Indeed, the West India Islands appear as the necessary appendages to this our empire. They must owe their support to it, and ere long, I doubt not, some of them will from necessity wish to enjoy the benefit of our protection.
These natural advantages will enable us to remain independent of the world, or make it the interest of European powers to court our alliance, and aid in protecting us against the invasions of others. What argument therefore do we want, to show the equity of our conduct: or motive of interest to recommend it to our prudence? Nature points out the path, and our enemies have obliged us to pursue it.
If there is any man so base or so weak as to prefer a dependence on Great Britain to the dignity and happiness of living a member of a free and independent nation – let me tell him that necessity now demands what the generous principle of patriotism should have dictated.
We have now no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career; whilst the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven – “Will you permit our posterity to groan under the galling chains of our murderers? Has our blood been expended in vain? Is the only reward which our constancy, till death, has obtained for our country, that it should be sunk into a deeper and more ignominious vassalage? Recollect who are the men that demand your submission; to whose decrees you are invited to pay obedience! Men who, unmindful of their relation to you as brethren, of your long implicit submission to their laws; of the sacrifice which you and your forefathers made of your natural advantages for commerce to their avarice – formed a deliberate plan to wrest from you the small pittance of property which they had permitted you to acquire. Remember that the men who wish to rule over you, are they who, in pursuit of this plan of despotism, annulled the sacred contracts which had been made with your ancestors: conveyed into your cities a mercenary soldiery to compel you to submission by insult and murder – who called your patience, cowardice; your piety, hypocrisy.”
Countrymen! the men who now invite you to surrender your rights into their hands, are the men who have let loose the merciless savages to riot in the blood of their brethren – who have dared to establish popery triumphant in our land – who have taught treachery to your slaves, and courted them to assassinate your wives and children.
These are the men to whom we are exhorted to sacrifice the blessings which Providence holds out to us – the happiness, the dignity of uncontrolled freedom and independence.
Let not your generous indignation be directed against any among us, who may advise so absurd and maddening a measure. Their number is but few and daily decreases; and the spirit which can render them patient of slavery will render them contemptible enemies.
Our Union is now complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties. We may justly address you, as the Decemviri did the Romans, and say – “Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends.”
You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies, and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom – they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords, can look up to heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to heaven, for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul, than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and Montgomery – it is – that these American States may never cease to be free and independent!
Our forefathers threw off the yoke of popery in religion: for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion. Are we sufficient for the comprehension of the sublimest spiritual truths, and unequal to material and temporal ones? Heaven hath trusted us with the management of things for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the present, or to know from our feelings the experience that will make us happy. “You can discern,” say they, “objects distant and remote, but cannot perceive those within your grasp. Let us have the distribution of present goods, and cut out and manage as you please the interests of futurity.” This day, I trust the reign of political protestantism will commence. We have explored the temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have bowed down to, has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone. We have this day restored the Sovereign, to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought, and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come.
Having been a slave to the influence of opinions early acquired, and distinctions generally received, I am ever inclined not to despise but pity those who are yet in darkness. But to the eye of reason what can be more clear, than that all men have an equal right to happiness? Nature made no other distinction than that of higher or lower degrees of power of mind and body. But what mysterious distribution of character has the craft of statesmen, more fatal than priestcraft, introduced?
According to their doctrine, the offspring of perhaps the lewd embraces of a successful invader, shall, from generation to generation, arrogate the right of lavishing on their pleasures a proportion of the fruits of the earth, more than sufficient to supply the wants of thousands of their fellow-creatures: claim authority to manage them like beasts of burden, and without superior industry, capacity, or virtue, nay, though disgraceful to humanity by their ignorance, intemperance, and brutality, shall be deemed best calculated to frame laws, and to consult for the welfare of society.
Were the talents and virtues, which Heaven has bestowed on men, given merely to make then more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all? Away then, with those absurd systems, which, to gratify the pride of a few, debase the greatest part of our species below the order of men. What an affront to the King of the universe, to maintain that the happiness of a monster, sunk in debauchery and spreading desolation and murder among men, of a Caligula, a Nero, or a Charles, is more precious in his sight than that of millions of his suppliant creatures, who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God! No! in the judgment of Heaven there is no other superiority among men, than a superiority in wisdom and virtue. And can we have a safer model in forming ours? The Deity then has not given any order or family of men authority over others, and if any men have given it, they only could give it for themselves. Our forefathers, ’tis said, consented to be subject to the laws of Great Britain. I will not, at present, dispute it, nor mark out the limits and conditions of their submission: but will it be denied that they contracted to pay obedience, and to be under the control of Great Britain, because it appeared to them most beneficial in their then present circumstances and situations? We, my countrymen, have the same right to consult and provide for our happiness, which they had to promote theirs. If they had a view to posterity in their contracts, it must have been to advance the felicity of their descendants. If they erred in their expectations and prospects, we can never be condemned for a conduct which they would have recommended had they foreseen our present condition.
Ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives, and religion of millions, depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments: who would send us to antiquated charters, of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honest industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check? Did they contract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect that justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed invaders which have been denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? Were we to hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted: our coasts harassed: our towns demolished and plundered, and our wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger and death, without our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers of self-preservation which God has given us? No man had once a greater veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were dear to me as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same religion and laws; I still view with respect the remains of the constitution as I would a lifeless body which had once been animated by a great and heroic soul. But when I am roused by the din of arms: when I behold legions of foreign assassins, paid by Englishmen to imbrue their hands in our blood: when I tread over the uncoffined bones of my countrymen, neighbors and friends: when I see the locks of a venerable father torn by savage hands, and a feeble mother, clasping her infants to her bosom, and on her knees imploring their lives from her own slaves, whom Englishmen have allured to treachery and murder: when I behold my country, once the seat of industry, peace, and plenty, changed by Englishmen to a theatre of blood and misery, Heaven forgive me, if I cannot root out those passions which it has implanted in my bosom, and detest submission to a people who have either ceased to be human, or have not virtue enough to feel their own wretchedness and servitude.
Men who content themselves with the semblance of truth, and a display of words, talk much of our obligations to Great Britain for protection! Had she a single eye to our advantage? A nation of shopkeepers are very seldom so disinterested. Let us not be so amused with words: the extension of her commerce was her object. When she defended our coasts, she fought for her customers, and convoyed our ships loaded with wealth, which we had acquired for her by our industry. She has treated us as beasts of burden, whom the lordly masters cherish that they may carry a greater load. Let us inquire also against whom she has protected us? Against her own enemies with whom we had no quarrel, or only on her account, and against whom we always readily exerted our wealth and strength when they were required. Were these colonies backward in giving assistance to Great Britain, when they were called upon in 1739, to aid the expedition against Carthagena? They at that time sent three thousand men to join the British army, although the war commenced without their consent. But the last war, ’tis said, was purely American. This is a vulgar error, which, like many others, has gained credit by being confidently repeated. The dispute between the Courts of Great Britain and France related to the limits of Canada and Nova Scotia. The controverted territory was not claimed by any in the colonies, but by the Crown of Great Britain. It was therefore their own quarrel. The infringement of a right which England had, by the treaty of Utrecht, of trading in the Indian country of Ohio, was another cause of the war. The French seized large quantities of British manufactures, and took possession of a fort which a company of British merchants and factors had erected for the security of their commerce. The war was therefore waged in defence of lands claimed by the Crown, and for the protection of British property. The French at that time had no quarrel with America: and, as appears by letters sent from their commander-in-chief, to some of the colonies, wished to remain in peace with us. The part therefore which we then took, and the miseries to which we exposed ourselves, ought to be charged to our affection for Britain. These colonies granted more than their proportion to the support of the war. They raised, clothed, and maintained, nearly twenty-five thousand men, and so sensible were the people of England of our great exertions, that a message was annually sent to the House of Commons purporting: “That His Majesty, being highly satisfied of the zeal and vigor with which his faithful subjects in North America had exerted themselves in defence of His Majesty’s just rights and possessions, recommended it to the House, to take the same into consideration, and enable him to give them a proper compensation.”
But what purpose can arguments of this kind answer? Did the protection we received annul our rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of being miserable?
Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to make your child a slave because you had nourished him in his infancy?
It is a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed: that demands as a reward for a defence of our property, a surrender of those inestimable privileges, to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value to that very property.
Political right and public happiness are different words for the same idea. They who wander into metaphysical labyrinths, or have recourse to original contracts, to determine the rights of men, either impose on themselves or mean to delude others.
Public utility is the only certain criterion. It is a test which brings disputes to a speedy decision, and makes it appeal to the feelings of mankind. The force of truth has obliged men to use arguments drawn from this principle who were combating it, in practice and speculation. The advocates for a despotic government, and non-resistance to the magistrate, employ reasons in favor of their systems drawn from a consideration of their tendency to promote public happiness.
The Author of Nature directs all his operations to the production of the greatest good, and has made human virtue to consist in a disposition and conduct which tend to the common felicity of his creatures. An abridgement of the natural freedom of man, by the institution of political societies, is vindicable only on this foot. How absurd, then, is it to draw argument from the nature of civil society for the annihilation of those very ends which society was intended to procure. Men associate for their mutual advantage. Hence the good and happiness of the members, that is, the majority of the members of any state, is the great standard by which everything relating to that state must finally be determined; and though it may be supposed that a body of people may be bound by a voluntary resignation (which they have been so infatuated as to make) of all their interests to a single person, or to a few, it can never be conceived that the resignation is obligatory to their posterity: because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the whole that it should be so.
These are the sentiments of the wisest and most virtuous champions of freedom. Attend to a portion on this subject from a book in our defence, written, I had almost said by the pen of inspiration. “I lay no stress,” says he, “on charters – they derive their rights from a higher source. It is inconsistent with common-sense to imagine that any people would ever think of settling in a distant country, on any such condition, or that the people from whom they withdrew should forever be masters of their property, and have power to subject them to any modes of government they pleased. And hadthere been express stipulations to this purpose in all the charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, be no more bound by them than if it had been stipulated with them that they should go naked, or expose themselves to the incursions of wolves and tigers.”
Such are the opinions of every virtuous and enlightened patriot in Great Britain. Their petition to Heaven is – “That there may be one free country left upon earth, to which they may fly, when venality, luxury, and vice, shall have completed the ruin of liberty there.”
Courage, then, my countrymen! Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth, for civil and religious liberty? Dismissing therefore the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances?
The doctrine of dependence on Great Britain is, I believe, generally exploded: but as I would attend to the honest weakness of the simplest of men, you will pardon me if I offer a few words on that subject.
We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one common cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances. There are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing Providence in our favor: our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels: so that we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us.
The hand of heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world! For can we ever expect more unanimity and a better preparation for defence: more infatuation of counsel among our enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves? The same force and resistance which are sufficient to procure us our liberties will secure us a glorious independence and support us in the dignity of free, imperial States. We cannot suppose that our opposition has made a corrupt and dissipated nation more friendly to America, or created in them a greater respect for the rights of mankind. we can therefore expect a restoration and establishment of our privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have received from their want of power, from their fears, and not from their virtues. The unanimity and valor, which will effect an honorable peace, can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary. He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he lets him loose without drawing his teeth and paring his nails.
From the day on which an accommodation takes place between England and America, on any other terms than as independent States, I shall date the ruin of this country. A politic minister will study to lull us into security, by granting us the full extent of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue, which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. In a state of tranquillity, wealth and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war, and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our assistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin, and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet remain among us! – remember that a Warren and Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of our countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth? If we 1ove wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude, than the animating contest of freedom – go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
To unite the supremacy of Great Britain and the liberty of America, is utterly impossible. So vast a continent and of such a distance from the seat of empire will every day grow more unmanageable. The motion of so unwieldy a body cannot be directed with any despatch and uniformity, without committing to the Parliament of Great Britain powers inconsistent with our freedom. The authority and force which would be absolutely necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order of this continent, would put all our valuable rights within the reach of that nation.
As the administration of government requires firmer and more numerous supports in proportion to its extent, the burdens imposed on us would be excessive, and we should have the melancholy prospect of their increasing on our posterity. The scale of officers, from the rapacious and needy commissioner, to the haughty governor, and from the governor with his hungry train, to perhaps a licentious and prodigal viceroy, must be upheld by you and your children. The fleets and armies which will be employed to silence your murmurs and complaints must be supported by the fruits of your industry.
And yet, with all this enlargement of the expense and powers of government, the administration of it at such a distance, and over so extensive a territory, must necessarily fail of putting the laws into vigorous execution, removing private oppressions, and forming plans for the advancement of agriculture and commerce, and preserving the vast empire in any tolerable peace and security. If our posterity retain any spark of patriotism, they can never tamely submit to such burdens. This country will be made the field of bloody contention till it gains that independence for which nature formed it. It is therefore injustice and cruelty to our offspring, and would stamp us with the character of baseness and cowardice, to leave the salvation of this country to be worked out by them with accumulated difficulty and danger.
Prejudice, I confess, may warp our judgments. Let us hear the decision of Englishmen on this subject, who cannot be suspected of partiality: “The Americans,” say they, “are but little short of half our number. To this number they have grown from a small body of original settlers by a very rapid increase. The probability is that they will go on to increase, and that in fifty or sixty years they will be double our number: and form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of States, all equal or superior to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which give dignity and happiness to human life. In that period will they be still bound to acknowledge that supremacy over them which we now claim? Can there be any person who will assert this, or whose mind does not revolt at the idea of a vast continent, holding all that is valuable to it, at the discretion of a handful of people on the other side the Atlantic? But if at that period this would be unreasonable, what makes it otherwise now? Draw the line if you can. But there is still a greater difficulty. Britain is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue, and its legislature consists of a body of able and independent men, who govern with wisdom and justice. The time may come when all will be reversed: when its excellent constitution of government will be subverted: when pressed by debts and taxes, it will be greedy to draw to itself an increase of revenue from every distant province, in order to ease its own burdens: when the influence of the Crown, strengthened by luxury and an universal profligacy of manners, will have tainted every heart, broken down every fence of liberty, and rendered us a nation of tame and contented vassals: when a general election will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs, and when the Parliament, the grand council of the nation, and once the faithful guardian of the state, and a terror to evil ministers, will be degenerated into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal, always ready to confirm any measures, and little more than a public court for registering royal edicts. Such, it is possible, may, some time or other, be the state of Great Britain. What will at that period be the duty of the colonies? Will they be still bound to unconditional submission? Must they always continue an appendage to our Government, and follow it implicitly through every change that can happen to it? Wretched condition indeed, of millions of freemen as good as ourselves! Will you say that we now govern equitably, and that there is no danger of such revolution? Would to God that this were true. But will you not always say the same? Who shall judge whether we govern equitably or not? Can you give the colonies any security that such a period will never come?” No! The period, countrymen, is already come. The calamities were at our door. The rod of oppression was raised over us. We were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our posterity. This day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view, only in speculation. This day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever unfolded. Millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defence and common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney! will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyments of that equal liberty, which you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recommending to mankind!
Other nations have received their laws from conquerors: some are indebted for a constitution to the sufferings of their ancestors through revolving centuries. The people of this country, alone, have formally and deliberately chosen a Government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced consent, bound themselves into a social compact. Here, no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name of hereditary authority. He who has most zeal and ability to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public. This is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings, and look boldly in the face of the sun.
Some who would persuade us that they have tender feelings for future generations, while they are insensible to the happiness of the present, are perpetually foreboding a train of dissensions under our popular system. Such men’s reasoning amounts to this – give up all that is valuable to Great Britain, and then you will have no inducements to quarrel among yourselves; or suffer yourselves to be chained down by your enemies, that you may not be able to fight with your friends.
This is an insult on your virtue as well as your common sense. Your unanimity this day and through the course of the war, is a decisive refutation of such invidious predictions. Our enemies have already had evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom, and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent: but fluctuation, contradiction, and inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments where every revolution in the ministry of a court produces one in the state. Such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they ever pursue measures directly opposite to those of their predecessors.
We shall neither be exposed to the necessary convulsions of elective monarchies, nor to the want of wisdom, fortitude, and virtue, to which hereditary succession is liable. In your hands it will be to perpetuate a prudent, active and just legislature, and which will never expire until you yourselves lose the virtues which give it existence.
And, brethren and fellow-countrymen, if it was ever granted to mortals to trace the designs of Providence, and interpret its manifestations in favor of their cause, we may, with humility of soul, cry out, Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy name be the praise. The confusion of the devices among our enemies, and the rage of the elements against them, have done almost as much towards our success as either our councils or our arms.
The time at which this attempt on our liberties was made, when we were ripened into maturity, had acquired a knowledge of war, and were free from the incursions of enemies in this country, the gradual advances of our oppressors enabling us to prepare for our defence, the unusual fertility of our lands and clemency of the seasons, the success which at first attended our feeble arms, producing unanimity among our friends and reducing our internal foes to acquiescence – these are all strong and palpable marks and assurances, that Providence is yet gracious unto Zion, that it will turn away the captivity of Jacob.
Our glorious reformers when they broke through the fetters of superstition, effected more than could be expected from an age so darkened. But they left much to be done by their posterity. They lopped off, indeed, some of the branches of popery, but they left the root and stock when they left us under the domination of human systems and decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attributed to Revelation alone. They dethroned one usurper only to raise up another: they refused allegiance to the Pope, only to place the civil magistrate in the throne of Christ, vested with authority to enact laws, and inflict penalties in his kingdom. And if we now cast our eyes over the nations of the earth we shall find, that instead of possessing the pure religion of the gospel, they may be divided either into infidels who deny the truth, or politicians who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition, or professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the oracles of truth.
The civil magistrate has everywhere contaminated religion by making it an engine of policy: and freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum. Let us cherish the noble guests, and shelter them under the wings of an universal toleration. Be this the seat of unbounded religious freedom. She will bring with her in her train, industry, wisdom, and commerce. She thrives most when left to shoot forth in her natural luxuriance, and asks from human policy, only not to be checked in her growth by artificial encouragements.
Thus by the beneficence of Providence, we shall behold our empire arising, founded on justice and the voluntary consent of the people, and giving full scope to the exercise of those faculties and rights which most ennoble our species. Besides the advantages of liberty and the most equal constitution, heaven has given us a country with every variety of climate and soil, pouring forth in abundance whatever is necessary for the support, comfort, and strength of a nation. Within our own borders we possess all the means of sustenance, defence, and commerce; at the same time, these advantages are so distributed among the different States of this continent, as if nature had in view to proclaim to us – Be united among yourselves, and you will want nothing from the rest of the world.
The more northern States most amply supply us with every necessary, and many of the luxuries of life – with iron, timber, and masts for ships of commerce or of war: with flax for the manufacture of linen, and seed either for oil or exportation.
So abundant are our harvests, that almost every part raises more than double the quantity of grain requisite for the support of the inhabitants. From Georgia and the Carolinas, we have, as well for our own wants as for the purpose of supplying the wants of other powers, indigo, rice, hemp, naval stores, and lumber.
Virginia and Maryland teem with wheat, Indian corn, and tobacco. Every nation whose harvest is precarious, or whose lands yield not those commodities, which we cultivate, will gladly exchange their superfluities and manufactures for ours.
We have already received many and large cargoes of clothing, military stores, etc., from our commerce with foreign powers, and in spite of the efforts of the boasted navy of England, we shall continue to profit by this connection.
The want of our naval stores has already increased the price of these articles to a great height, especially in Britain. Without our lumber, it will be impossible for those haughty islanders to convey the products of the West Indies to their own ports – for a while they may with difficulty effect it, but without our assistance, their resources soon must fail. Indeed, the West India Islands appear as the necessary appendages to this our empire. They must owe their support to it, and ere long, I doubt not, some of them will from necessity wish to enjoy the benefit of our protection.
These natural advantages will enable us to remain independent of the world, or make it the interest of European powers to court our alliance, and aid in protecting us against the invasions of others. What argument therefore do we want, to show the equity of our conduct: or motive of interest to recommend it to our prudence? Nature points out the path, and our enemies have obliged us to pursue it.
If there is any man so base or so weak as to prefer a dependence on Great Britain to the dignity and happiness of living a member of a free and independent nation – let me tell him that necessity now demands what the generous principle of patriotism should have dictated.
We have now no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career; whilst the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven – “Will you permit our posterity to groan under the galling chains of our murderers? Has our blood been expended in vain? Is the only reward which our constancy, till death, has obtained for our country, that it should be sunk into a deeper and more ignominious vassalage? Recollect who are the men that demand your submission; to whose decrees you are invited to pay obedience! Men who, unmindful of their relation to you as brethren, of your long implicit submission to their laws; of the sacrifice which you and your forefathers made of your natural advantages for commerce to their avarice – formed a deliberate plan to wrest from you the small pittance of property which they had permitted you to acquire. Remember that the men who wish to rule over you, are they who, in pursuit of this plan of despotism, annulled the sacred contracts which had been made with your ancestors: conveyed into your cities a mercenary soldiery to compel you to submission by insult and murder – who called your patience, cowardice; your piety, hypocrisy.”
Countrymen! the men who now invite you to surrender your rights into their hands, are the men who have let loose the merciless savages to riot in the blood of their brethren – who have dared to establish popery triumphant in our land – who have taught treachery to your slaves, and courted them to assassinate your wives and children.
These are the men to whom we are exhorted to sacrifice the blessings which Providence holds out to us – the happiness, the dignity of uncontrolled freedom and independence.
Let not your generous indignation be directed against any among us, who may advise so absurd and maddening a measure. Their number is but few and daily decreases; and the spirit which can render them patient of slavery will render them contemptible enemies.
Our Union is now complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties. We may justly address you, as the Decemviri did the Romans, and say – “Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends.”
You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies, and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom – they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords, can look up to heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to heaven, for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul, than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and Montgomery – it is – that these American States may never cease to be free and independent!
226 Years Ago .....
Secrecy and States' Rights: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 Begins
5/29/13 Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. The New American
On Tuesday, May 29, 1787, two very important delegates arrived in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention: John Dickinson of Delaware and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.
With the arrival of these two eminent representatives, the necessary quorum of seven states was present in the State House and a very critical and controversial rule was soon to be enacted: the Secrecy Rule.
Two days before the rule was adopted, George Mason of Virginia wrote his son, saying:
It is expected our doors will be shut, and communications upon the business of the Convention be forbidden during its sitting. This, I think, myself, a proper precaution to prevent mistakes and misrepresentation until the business shall have been completed, when the whole may have a very different complexion from that in which the several crude and indigested parts might, in their first shape, appear if submitted to the public eye.
James Madison, the young, slight, sickly, and superbly prepared delegate from Virginia, sounded a very similar tone in a letter to his friend and neighbor — Thomas Jefferson. After voting in favor of the Secrecy Rule, Madison wrote, “It was thought expedient, in order to secure unbiased discussion within doors and to prevent misconceptions and misconstructions without, to establish some rules of caution, which will for no short time restrain even a confidential communication of our proceeding.”
Jefferson, living in Paris, was not persuaded as to the propriety of the gag order, however. In a letter to John Adams in London, Jefferson decried the rule, saying, “I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying of the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions.”
Others were similarly disposed regarding the Secrecy Rule. Regardless, the requirement of keeping mum was imposed on the delegates and even newspapers of the time commented on the hush-hush historic happenings occurring inside the State House.
An opinion piece published in several newspapers around the country expressed the vexation of the press at being kept in the dark during the summer of 1787. It read:
Such circumspection and secrecy mark the proceedings … that the members find it difficult to acquire the habits of communication even among themselves, and are so cautious in defeating the curiosity of the public that all debate is suspended on the entrance of their own officers. The anxiety of the people must be necessarily increased by every appearance of mystery in conducting this important business.
How strictly was the Secrecy Rule enforced? Consider this anecdote from William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, as evidence:
Early in the sessions, one of the delegates dropped a copy of the propositions which were before the Convention for consideration, and it was picked up by another of the delegates and handed to General Washington. After the debates of the day were over, just before putting the question of adjournment, Washington arose from his seat and reprimanded the member for his carelessness. "I must entreat gentlemen to be more careful, lest our transactions get into the newspapers, and disturb the public repose by premature speculations. I know not whose paper it is, but there it is (throwing it down on the table), let him who owns it take it." At the same time, he bowed, picked up his hat, and quitted the room with a dignity so severe that every person seemed alarmed…. It is something remarkable that no person ever owned the paper.
That doesn’t seem remarkable at all! As others could attest (I’m looking at you, Gouveneur Morris), there is no rebuke quite as severe as a George Washington rebuke.
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and others were likewise convinced that permitting the public to participate or even comment on the deliberations would have “prevented any satisfactory result,” to use Hamilton’s words.
We’ll never know.
We do know, however, that the Secrecy Rule was invoked and, for the most part, followed from May to September, 1787 as the rough plan for a new government was refined by the delegates from 12 of the 13 states gathered in Philadelphia.
Thirty-three years old and already governor of the Old Dominion, standing nearly six feet tall and possessed of a magnetic air of aristocracy and erudition, Virginia’s Edmund Randolph rose and, in the words of James Madison, “opened the main business.”
After spending the previous day hammering out the rules (“this was an age of formal manners,” observed Catherine Drinker Bowen), the delegates were ready to hit the ground running, revising — they thought — the Articles of Confederation.
Randolph and his Virginia colleagues had another idea, however. In consultations at the Indian Queen pub held prior to the opening of the “main business,” Randolph and his fellow Virginia delegates received from James Madison a draft of a plan of a federal government (the Virginia Plan) that scrapped the Articles altogether, replacing it with Madison’s vision.
Within the 15 resolutions of the Virginia Plan, a new national government was proposed. A government of three branches — legislative, executive, and judicial — was laid out. The legislative branch would be bicameral, with an upper and lower body.
Although Hollywood has portrayed the reaction of the representatives at the convention as one of shock, the reality as reported by Madison and Robert Yates of New York was much more sangfroid.
In his chronicle of the convention, Yates adds one detail that Madison omits. According to Yates, Edmund Randolph made no secret of his intent (and by extension, the intent of James Madison) to see the Articles of Confederation supplanted by a new, more robust, national government.
Yates quotes Randolph admitting that the resolves of the Virginia Plan “were not intended for a federal government — he meant a strong consolidated union, in which the idea of states would be nearly annihilated.”
Despite Yates’ flair for the dramatic, it is all but certain that Randolph neither made that comment nor did he or any of his fellow Virginians desire such a destruction of the states.
The aforementioned recipient of Washington’s wrath — Gouveneur Morris of Pennsylvania — wrote a letter evincing the prevailing preoccupation of repairing of the union without throwing the baby of state sovereignty out with the dirty bathwater of weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Morris wrote that the dilemma facing the convention was “how to arrange a National system of Government of sufficient strength to operate in despite of State opposition, and yet not strong enough to break down State authority.”
Over the next three and half months, the 55 (or fewer, on any given day) men gathered at the State House in Philadelphia would confront that very issue over and over again.
There were among them those with more nationalist tendencies (Alexander Hamilton) and those who would have preferred a less dynamic union (George Mason). This difference would define the convention day in and day out as the various “resolves” of the Virginia Plan were debated.
It is impossible to know what final form the Constitution would have taken — if any — had the press and the public been given access or information. History is not typically kind to secrets, particularly the kind that create new governments.
Our own experiment with self-government and federalism continues and ironically, the government established by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 too often envelops itself in a similar shroud of secrecy, worn to mask its efforts to dismantle the very freedoms protected by the product of that historic convention.
Over the next few months, a series of articles in The New American will chronicle the clashes and compromises that seeded the soil from whence grew the very tree of a federal government that now bears such poisonous fruit.
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com
On Tuesday, May 29, 1787, two very important delegates arrived in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention: John Dickinson of Delaware and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.
With the arrival of these two eminent representatives, the necessary quorum of seven states was present in the State House and a very critical and controversial rule was soon to be enacted: the Secrecy Rule.
Two days before the rule was adopted, George Mason of Virginia wrote his son, saying:
It is expected our doors will be shut, and communications upon the business of the Convention be forbidden during its sitting. This, I think, myself, a proper precaution to prevent mistakes and misrepresentation until the business shall have been completed, when the whole may have a very different complexion from that in which the several crude and indigested parts might, in their first shape, appear if submitted to the public eye.
James Madison, the young, slight, sickly, and superbly prepared delegate from Virginia, sounded a very similar tone in a letter to his friend and neighbor — Thomas Jefferson. After voting in favor of the Secrecy Rule, Madison wrote, “It was thought expedient, in order to secure unbiased discussion within doors and to prevent misconceptions and misconstructions without, to establish some rules of caution, which will for no short time restrain even a confidential communication of our proceeding.”
Jefferson, living in Paris, was not persuaded as to the propriety of the gag order, however. In a letter to John Adams in London, Jefferson decried the rule, saying, “I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying of the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions.”
Others were similarly disposed regarding the Secrecy Rule. Regardless, the requirement of keeping mum was imposed on the delegates and even newspapers of the time commented on the hush-hush historic happenings occurring inside the State House.
An opinion piece published in several newspapers around the country expressed the vexation of the press at being kept in the dark during the summer of 1787. It read:
Such circumspection and secrecy mark the proceedings … that the members find it difficult to acquire the habits of communication even among themselves, and are so cautious in defeating the curiosity of the public that all debate is suspended on the entrance of their own officers. The anxiety of the people must be necessarily increased by every appearance of mystery in conducting this important business.
How strictly was the Secrecy Rule enforced? Consider this anecdote from William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, as evidence:
Early in the sessions, one of the delegates dropped a copy of the propositions which were before the Convention for consideration, and it was picked up by another of the delegates and handed to General Washington. After the debates of the day were over, just before putting the question of adjournment, Washington arose from his seat and reprimanded the member for his carelessness. "I must entreat gentlemen to be more careful, lest our transactions get into the newspapers, and disturb the public repose by premature speculations. I know not whose paper it is, but there it is (throwing it down on the table), let him who owns it take it." At the same time, he bowed, picked up his hat, and quitted the room with a dignity so severe that every person seemed alarmed…. It is something remarkable that no person ever owned the paper.
That doesn’t seem remarkable at all! As others could attest (I’m looking at you, Gouveneur Morris), there is no rebuke quite as severe as a George Washington rebuke.
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and others were likewise convinced that permitting the public to participate or even comment on the deliberations would have “prevented any satisfactory result,” to use Hamilton’s words.
We’ll never know.
We do know, however, that the Secrecy Rule was invoked and, for the most part, followed from May to September, 1787 as the rough plan for a new government was refined by the delegates from 12 of the 13 states gathered in Philadelphia.
Thirty-three years old and already governor of the Old Dominion, standing nearly six feet tall and possessed of a magnetic air of aristocracy and erudition, Virginia’s Edmund Randolph rose and, in the words of James Madison, “opened the main business.”
After spending the previous day hammering out the rules (“this was an age of formal manners,” observed Catherine Drinker Bowen), the delegates were ready to hit the ground running, revising — they thought — the Articles of Confederation.
Randolph and his Virginia colleagues had another idea, however. In consultations at the Indian Queen pub held prior to the opening of the “main business,” Randolph and his fellow Virginia delegates received from James Madison a draft of a plan of a federal government (the Virginia Plan) that scrapped the Articles altogether, replacing it with Madison’s vision.
Within the 15 resolutions of the Virginia Plan, a new national government was proposed. A government of three branches — legislative, executive, and judicial — was laid out. The legislative branch would be bicameral, with an upper and lower body.
Although Hollywood has portrayed the reaction of the representatives at the convention as one of shock, the reality as reported by Madison and Robert Yates of New York was much more sangfroid.
In his chronicle of the convention, Yates adds one detail that Madison omits. According to Yates, Edmund Randolph made no secret of his intent (and by extension, the intent of James Madison) to see the Articles of Confederation supplanted by a new, more robust, national government.
Yates quotes Randolph admitting that the resolves of the Virginia Plan “were not intended for a federal government — he meant a strong consolidated union, in which the idea of states would be nearly annihilated.”
Despite Yates’ flair for the dramatic, it is all but certain that Randolph neither made that comment nor did he or any of his fellow Virginians desire such a destruction of the states.
The aforementioned recipient of Washington’s wrath — Gouveneur Morris of Pennsylvania — wrote a letter evincing the prevailing preoccupation of repairing of the union without throwing the baby of state sovereignty out with the dirty bathwater of weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Morris wrote that the dilemma facing the convention was “how to arrange a National system of Government of sufficient strength to operate in despite of State opposition, and yet not strong enough to break down State authority.”
Over the next three and half months, the 55 (or fewer, on any given day) men gathered at the State House in Philadelphia would confront that very issue over and over again.
There were among them those with more nationalist tendencies (Alexander Hamilton) and those who would have preferred a less dynamic union (George Mason). This difference would define the convention day in and day out as the various “resolves” of the Virginia Plan were debated.
It is impossible to know what final form the Constitution would have taken — if any — had the press and the public been given access or information. History is not typically kind to secrets, particularly the kind that create new governments.
Our own experiment with self-government and federalism continues and ironically, the government established by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 too often envelops itself in a similar shroud of secrecy, worn to mask its efforts to dismantle the very freedoms protected by the product of that historic convention.
Over the next few months, a series of articles in The New American will chronicle the clashes and compromises that seeded the soil from whence grew the very tree of a federal government that now bears such poisonous fruit.
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com
How the 16th and 17th Amendments Ushered the Era of Big Government
Two things were required to create a huge, centralized federal government. First was the need to fund a massive administration. Secondly, there needed to be the political will to usurp power from both the citizenry and the states. With the passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments, the big government progressives got their wish.
Most people know that the 16th Amendment grants Congress the power to collect taxes on income. Prior to this, the federal government primarily relied on excise taxes (such as import/export tariffs) for funding. The revenue generated by the income tax provided the fuel needed to begin the era of big government. Through most of the 19th century (save for a temporary spike during the Civil War), federal spending hovered around 2% of the GDP; today, we have passed the 24% mark.
However, the fuel for federal spending would have meant little if it were not for the political will to steal power from the states. This was accomplished with the 17th Amendment to the constitution, which fundamentally changed not only how senators were elected, but also the relationship between the state and federal governments. I would also argue that this change in relationship upset the balance of power that the founders so painstakingly created.
Prior to the 17th Amendment, senators were chosen by the state legislatures. The reason for this was simple. The House of Representatives, with its direct election by the people of each Congressional District every two years, represented the interests of the people. The Senate, whose members were chosen by each state’s legislature every six years, would represent the interests of the state.
These two separate bodies, would balance the power between the interests of the state and the people. If a congressman was not keeping the people of his district happy, he could be voted out within two years. And while senators held a six year term, the state legislature could recall the senator if he did not represent the interests of his state. The 17th Amendment, with its direct election of senators by popular vote, upset this balance of power. Now, the states had no representation. In essence, there were now two Houses of Representatives and one of them (the senate) wan only beholden to the people every six years.
Now with no state representation in Congress, and with the fuel provided by a national income tax, the central government grew by leaps and bounds. The relationship between the people and the federal government also changed. The tax code, which is a burden not only on the economy by the individual as well, has opened every aspect of a person’s life to scrutiny by the federal government. Today, every dime earned – no matter what the source – is the government’s business, must be documented, and may be subject to tax. And this is supported by both senators and congressmen, because their state is depending on that federal money.
Think about what I just said… their state is depending on that federal money. Currently, much of the money that is spent by states is derived from taxes collected by the federal government. In 2011, there were $500 billion in state and local grants from the federal government. And of course, that money that comes from Washington has strings attached, which may or may not be in the citizen’s best interest. One of the best examples of this was the 55mph speed limit of the 70′s and 80′s. States were offered a huge sum of money for highway improvements, but the catch was they must enact a 55mph speed limit.
The states dependence on federal monies erode the primary benefit of elections by making it difficult for voters to know who to hold accountable for which policies. And the strings attached to the federal dollars further subjugates state governments to the will of Washington, weakening their sovereign independence. Weak and dependent states invite a bigger, more centralized government, giving even more power to the national government, which make the states weaker and more dependent, which makes the federal government more powerful … I think you can see where this leads.
Were the 16th and 17th Amendments to be repealed, we could quickly return to a small government constitutional republic. Without the funding of federal income tax, big government could not exist, even through debt service. Returning to Senate appointment by state legislatures would reinstate the linkage between the state and the federal political process. Lobbyists would be less of a problem, as a Senator could be recalled by his home state if he was not serving the State’s interests. The state legislatures would also have the ability to decentralized power, redistributing it to the state level when appropriate.
Unfortunately, I don’t this happening any time soon. I doubt you could get the Senate to get behind an Amendment that would limit their power. And since so many states are riding the gravy train of federal dollars, I doubt you could get the states to call for a Constitutional Convention. We have already seen President Obama and the Democrats call for more revenue and more spending, creating an era that would make today’s big government look like a libertarian paradise. The only solution is for the citizens of this nation to become educated on these issues, and force change … no matter what the politicians want. Remember, they work for us, we don’t work for them.
Most people know that the 16th Amendment grants Congress the power to collect taxes on income. Prior to this, the federal government primarily relied on excise taxes (such as import/export tariffs) for funding. The revenue generated by the income tax provided the fuel needed to begin the era of big government. Through most of the 19th century (save for a temporary spike during the Civil War), federal spending hovered around 2% of the GDP; today, we have passed the 24% mark.
However, the fuel for federal spending would have meant little if it were not for the political will to steal power from the states. This was accomplished with the 17th Amendment to the constitution, which fundamentally changed not only how senators were elected, but also the relationship between the state and federal governments. I would also argue that this change in relationship upset the balance of power that the founders so painstakingly created.
Prior to the 17th Amendment, senators were chosen by the state legislatures. The reason for this was simple. The House of Representatives, with its direct election by the people of each Congressional District every two years, represented the interests of the people. The Senate, whose members were chosen by each state’s legislature every six years, would represent the interests of the state.
These two separate bodies, would balance the power between the interests of the state and the people. If a congressman was not keeping the people of his district happy, he could be voted out within two years. And while senators held a six year term, the state legislature could recall the senator if he did not represent the interests of his state. The 17th Amendment, with its direct election of senators by popular vote, upset this balance of power. Now, the states had no representation. In essence, there were now two Houses of Representatives and one of them (the senate) wan only beholden to the people every six years.
Now with no state representation in Congress, and with the fuel provided by a national income tax, the central government grew by leaps and bounds. The relationship between the people and the federal government also changed. The tax code, which is a burden not only on the economy by the individual as well, has opened every aspect of a person’s life to scrutiny by the federal government. Today, every dime earned – no matter what the source – is the government’s business, must be documented, and may be subject to tax. And this is supported by both senators and congressmen, because their state is depending on that federal money.
Think about what I just said… their state is depending on that federal money. Currently, much of the money that is spent by states is derived from taxes collected by the federal government. In 2011, there were $500 billion in state and local grants from the federal government. And of course, that money that comes from Washington has strings attached, which may or may not be in the citizen’s best interest. One of the best examples of this was the 55mph speed limit of the 70′s and 80′s. States were offered a huge sum of money for highway improvements, but the catch was they must enact a 55mph speed limit.
The states dependence on federal monies erode the primary benefit of elections by making it difficult for voters to know who to hold accountable for which policies. And the strings attached to the federal dollars further subjugates state governments to the will of Washington, weakening their sovereign independence. Weak and dependent states invite a bigger, more centralized government, giving even more power to the national government, which make the states weaker and more dependent, which makes the federal government more powerful … I think you can see where this leads.
Were the 16th and 17th Amendments to be repealed, we could quickly return to a small government constitutional republic. Without the funding of federal income tax, big government could not exist, even through debt service. Returning to Senate appointment by state legislatures would reinstate the linkage between the state and the federal political process. Lobbyists would be less of a problem, as a Senator could be recalled by his home state if he was not serving the State’s interests. The state legislatures would also have the ability to decentralized power, redistributing it to the state level when appropriate.
Unfortunately, I don’t this happening any time soon. I doubt you could get the Senate to get behind an Amendment that would limit their power. And since so many states are riding the gravy train of federal dollars, I doubt you could get the states to call for a Constitutional Convention. We have already seen President Obama and the Democrats call for more revenue and more spending, creating an era that would make today’s big government look like a libertarian paradise. The only solution is for the citizens of this nation to become educated on these issues, and force change … no matter what the politicians want. Remember, they work for us, we don’t work for them.
The General Welfare Clause
Good PDF about the General Welfare Clause here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7Of4cap6nGGZmhQQTBvOHNET00/edit?usp=sharing
Another good source about the General Welfare Clause:
http://constitution.i2i.org/sources-for-constitutional-scholars/general-welfare-clause-and-public-trus/
Another good source about the General Welfare Clause:
http://constitution.i2i.org/sources-for-constitutional-scholars/general-welfare-clause-and-public-trus/
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John Locke, Freedom of Religion & America
By Kelly OConnell (Bio and Archives) Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Will the USA Come to Regret Trading Religious Tolerance for Rank Indifference? I. Who Was John Locke, Freedom’s Greatest Philosopher? Englishman John Locke (1632—1704) is arguably our most influential modern thinker. He is regarded as the leading light of several signal movements, without which the modern era would be inconceivable, including—Classical Liberalism (aka modern Conservatism), Property Rights, the Enlightenment, Libertarianism, Empiricism, Natural Rights, and Freedom of Religion, etc. |
Locke enjoyed notable friendships and debates with some of the leading figures of his day, including Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, the 1st Lord Shaftesbury Ashley Cooper, etc. Locke was also deeply religious, considering himself a Christian, and undertaking a lifelong study of theology and biblical commentary. One author describes his influence:
John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher whose ideas formed the foundation of liberal democracy and greatly influenced the American Revolution. He taught all people are born equal and education can free people from the subjugation of tyranny. Locke believed government was morally obligated to guarantee individuals always retained sovereignty over their own rights, including property ownership resulting from their own labor.
A political player condemned by the Crown, Locke exiled himself to Europe until 1689, when he wrote his masterpiece, Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke returned to England after King James II fled and William was crowned William III (aka the Glorious Revolution). He then published his most important works, including A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), Two Treatises on Government (1690) and Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693).
II. A Biblical Locke Creates Religious Freedom
John Locke was raised in a believing household and retained an appreciation for Puritan themes his entire life. Kim Ian Parker’s The Biblical Politics of John Lockedescribes his intense and lifelong fixation on holy writ. During an age of extreme religious passion and partisanship, John Locke came to his position of religious tolerance through much effort. It was not Locke’s initial reaction to the question of religious liberty, but a conclusion he assumed after much thought and exposure to other ideas, as well as real-life experience. The sources of Locke’s doctrine of religious tolerance are notable, and from at least six different sources. His was an age of extreme passion and opinion regarding religious belief, all of it centered on biblical debate.
A. Reverend John Owen
After Cromwell established the Protectorate, after the regicide, Locke came to Oxford and Christ Church under the careful eye of the incomparable theologian John Owen, greatest ever British divine. Here, Locke sat under many Owen sermons stressing the need for religious tolerance and the lack of compunction regarding religious conviction. So the first source of Locke’s inclination towards charity in religious belief was John Owen’s own tolerant convictions. Owen had himself reacted after seeing the horrors of the Siege of Drogheda and slaughter after Irish Catholics. These refused to bow the knee to the Protestant creed when Cromwell conquered Ireland. Owen was Cromwell’spersonal minister and witnessed all this firsthand.
B. Stubbe—Essay in Defense of the Good Cause
Second, Locke’s former classmate, Henry Stubbe, wrote an essay titled Essay in Defense of the Good Old Cause (1659) which pleaded for religious tolerance. Parker writes, “Stubbe, like Owen, argued that since toleration of others was sanctioned in the Bible, one should not actively seek out heretics.” This appears to have met with some acceptance by Locke, although he was not in favor of granting tolerance to Catholics, whom he eyed suspiciously. The general British Protestant resistance to the Pope was symbolized by the infamous Guy Fawkes and the incredible Gunpowder Plot, meant to blow up Parliament and return a Catholic king to the English throne, a century before.
C. Bagshawe—The Great Question
Third, Edward Bagshawe likewise wrote a polemic in favor of religious toleration, The Great Question Concerning Things Indifferent in Religious Worship (1660), which influenced Locke’s opinion. Bagshawe’s argument was that where the Bible commanded behavior, the magistrate was well within his rights to enforce this. But where the Bible was silent, charity should be the model. Locke at first disagreed with Bagshawe, only later coming around to his way of thinking.
D. Tolerant Continental Congregations
Fourth, while in Brandenburg, Germany in 1665, Locke had encountered Lutheran, Catholic and Calvinist congregations who were models of tolerance of one another. This showed him that such tolerance was viable in a real-world example, and was quite attractive. He wrote to his close friend, the scientist Robert Boyle, about how the congregants and the city inhabitants…
...quietly permit one another to choose their way to heaven; and I cannot observe any quarrels or animosities amongst them upon the account of religion. This good correspondence is owing partly to the power of the magistrate, and partly the prudence and good nature of the people, who (as I find by enquiry) entertaindifferent opinions, without any secret hatred or rancour.
E. Lord Shaftesbury
Fifth, Locke was lucky enough to become friendly with one of the most remarkable and influential men of the age—Robert Ashley Cooper, 1st Lord of Shaftesbury. After saving Cooper’s life with a timely liver procedure, Locke gradually became the seminal Whig’s most trusted adviser. Cooper became Lord Chancellor in Charles II’s court, and he commissioned Locke to advise on “civil and religious affairs.” During this period Locke composed his Essay on Toleration (1667-68), which claimed the sovereign’s role was simply… “for the good, preservation, and peace of men in society.” Further, the magistrate must not interfere with purely speculative matters, such as the nature of the “belief of the Trinity, purgatory, transubstantiation, antipodes, Christ’s personal reign on earth,” etc. But, Locke does not countenance tolerance for atheists. Further, Locke does recognize the Ten Commandments, but does not countenance the state enforcing the religious parts.
F. Latitudinarian
Sixth, Locke became a member of the congregation of Rev. Benjamin Whitcote. This influential minister was latitudinarian, meaning he espoused a minimalist creed, and emphasized the role of reason in faith. Latitudinarians emphasized following the law to please God. These themes were later developed in Locke’s treatise, The Reasonableness of Christianity.
Locke’s final position on the Bible was rational, whereas he disputed the existence of original sin, and argued that the key to Christian faith was belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Yet, the key interest of Locke’s entire life would appear to be biblical Christianity, which however heterodox never appears to be anything but a sincere belief in his own mind.
III. Founders Create Religious Freedom: Constitution, Bill of Rights & First Amendment
Certainly John Locke was a colossus to the Founders, and in terms of influence, he is the main influence on the Declaration, according to Michael P. Zuckert in Launching Liberalism, On Lockean Political Philosophy. John Locke’s tolerant view of religion was handed down to the colonies and Founders by the time of the Constitutional Convention. Further, the very idea of a law of laws, or Constitution, was a mainstay of Locke’s governmental theory. It is a secularization of the biblical covenant theory.
A. Fundamental Influences of the First Amendment
The First Amendment Religion Clause is the result of four separate influences, being Puritan, Evangelical, Enlightenment and Republican, according to John Witte inReligion and the American Constitutional Experiment. Further, Witte finds six principles of religious liberty common amongst them—liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious pluralism, religious equality, separation of church and state, and disestablishment of religion.
B. Continental Congress & Religion
There is no doubt that America, during the time leading right up to the drafting of the Constitution, was an extremely pious and Christian society. During the Continental Congress in 1774, when the Founders met to discuss the worsening conditions with England, the group was led by Anglican ministers offering prayer for the undertaking. During this time was called for the first of its four-fast day proclamations:
“a day of publick humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that we may with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins”... that we may “be ever under the care and protection of a kind Providence and be prospered”; and “that virtue and true religion may revive and flourish throughout our land.”
On November 1, 1777 Congress proclaimed the first-ever Thanksgiving, the first overtly Trinitarian Christian statement was released:
It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States, to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE. That at one time and with one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their DIVINE BENEFACTOR, and that together with their sincere acknowledgements and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their sins, whereby they had forfeited every favor, and their humble and earnest supplications that it may please God through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance. That it may please him graciously to afford his blessing on the governments of these states respectively, and prosper the PUBLIC COUNCIL of the whole. To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth “in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.
And it is further recommended, That servile Labor, and such Recreation, as, though at other Times innocent, may be unbecoming the Purpose of this Appointment, be omitted on so solemn an Occasion.’‘
C. Revolutionary War Bibles
On September 11, 1777—during the Revolutionary War, Congress voted to import 20,000 Bibles for distribution in the new States. Afterward, the Congress endorsed a privately printed version of holy writ.
D. Continental Convention & Religious Liberty
The 1787 Continental Convention did not address much the issues of Christian liberty, but only since it was assumed the States themselves were the only proper venue to address the topic, according to Witte. There was no federal provision yet to tackle the subject, but eleven of the thirteen States had already created explicit protections for religious liberty. During the terse debates, an exasperated Benjamin Franklin asked for opening prayers but was rebuffed. He countered with a general admonition and prayer:
In this Situation of this Assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find Political Truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not, hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our Understandings? In the Beginning of the Contest with Britain, when we were sensible of Danger, we had daily Prayers in this Room for the Divine Protection! Our Prayers, Sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engag’d in the Struggle, must have observ’d frequent Instances of a Superintending Providence in our Favour. To that kind Providence we owe this happy Opportunity of Consulting in Peace on the Means of establishing our future national Felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need its Assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth, That GOD governs in the Affairs of Men! And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local Interests, our Projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and a Byeword down to future Ages. And what is worse, Mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate Instance, despair of establishing Government by human Wisdom, and leave it to Chance, War and Conquest. I therefore beg leave to move.
That henceforth Prayers, imploring the Assistance of Heaven, and its Blessing on our Deliberations, be held in this Assembly every Morning before we proceed to Business; and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.
The Constitutional Convention unanimously passed the Constitutional draft on September 28th, 1787, and as the ninth state passed it, ratified it for the nation on July 2, 1788. But no Bill of Rights was included, which caused some consternation.
E. Bill of Rights
According to Leonard Levy, in Origins of the Bill of Rights, goaded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison studied all the State’s Bills of Rights and chose what he thought best, and then the House select committee decided on the language. According to Witte, 20 different texts were offered before the final version of the 1stAmendment was chosen, which offered no clear-cut, single meaning. The language of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause reads thus:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…
Conclusion
Certainly the American Founders were influenced greatly by John Locke, especially upon religious liberty. Obviously this helped make a more sedate, and therefore prosperous society upon peace. Yet, one can now only wonder what the future holds as Americans trade tolerance for shameful, pagan indifference—in this once most pious of all nations?
Comments
Kelly O’Connell hosts American Anthem on CFP Radio Sundays at 4 pm (EST).
Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico. Kelly is now host of a daily, Monday to Friday talk show at AM KOBE called AM Las Cruces w/Kelly O’Connell
John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher whose ideas formed the foundation of liberal democracy and greatly influenced the American Revolution. He taught all people are born equal and education can free people from the subjugation of tyranny. Locke believed government was morally obligated to guarantee individuals always retained sovereignty over their own rights, including property ownership resulting from their own labor.
A political player condemned by the Crown, Locke exiled himself to Europe until 1689, when he wrote his masterpiece, Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke returned to England after King James II fled and William was crowned William III (aka the Glorious Revolution). He then published his most important works, including A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), Two Treatises on Government (1690) and Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693).
II. A Biblical Locke Creates Religious Freedom
John Locke was raised in a believing household and retained an appreciation for Puritan themes his entire life. Kim Ian Parker’s The Biblical Politics of John Lockedescribes his intense and lifelong fixation on holy writ. During an age of extreme religious passion and partisanship, John Locke came to his position of religious tolerance through much effort. It was not Locke’s initial reaction to the question of religious liberty, but a conclusion he assumed after much thought and exposure to other ideas, as well as real-life experience. The sources of Locke’s doctrine of religious tolerance are notable, and from at least six different sources. His was an age of extreme passion and opinion regarding religious belief, all of it centered on biblical debate.
A. Reverend John Owen
After Cromwell established the Protectorate, after the regicide, Locke came to Oxford and Christ Church under the careful eye of the incomparable theologian John Owen, greatest ever British divine. Here, Locke sat under many Owen sermons stressing the need for religious tolerance and the lack of compunction regarding religious conviction. So the first source of Locke’s inclination towards charity in religious belief was John Owen’s own tolerant convictions. Owen had himself reacted after seeing the horrors of the Siege of Drogheda and slaughter after Irish Catholics. These refused to bow the knee to the Protestant creed when Cromwell conquered Ireland. Owen was Cromwell’spersonal minister and witnessed all this firsthand.
B. Stubbe—Essay in Defense of the Good Cause
Second, Locke’s former classmate, Henry Stubbe, wrote an essay titled Essay in Defense of the Good Old Cause (1659) which pleaded for religious tolerance. Parker writes, “Stubbe, like Owen, argued that since toleration of others was sanctioned in the Bible, one should not actively seek out heretics.” This appears to have met with some acceptance by Locke, although he was not in favor of granting tolerance to Catholics, whom he eyed suspiciously. The general British Protestant resistance to the Pope was symbolized by the infamous Guy Fawkes and the incredible Gunpowder Plot, meant to blow up Parliament and return a Catholic king to the English throne, a century before.
C. Bagshawe—The Great Question
Third, Edward Bagshawe likewise wrote a polemic in favor of religious toleration, The Great Question Concerning Things Indifferent in Religious Worship (1660), which influenced Locke’s opinion. Bagshawe’s argument was that where the Bible commanded behavior, the magistrate was well within his rights to enforce this. But where the Bible was silent, charity should be the model. Locke at first disagreed with Bagshawe, only later coming around to his way of thinking.
D. Tolerant Continental Congregations
Fourth, while in Brandenburg, Germany in 1665, Locke had encountered Lutheran, Catholic and Calvinist congregations who were models of tolerance of one another. This showed him that such tolerance was viable in a real-world example, and was quite attractive. He wrote to his close friend, the scientist Robert Boyle, about how the congregants and the city inhabitants…
...quietly permit one another to choose their way to heaven; and I cannot observe any quarrels or animosities amongst them upon the account of religion. This good correspondence is owing partly to the power of the magistrate, and partly the prudence and good nature of the people, who (as I find by enquiry) entertaindifferent opinions, without any secret hatred or rancour.
E. Lord Shaftesbury
Fifth, Locke was lucky enough to become friendly with one of the most remarkable and influential men of the age—Robert Ashley Cooper, 1st Lord of Shaftesbury. After saving Cooper’s life with a timely liver procedure, Locke gradually became the seminal Whig’s most trusted adviser. Cooper became Lord Chancellor in Charles II’s court, and he commissioned Locke to advise on “civil and religious affairs.” During this period Locke composed his Essay on Toleration (1667-68), which claimed the sovereign’s role was simply… “for the good, preservation, and peace of men in society.” Further, the magistrate must not interfere with purely speculative matters, such as the nature of the “belief of the Trinity, purgatory, transubstantiation, antipodes, Christ’s personal reign on earth,” etc. But, Locke does not countenance tolerance for atheists. Further, Locke does recognize the Ten Commandments, but does not countenance the state enforcing the religious parts.
F. Latitudinarian
Sixth, Locke became a member of the congregation of Rev. Benjamin Whitcote. This influential minister was latitudinarian, meaning he espoused a minimalist creed, and emphasized the role of reason in faith. Latitudinarians emphasized following the law to please God. These themes were later developed in Locke’s treatise, The Reasonableness of Christianity.
Locke’s final position on the Bible was rational, whereas he disputed the existence of original sin, and argued that the key to Christian faith was belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Yet, the key interest of Locke’s entire life would appear to be biblical Christianity, which however heterodox never appears to be anything but a sincere belief in his own mind.
III. Founders Create Religious Freedom: Constitution, Bill of Rights & First Amendment
Certainly John Locke was a colossus to the Founders, and in terms of influence, he is the main influence on the Declaration, according to Michael P. Zuckert in Launching Liberalism, On Lockean Political Philosophy. John Locke’s tolerant view of religion was handed down to the colonies and Founders by the time of the Constitutional Convention. Further, the very idea of a law of laws, or Constitution, was a mainstay of Locke’s governmental theory. It is a secularization of the biblical covenant theory.
A. Fundamental Influences of the First Amendment
The First Amendment Religion Clause is the result of four separate influences, being Puritan, Evangelical, Enlightenment and Republican, according to John Witte inReligion and the American Constitutional Experiment. Further, Witte finds six principles of religious liberty common amongst them—liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious pluralism, religious equality, separation of church and state, and disestablishment of religion.
B. Continental Congress & Religion
There is no doubt that America, during the time leading right up to the drafting of the Constitution, was an extremely pious and Christian society. During the Continental Congress in 1774, when the Founders met to discuss the worsening conditions with England, the group was led by Anglican ministers offering prayer for the undertaking. During this time was called for the first of its four-fast day proclamations:
“a day of publick humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that we may with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins”... that we may “be ever under the care and protection of a kind Providence and be prospered”; and “that virtue and true religion may revive and flourish throughout our land.”
On November 1, 1777 Congress proclaimed the first-ever Thanksgiving, the first overtly Trinitarian Christian statement was released:
It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States, to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE. That at one time and with one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their DIVINE BENEFACTOR, and that together with their sincere acknowledgements and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their sins, whereby they had forfeited every favor, and their humble and earnest supplications that it may please God through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance. That it may please him graciously to afford his blessing on the governments of these states respectively, and prosper the PUBLIC COUNCIL of the whole. To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth “in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.
And it is further recommended, That servile Labor, and such Recreation, as, though at other Times innocent, may be unbecoming the Purpose of this Appointment, be omitted on so solemn an Occasion.’‘
C. Revolutionary War Bibles
On September 11, 1777—during the Revolutionary War, Congress voted to import 20,000 Bibles for distribution in the new States. Afterward, the Congress endorsed a privately printed version of holy writ.
D. Continental Convention & Religious Liberty
The 1787 Continental Convention did not address much the issues of Christian liberty, but only since it was assumed the States themselves were the only proper venue to address the topic, according to Witte. There was no federal provision yet to tackle the subject, but eleven of the thirteen States had already created explicit protections for religious liberty. During the terse debates, an exasperated Benjamin Franklin asked for opening prayers but was rebuffed. He countered with a general admonition and prayer:
In this Situation of this Assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find Political Truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not, hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our Understandings? In the Beginning of the Contest with Britain, when we were sensible of Danger, we had daily Prayers in this Room for the Divine Protection! Our Prayers, Sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engag’d in the Struggle, must have observ’d frequent Instances of a Superintending Providence in our Favour. To that kind Providence we owe this happy Opportunity of Consulting in Peace on the Means of establishing our future national Felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need its Assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth, That GOD governs in the Affairs of Men! And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local Interests, our Projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and a Byeword down to future Ages. And what is worse, Mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate Instance, despair of establishing Government by human Wisdom, and leave it to Chance, War and Conquest. I therefore beg leave to move.
That henceforth Prayers, imploring the Assistance of Heaven, and its Blessing on our Deliberations, be held in this Assembly every Morning before we proceed to Business; and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.
The Constitutional Convention unanimously passed the Constitutional draft on September 28th, 1787, and as the ninth state passed it, ratified it for the nation on July 2, 1788. But no Bill of Rights was included, which caused some consternation.
E. Bill of Rights
According to Leonard Levy, in Origins of the Bill of Rights, goaded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison studied all the State’s Bills of Rights and chose what he thought best, and then the House select committee decided on the language. According to Witte, 20 different texts were offered before the final version of the 1stAmendment was chosen, which offered no clear-cut, single meaning. The language of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause reads thus:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…
Conclusion
Certainly the American Founders were influenced greatly by John Locke, especially upon religious liberty. Obviously this helped make a more sedate, and therefore prosperous society upon peace. Yet, one can now only wonder what the future holds as Americans trade tolerance for shameful, pagan indifference—in this once most pious of all nations?
Comments
Kelly O’Connell hosts American Anthem on CFP Radio Sundays at 4 pm (EST).
Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico. Kelly is now host of a daily, Monday to Friday talk show at AM KOBE called AM Las Cruces w/Kelly O’Connell
How Was America To Be Structured?
Answer: A FEDERAL SYSTEM, MADE OF REPUBLICS.
In Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address he said, "We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists.". So, Jefferson was essentially stating that Americans are people who believe in republicanism and federalism. These two principles are not completely foreign today, just called by different names like inalienable rights and states' rights. But these words that we commonly use (in place of) today, leave out the concepts that exist behind them. That is why understanding these two words, republicanism and federalism, is to understand two of the most important concepts that ours founding fathers tried to apply and protect.
Benjamin Franklin stated that, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.". Franklin and other founders knew that democracy, which essentially means majority rules, was better than an oligarchy, monarchy or dictatorship, but still incomplete and potentially just as dangerous. So, how do you protect the lamb? Franklin responded "Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.". Though I agree that bearing arms is a good way, but what happens when the majority votes to a ban all lambs from owning guns? Our founders answered this by recognizing that the "lamb" has inalienable rights (given by God) such the right to bear arms, and better yet, a right to exist. This way, the smallest minority is protected from the majority. Our founders believed this to be an important aspect to "republicanism" (which also included the original Machiavellian definition of "non-hereditary government"). Therefore, a "republic" must have a set of laws and principles that cannot be changed or taken away (ours come in the form of a bill of rights, protecting inalienable rights and the reliance of Natural Laws.). This is why we are not a true democracy, but rather, we are a democratic republic, or more accurately, a constitutional republic with our own unique form of checks and balances.
Federalism.
Knowing that governments are corruptible, abusive, and rarely permanent, our founders therefore did not approve of the "all-eggs-in-one-basket" approach to creating a national government. This is why they favored a federal form of government, where the national government is made up sovereign states (all of them republic in form, and so is our federal government.) and has limited (enumerated) powers over the states. So if a state collapses or becomes too abusive, the people can leave that state, and our nation stays intact. States can rebuild faster than a nation was the notion. Perhaps James Madison (Father of the Constitution) put it best when describing their intentions of the new Constitution and the relationship between the federal government and the states:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State". ~ Federalist #45
The Overall Vision For America:
Our founders envisioned a powerful country that had national government which was to be controlled by the states, with checks and balances to both. A country where protecting our God-given rights is the civil government's main concern. A friend described our founders' vision well, he wrote:
"The scope, authority, and intent of the U.S. Constitution (republic) is 100% applicable for a small rural group of 13 former colonies, and is just as applicable in a 50-state technological superpower...and it would be just as applicable and useful were we to have 500 states spread over several planets in this solar system 1,000 years from now."
How Can We Change Our Course?
Change the language. "Conservationism" vs. "liberalism" is incomplete, ignoring the classic battle (balance) of federalism vs. nationalism. If thought in these terms, then I think both liberals and conservatives can agree on the ideas of federalism over nationalism. But first we need to be asking ourselves, "Am I a stronger Federalist or a stronger Nationalist?" and we must start asking ourselves, "Do I support having individual rights strongly protected?", or "Am I willing to sacrifice some/all of our rights for the good of society?"
I leave you with this simple equation to help remember why a "republic" form of government was important to our founders:
Democracy - Rights = Mob Rule ~ Sonny Farmer
http://from1776toeternity.blogspot.com/2012/05/from-1776-to-eternity.html
Benjamin Franklin stated that, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.". Franklin and other founders knew that democracy, which essentially means majority rules, was better than an oligarchy, monarchy or dictatorship, but still incomplete and potentially just as dangerous. So, how do you protect the lamb? Franklin responded "Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.". Though I agree that bearing arms is a good way, but what happens when the majority votes to a ban all lambs from owning guns? Our founders answered this by recognizing that the "lamb" has inalienable rights (given by God) such the right to bear arms, and better yet, a right to exist. This way, the smallest minority is protected from the majority. Our founders believed this to be an important aspect to "republicanism" (which also included the original Machiavellian definition of "non-hereditary government"). Therefore, a "republic" must have a set of laws and principles that cannot be changed or taken away (ours come in the form of a bill of rights, protecting inalienable rights and the reliance of Natural Laws.). This is why we are not a true democracy, but rather, we are a democratic republic, or more accurately, a constitutional republic with our own unique form of checks and balances.
Federalism.
Knowing that governments are corruptible, abusive, and rarely permanent, our founders therefore did not approve of the "all-eggs-in-one-basket" approach to creating a national government. This is why they favored a federal form of government, where the national government is made up sovereign states (all of them republic in form, and so is our federal government.) and has limited (enumerated) powers over the states. So if a state collapses or becomes too abusive, the people can leave that state, and our nation stays intact. States can rebuild faster than a nation was the notion. Perhaps James Madison (Father of the Constitution) put it best when describing their intentions of the new Constitution and the relationship between the federal government and the states:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State". ~ Federalist #45
The Overall Vision For America:
Our founders envisioned a powerful country that had national government which was to be controlled by the states, with checks and balances to both. A country where protecting our God-given rights is the civil government's main concern. A friend described our founders' vision well, he wrote:
"The scope, authority, and intent of the U.S. Constitution (republic) is 100% applicable for a small rural group of 13 former colonies, and is just as applicable in a 50-state technological superpower...and it would be just as applicable and useful were we to have 500 states spread over several planets in this solar system 1,000 years from now."
How Can We Change Our Course?
Change the language. "Conservationism" vs. "liberalism" is incomplete, ignoring the classic battle (balance) of federalism vs. nationalism. If thought in these terms, then I think both liberals and conservatives can agree on the ideas of federalism over nationalism. But first we need to be asking ourselves, "Am I a stronger Federalist or a stronger Nationalist?" and we must start asking ourselves, "Do I support having individual rights strongly protected?", or "Am I willing to sacrifice some/all of our rights for the good of society?"
I leave you with this simple equation to help remember why a "republic" form of government was important to our founders:
Democracy - Rights = Mob Rule ~ Sonny Farmer
http://from1776toeternity.blogspot.com/2012/05/from-1776-to-eternity.html
THE FIRST 100 YEARS OF AMERICAN HISTORY
Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
In honor of the Manuscript Division's centennial, its staff has selected for online display approximately ninety representative documents spanning from the fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Included are the papers of presidents, cabinet ministers, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, military officers and diplomats, reformers and political activists, artists and writers, scientists and inventors, and other prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution. Most of the selected items fall within one of eight major themes or categories which reflect the division's strengths. Each of these themes is the focus of a separate essay containing links to digital reproductions of selected documents. A detailed description accompanies each document, and additional information about the parent collections may be obtained by following links to catalog records and finding aids.
The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program is to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning.
The Library of Congress presents these documents as part of the record of the past. These primary historical documents reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress does not endorse the views expressed in these collections, which may contain materials offensive to some readers.
The Presidency | Congress, Law, and Politics | Military Affairs | Diplomacy and Foreign Policy | Arts and Literature | Science, Medicine, Exploration, and Invention | African-American History and Culture | Women's History | Miscellany
Special Presentation:
Collecting, Preserving, and Researching History: A Peek into the Library of Congress Manuscript Division
Acknowledgments:
American Memory
The Library of Congress
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corhome.html
history collage image credit aiu.edu/Master
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
In honor of the Manuscript Division's centennial, its staff has selected for online display approximately ninety representative documents spanning from the fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Included are the papers of presidents, cabinet ministers, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, military officers and diplomats, reformers and political activists, artists and writers, scientists and inventors, and other prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution. Most of the selected items fall within one of eight major themes or categories which reflect the division's strengths. Each of these themes is the focus of a separate essay containing links to digital reproductions of selected documents. A detailed description accompanies each document, and additional information about the parent collections may be obtained by following links to catalog records and finding aids.
The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program is to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning.
The Library of Congress presents these documents as part of the record of the past. These primary historical documents reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress does not endorse the views expressed in these collections, which may contain materials offensive to some readers.
The Presidency | Congress, Law, and Politics | Military Affairs | Diplomacy and Foreign Policy | Arts and Literature | Science, Medicine, Exploration, and Invention | African-American History and Culture | Women's History | Miscellany
Special Presentation:
Collecting, Preserving, and Researching History: A Peek into the Library of Congress Manuscript Division
Acknowledgments:
American Memory
The Library of Congress
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corhome.html
history collage image credit aiu.edu/Master
THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORY TIMELINE
The 1900s
This decade opened the century with some amazing feats like the first flight by the Wright brothers, Henry Ford's first Model-T, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It also had hardships like the Boxer Rebellion and the San Francisco Earthquake. The 1900s also saw the introduction of the first silent movie and teddy bear. Plus, don't miss out in discovering more about the mysterious explosion in Siberia. Learn more about the this "humdinger" decade through the 1900-1909 timeline.
The 1910s
This decade was unfortunately dominated by the first "total war" -- World War I. It also saw other huge changes during the Russian Revolution and the beginning of Prohibition. Tragedy struck when a fire rampaged through Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the "unsinkable" Titanic hit an iceberg. and the Spanish flu killed millions around the world. On a more positive note, people in the 1910s got their first taste of an Oreo cookie and could fill out their first crossword. Take a "gander" at this decade through the 1910-1919 timeline.
The 1920s
The Roaring '20s were a time of speakeasies, short skirts, the Charleston dance, and jazz music. The 1920s also showed great strides in Women's Suffrage and archaeology hit the mainstream with the discovery of King Tut's Tomb. There were an amazing number of cultural firsts in the 1920s, including the first talking film, Babe Ruth hitting his home-run record, and the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. Learn more about this "nifty" decade through the 1920-1929 timeline.
The 1930s
The Great Depression hit the world hard in the 1930s. The Nazis took advantage of this situation and were able to come to power in Germany, establish their first concentration camp, and begin a systematic persecution of Jews in Europe. Other news in the 1930s included the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a wild and murderous crime spree by Bonnie and Clyde, and the imprisonment of Al Capone for income tax evasion. Learn more about this "snazzy" decade through the 1930-1939 timeline.
The 1940s
World War II was already underway by the time the 1940s began and it was definitely the big event of the first half of the decade. Plus, the Nazis established death camps in their effort to murder millions of Jews during the Holocaust. When World War II ended, the Cold War began. The 1940s also witnessed the assassination of Gandhi and the beginning of Apartheid. So you should, "you know," learn more about this decade through the 1940-1949 timeline.
The 1950s
The 1950s are sometimes referred to as the Golden Age. Color TV was invented; the polio vaccine was discovered; Disneyland opened; and Elvis gyrated his hips on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Cold War continued as the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union began. The 1950s also saw segregation ruled illegal in the U.S. and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Learn more about this "cool" decade through the 1950-1959 timeline.
The 1960s
To many, the 1960s can be summed up as the Vietnam War, hippies, drugs, protests, and rock and roll. (A common joke goes "If you remember the sixties, you weren't there.") Although those were important aspects of this decade, other events occurred as well. For instance, the Berlin Wall was built, the Soviets launched the first man into space, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Beatles become popular, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I Have a Dream" speech, and so much more! Learn more about this "groovy" decade through the 1960-1969 timeline.
The 1970s
The Vietnam War was still a major event in the beginning of the 1970s. There were other tragic events this decade as well, including the deadliest earthquake of the century, the Jonestown massacre, the Munich Olympics massacre, and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Culturally, disco became extremely popular and Star Wars hit theaters. Learn more about this "far out" decade through the 1970-1979 timeline.
The 1980s
Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika began the end of the Cold War. This was soon followed by the surprising fall of the Berlin Wall. There were also some disasters this decade, including the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, the Ethiopian Famine, a huge poison gas leak in Bhopal, and the discovery of AIDS. Culturally, the 1980s saw the introduction of the mesmerizing Rubik's Cube toy, Pac-Man video game, and Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Learn more about this "sweet" decade through this 1980-1989 timeline.
The 1990s
The Cold War ends, Nelson Mandela is released from prison, the Internet becomes popular - in many ways the 1990s seemed a decade of both hope and relief. Unfortunately, the decade also saw its fair share of tragedy, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine High School massacre, and the Rwandan genocide. Learn more about this "phat" decade through this 1990-2000 timeline.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/timeline.htm
This decade opened the century with some amazing feats like the first flight by the Wright brothers, Henry Ford's first Model-T, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It also had hardships like the Boxer Rebellion and the San Francisco Earthquake. The 1900s also saw the introduction of the first silent movie and teddy bear. Plus, don't miss out in discovering more about the mysterious explosion in Siberia. Learn more about the this "humdinger" decade through the 1900-1909 timeline.
The 1910s
This decade was unfortunately dominated by the first "total war" -- World War I. It also saw other huge changes during the Russian Revolution and the beginning of Prohibition. Tragedy struck when a fire rampaged through Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the "unsinkable" Titanic hit an iceberg. and the Spanish flu killed millions around the world. On a more positive note, people in the 1910s got their first taste of an Oreo cookie and could fill out their first crossword. Take a "gander" at this decade through the 1910-1919 timeline.
The 1920s
The Roaring '20s were a time of speakeasies, short skirts, the Charleston dance, and jazz music. The 1920s also showed great strides in Women's Suffrage and archaeology hit the mainstream with the discovery of King Tut's Tomb. There were an amazing number of cultural firsts in the 1920s, including the first talking film, Babe Ruth hitting his home-run record, and the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. Learn more about this "nifty" decade through the 1920-1929 timeline.
The 1930s
The Great Depression hit the world hard in the 1930s. The Nazis took advantage of this situation and were able to come to power in Germany, establish their first concentration camp, and begin a systematic persecution of Jews in Europe. Other news in the 1930s included the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a wild and murderous crime spree by Bonnie and Clyde, and the imprisonment of Al Capone for income tax evasion. Learn more about this "snazzy" decade through the 1930-1939 timeline.
The 1940s
World War II was already underway by the time the 1940s began and it was definitely the big event of the first half of the decade. Plus, the Nazis established death camps in their effort to murder millions of Jews during the Holocaust. When World War II ended, the Cold War began. The 1940s also witnessed the assassination of Gandhi and the beginning of Apartheid. So you should, "you know," learn more about this decade through the 1940-1949 timeline.
The 1950s
The 1950s are sometimes referred to as the Golden Age. Color TV was invented; the polio vaccine was discovered; Disneyland opened; and Elvis gyrated his hips on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Cold War continued as the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union began. The 1950s also saw segregation ruled illegal in the U.S. and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Learn more about this "cool" decade through the 1950-1959 timeline.
The 1960s
To many, the 1960s can be summed up as the Vietnam War, hippies, drugs, protests, and rock and roll. (A common joke goes "If you remember the sixties, you weren't there.") Although those were important aspects of this decade, other events occurred as well. For instance, the Berlin Wall was built, the Soviets launched the first man into space, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Beatles become popular, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I Have a Dream" speech, and so much more! Learn more about this "groovy" decade through the 1960-1969 timeline.
The 1970s
The Vietnam War was still a major event in the beginning of the 1970s. There were other tragic events this decade as well, including the deadliest earthquake of the century, the Jonestown massacre, the Munich Olympics massacre, and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Culturally, disco became extremely popular and Star Wars hit theaters. Learn more about this "far out" decade through the 1970-1979 timeline.
The 1980s
Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika began the end of the Cold War. This was soon followed by the surprising fall of the Berlin Wall. There were also some disasters this decade, including the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, the Ethiopian Famine, a huge poison gas leak in Bhopal, and the discovery of AIDS. Culturally, the 1980s saw the introduction of the mesmerizing Rubik's Cube toy, Pac-Man video game, and Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Learn more about this "sweet" decade through this 1980-1989 timeline.
The 1990s
The Cold War ends, Nelson Mandela is released from prison, the Internet becomes popular - in many ways the 1990s seemed a decade of both hope and relief. Unfortunately, the decade also saw its fair share of tragedy, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine High School massacre, and the Rwandan genocide. Learn more about this "phat" decade through this 1990-2000 timeline.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/timeline.htm
Presidents of the United States of America
List of Presidents of the United States
The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The U.S. President is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition. The President of the United States leads the executive branch of the federal government and is one of only two nationally elected federal officers (the other being the vice president of the United States).
Responsibilities of U.S. Presidents
Among other powers and responsibilities, Article II of the United States Constitution charges the president:
• To "faithfully execute" federal law
• Makes the president the commander-in-chief of the United States armed forces
• Allows the president to nominate executive and judicial officers with the advice and consent of the Senate
• Allows the president to grant pardons and reprieves
Due to the United States' status as the only remaining superpower, the president of the United States is generally regarded by Americans as the most powerful person in the world.
How is the American President Elected?
The president of the USA is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term. Since 1951, all presidents have been limited to two terms by the Twenty-second Amendment.
List of American Presidents
Following is a list of U.S. Presidents. As you can see from the list, there have been 44 U.S. American Presidents to date. American presidents are elected to a term of 4 years and may serve a maximum of 2 terms. Some U.S. American presidents in the list served for a longer period before the term limitation on U.S. Presidents was put into effect. Also, some of the Presidents on the list only served a year or two of their term due to death in office.
The following is list of all United States Presidents names in order. The list shows the years that each president spent in office, and the presidential party.
List of U.S. American Presidents in Order
# US President Name Years as President Presidential Party
1 George Washington 1789-1797
2 John Adams 1797-1801 Federalist
3 Thomas Jefferson 1801-1809 Democratic-Republican
4 James Madison 1809-1817 Democratic-Republican
5 James Monroe 1817-1825 Democratic-Republican
6 John Quincy Adams 1825-1829 Democratic-Republican
7 Andrew Jackson 1829-1837 Democrat
8 Martin Van Buren 1837-1841 Democrat
9 William Henry Harrison 1841-1841(died In office) Whig
10 John Tyler 1841-1845 Whig
11 James K. Polk 1845-1849 Democrat
12 Zachary Taylor 1849-1850 Whig
13 Millard Fillmore 1850-1853 Whig
14 Franklen Pierce 1853-1857 Democrat
15 James Buchanan 1857-1861 Democrat
16 Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865 Republican
17 Andrew Johnson 1865-1869 Democrat/National Union
18 Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 1869-1877 Republican
19 Rutherford B. Hayes 1877-1881 Republican
20 James A. Garfield 1881(died in office) Republican
21 Chester A. Arthur 1881-1885 Republican
22 Grover Cleveland 1885-1889 Democrat
23 Benjamin Harrison 1889-1893 Republican
24 Grover Cleveland 1893-1897 Democrat
25 William McKinley 1897-1901 Republican
26 Theodore Roosevelt 1901-1909 Republican
27 William Howard Taft 1909-1913 Republican
28 Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921 Democrat
29 Warren G. Harding 1921-1923 Republican
30 Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929 Republican
31 Herbert Hoover 1929-1933 Republican
32 Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-1945 Democrat
33 Harry S. Truman 1945-1953 Democrat
34 Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953-1961 Republican
35 John F. Kennedy 1961-1963 Democrat
36 Lyndon B. Johnson 1963-1969 Democrat
37 Richard M. Nixon 1969-1974 Republican
38 Gerald R. Ford 1974-1977 Republican
39 Jimmy Carter 1977-1981 Democrat
40 Ronald Reagan 1981-1989 Republican
41 George Bush 1989-1993 Republican
42 Bill Clinton 1993-2001 Democrat
43 George W. Bush 2001-2009 Republican
44 Barack H. Obama 2009 -Present Democrat
• There have been 44 U.S. American Presidents to date. Barack Obama is the 44th President.
• Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest president to take office at age 42
The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The U.S. President is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition. The President of the United States leads the executive branch of the federal government and is one of only two nationally elected federal officers (the other being the vice president of the United States).
Responsibilities of U.S. Presidents
Among other powers and responsibilities, Article II of the United States Constitution charges the president:
• To "faithfully execute" federal law
• Makes the president the commander-in-chief of the United States armed forces
• Allows the president to nominate executive and judicial officers with the advice and consent of the Senate
• Allows the president to grant pardons and reprieves
Due to the United States' status as the only remaining superpower, the president of the United States is generally regarded by Americans as the most powerful person in the world.
How is the American President Elected?
The president of the USA is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term. Since 1951, all presidents have been limited to two terms by the Twenty-second Amendment.
List of American Presidents
Following is a list of U.S. Presidents. As you can see from the list, there have been 44 U.S. American Presidents to date. American presidents are elected to a term of 4 years and may serve a maximum of 2 terms. Some U.S. American presidents in the list served for a longer period before the term limitation on U.S. Presidents was put into effect. Also, some of the Presidents on the list only served a year or two of their term due to death in office.
The following is list of all United States Presidents names in order. The list shows the years that each president spent in office, and the presidential party.
List of U.S. American Presidents in Order
# US President Name Years as President Presidential Party
1 George Washington 1789-1797
2 John Adams 1797-1801 Federalist
3 Thomas Jefferson 1801-1809 Democratic-Republican
4 James Madison 1809-1817 Democratic-Republican
5 James Monroe 1817-1825 Democratic-Republican
6 John Quincy Adams 1825-1829 Democratic-Republican
7 Andrew Jackson 1829-1837 Democrat
8 Martin Van Buren 1837-1841 Democrat
9 William Henry Harrison 1841-1841(died In office) Whig
10 John Tyler 1841-1845 Whig
11 James K. Polk 1845-1849 Democrat
12 Zachary Taylor 1849-1850 Whig
13 Millard Fillmore 1850-1853 Whig
14 Franklen Pierce 1853-1857 Democrat
15 James Buchanan 1857-1861 Democrat
16 Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865 Republican
17 Andrew Johnson 1865-1869 Democrat/National Union
18 Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 1869-1877 Republican
19 Rutherford B. Hayes 1877-1881 Republican
20 James A. Garfield 1881(died in office) Republican
21 Chester A. Arthur 1881-1885 Republican
22 Grover Cleveland 1885-1889 Democrat
23 Benjamin Harrison 1889-1893 Republican
24 Grover Cleveland 1893-1897 Democrat
25 William McKinley 1897-1901 Republican
26 Theodore Roosevelt 1901-1909 Republican
27 William Howard Taft 1909-1913 Republican
28 Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921 Democrat
29 Warren G. Harding 1921-1923 Republican
30 Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929 Republican
31 Herbert Hoover 1929-1933 Republican
32 Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-1945 Democrat
33 Harry S. Truman 1945-1953 Democrat
34 Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953-1961 Republican
35 John F. Kennedy 1961-1963 Democrat
36 Lyndon B. Johnson 1963-1969 Democrat
37 Richard M. Nixon 1969-1974 Republican
38 Gerald R. Ford 1974-1977 Republican
39 Jimmy Carter 1977-1981 Democrat
40 Ronald Reagan 1981-1989 Republican
41 George Bush 1989-1993 Republican
42 Bill Clinton 1993-2001 Democrat
43 George W. Bush 2001-2009 Republican
44 Barack H. Obama 2009 -Present Democrat
• There have been 44 U.S. American Presidents to date. Barack Obama is the 44th President.
• Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest president to take office at age 42
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