Wisdom of Our Founding Fathers
Posted by jeremiasx on March 30, 2007
The founding fathers sound a good bit like those dissenters today who rage against the systematic abuses of liberty under which we currently labor…just listen to their thoughts on the abuses perpetrated against them by the British…they feared a coming tyranny and a CONSPIRACY of the powers upon high seeking their ultimate enslavement…not one which truly existed or was even EVIDENT at the time of the Revolutionary War. They were determined not to ALLOW things to go so far as to not be alleviated by the actions of concerned Patriots. They took decisive action and their efforts proved to be not in vain, and their suspicions of tyranny have historically been proven to be well-founded. I look back to these men for wisdom when considering the problems of the day…whatever day it may be.
Quoted from “Ideological Origins of the American Revolution”, by Bernard Bailyn, an authoritative scholarly publication which any political scientist or historian should consult heavily in any meditations upon the subject of the Founders. Bailyn received the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for this work:
Careful analysts like Jefferson agreed on the major points; in one of the most closely reasoned of the pamphlets of 1774 the Virginian stated unambiguously that though, “single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day…a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, to plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.”
So too Washington, collaborating with George Mason in writing the Fairfax Resolves of 1774, agreed that the trouble had arisen from a “regular, systematic plan” of oppression, the English government “endeavoring by every piece of art and despotism to fix the shackles of slavery upon us”; he was convinced “beyond the smallest doubt,” he wrote privately, “that these measures are the result of deliberation…I am as fully convinced as I am of my own existence that there has been a regular, systematic plan formed to enforce them.”
So the next time someone accuses you of wearing a “tin-foil hat” or of being “an alarmist” just point them back to the wisdom of Jefferson, Washington, Locke, Mayhew, or any HOST of writers from this crucial point in American history…and know that you may be in good company.
April 1, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Um, weren’t they talking about a hereditary monarchy combined with the refusal of the English government to provide Americans with elected representatives in the parliament? We were a colony at the time, remember?
We do not have a king and last november proved that we can elect representatives, doesn’t it? As for the founding father’s “suspicions of tyranny” - they were not suspicions at all, they were self evident, which is how you tell true tyranny from hysterical partisan paranoia.
Sure, taken totally out of context those quotes can be warped into whatever you wish, but a little context goes a LONG way toward true understanding.
April 1, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Actually they were talking about legislative actions which, when viewed as a whole, were strictly limiting what they perceived to be the liberty they sought by coming to America.
We don’t have a king (not technically) but he ACTS like one.
The context is within the time of the American Revolutionary Period, which actually stretched much farther back than 1776, according to Bailyn, and the impetus of said rebellion was a culmination of polemic and propaganda distributed throughout the colonies by those true patriots who perceived the danger of a despotic monarchy usurping the progresses made in Britain by the “glorious Revolution” after the Stuart period. It took many years and many people to prod the colonists into action…most people then, as now, are quite content to believe that things are A-OK as long as they didn’t PERCEIVE the danger or the tyranny. People like to believe their government is a good parent. To believe otherwise shakes their faith.
Hope that makes it a little more clear for you.
April 1, 2007 at 9:52 pm
“We don’t have a king but he acts like one” - is meaningless. The nuthatches are full of people who act like kings too. Ever worked for a nineteen year old assistant manager at McDonalds? Imperious hardly begins to describe. Just because - in your subjective opinion - a person acts like a king does not mean he has the powers of a monarch. You can’t refute a charge of making false equvalencies by simply offering more of them.
The Glorious Revolution came about because Parliament realized that James II (uncle to Charles I, bifurcated by a reluctant Cromwell but even with his head he was known as the shortest of all the KIngs of England), was an idiot, a catholic and lackey to Louis XIV. Since his nephew Charles I died of complications from syphillis (Which James II also had) leaving behind legions of illegitimate children but no heir to the throne they gave it to James. He lasted a whole three years before being replaced by his daughter Mary and her Dutch hubby William Of Orange.
One must also remember that the King of England at the time of the American Revolution was George III - who went insane. Many blamed the stress of the rebellion on his losing his marbles, which meant that Parliament itself (the elected body you lionize) was as much, if not more to blame for these tyrannies.
As for the complacency of the colonists - it had more to do with the debate over their role as lawful subjects of the crown vs becoming rebels. Colonists viewed themselves as Englishmen and were reluctant to rebel without working out the details of what might now seem quaint philosophical reasons of right, wrong, honor and duty.
I was a different time, a different world, a different nation, a different people and a different political system.
But other than that it was exactly like nowadays, as you have so ably pointed out.
Kudoes.
July 21, 2007 at 12:02 am
If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes;
Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. Noah Webster 1832