Queen's Jubilee: Why Americans should care

Like most Americans, my view of monarchy is that it is a political system that instills fancy despots who are above the law and who arbitrarily rule over their subjects.  This is compounded by the tradition of producing spoiled despots (many of them sick- physically and mentally- from centuries of inbreeding) to replace themselves.   The product of this hereditary and absolute rule is a system that allowed generations of monarchs to lord over everything within their realms, trample the rights of individuals, and treat people in general as nothing more than beast of burden. 

But as I started doing research for my book, Liberty Inherited, I soon discovered the English (British after the Acts of Union) monarchy was different, special, and exceptional among the monarchies of the world. 

As Sir William Young explained it:

The word king in Great Britain means not the same thing as king elsewhere; as formerly in France, or as actually in Prussia, Hungary, or Spain. It means a person invested with the executive power, as to the people individually to administer the laws, but under the control of the laws; and as to the people as a nation, to administer the government, but under the control of the nation. As to the persons and property of individuals, the king has no power or authority, but what the people by their representatives have veiled in him by laws made for the public peace and advantage of all.

In other words, unlike the rest of the world, the British subjects did not serve the King, he served them. 

What is amazing is that Young scribed those words over 200 year ago (1793) while the French Revolution was just starting and the “American Experiment” was in its infancy.  One ended with the establishment of a tyrant named Napoleon Bonaparte while the other became a symbol of liberty and freedom.  The reason for this differential of outcome is that although both believed in liberty and justice, only one, the United States, was based on the “rights of Englishmen.”   It is these rights which evolved under the English system of limited monarchy that provided the principles that would make the United States into the great nation it has become.

This would not have happened if the original colonies had the misfortune of being colonized by one of the continental powers.  As I explain in Liberty Inherited:

Due to the absolutist beliefs of the French and Spanish such a [limited government] system of ruling colonies could not even be imagined. People living in the French and Spanish empires were never given autonomy over the affairs of their colony. Governors and Captaincies were usually minor nobles sent from the mother country. They ruled with the authority of the king, which gave them dictatorial powers over their subjects.

The result would be that the United States would not have had the political principles that have been the foundation of its success.  Instead, it and the other English-speaking nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc) would be nothing more than the political basket cases that many of the former French and Spanish colonies are.  

Additionally, we must wonder if the American Revolution would have been possible if the colonies were those of Spain or France.  It must be recognized that in an era when rebellion was met with ruthless and often bloody suppression the British government showed remarkable restraint.  A restraint the Empire did not always show to those it viewed as non-English.  If not for their rights as Englishmen, the instigators of the revolution would have been rounded up long before shots were fired at Concord and Lexington.  In a French or Spanish colony, at the first utterance of a rebellious word, they would have been summarily arrested and shot, their property confiscated, their families left destitute.

Even the prosecution of the war by the British army, while at times marked by abuses, was very civil for the period.  The local populace was mostly left unmolested and even treated cordially.  Lord Cornwallis, the commander of the British army, had numerous opportunities to pursue the defeated Continental Army but failed to do so.  Thus allowing Washington to slip away and fight another day.  Most American history books explain his lack of aggressiveness as plain ineptitude but Cornwallis went on to go down in history as a great British general.  He had notable successes in India and Ireland, both of which showcased his military and political abilities. 

So why was he unable to do the same in Britain’s American colonies? Maybe the answer lies in that the rebellious colonists were seen and treated more as misguided Englishmen than warring enemies.  As such, they were entitled to receive the rights and benefits of being Englishmen.  If so, that would be the greatest irony of the American Revolution, that while fighting for their “rights as Englishmen” they were being shielded by those rights.

It is only natural that in the intervening years the United States and the United Kingdom would come together to defend freedom and liberty throughout the world.  It was with aid from the United States that Britain was able to resist Nazi tyranny and it was predominately Anglo-American forces that ultimately put an end to Hitler’s reign of death and oppression.  This blow for liberty and freedom was followed up with both nations containing and then defeating the equally bloody and oppressive ideology of communism. 

Britain’s support to America after the attacks on 9/11 demonstrates that this special relationship is alive and well in the 21^st century.   As Dennis Murphy (former adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair) explained it: 

He [PM Blair] would speak for all of us who value democracy and freedom when he committed Britain to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the USA in their darkest hour of the early years of the 21st Century, as they had done for us, twice, during ours in the 20th Century. They'd always been there for Europe when we needed them.  They needed us now.

A recent CNN/ORC poll shows that 82% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Queen.  I believe this positive view to be well deserved.  Not because of who she is or her individual appeal, but because of principles she and the British monarchy symbolizes.  For, without these principles, the United States would not be the nation it is today.

This is why the Queen’s Jubilee should matter to Americans.  It is a time when we need to reflect on the good fortune of the thirteen original colonies being English/British, that the great men who founded this nation were “freeborn Englishmen” and that we inherited the English principles for freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

Therefore, I say, “God Save the Queen and the great traditions she stands for.”