American liberty? Think again!

The Cause

If the American Revolution was not about independence, what was it about?

Constitution! What Constitution?

Having a name like John Hancock, I have read the Declaration of Independence hundreds of times.  Yet, until I wrote Liberty Inherited: The Untold Story of America’s Exceptionalism, I never gave much thought to the line:

 “He [George III] has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution ….”

But after writing the book I started to ponder:

“What constitution is Mr. Jefferson referring to?”

The Constitution of the United States was still a decade away. So he could not have been referring to it.

Mr. Jefferson used the singular “Constitution” rather than the plural “Constitutions,” which implies that it covered all the colonies and bound George III.  So he could not have been referring to any constitutions that the individual colonies had since any one would not have covered all thirteen and George III would not have been bound by them.

“Maybe he was referring to the Colonial Charters?” I thought, “George III would have been bound by them.”

While that is true, each charter applied to only a few colonies so, again, the singular “constitution” would not be applicable.  Furthermore, Mr. Jefferson specifically uses the term “charters” when referring to those documents.

So what Constitution is Mr. Jefferson referring to?

By looking beyond 1776, beyond the Atlantic, I now understand that the constitution Mr. Jefferson was referring to was the English Constitution that ensured the rights that “all Englishmen are naturally entitled to.”

Most Americans do not realize that there was an English constitution.  This is probably because it, unlike its American off-spring, was not a written formal document.  It was more like English Common Law that evolved through precedence; a living constitution that was constantly being changed by new charters, parliamentary action, and royal prerogative.

Unfortunately, in modern Britain the constitution has evolved itself into extinction but in the mid-1700s is was still a very vital and revered element of English politics.  It, more than anything else, defined what an Englishman was since it distinguished the free-born Englander from his servitude-born continental neighbor.   As the lyrics in Rule Britannia goes:

When Britain first, at Heaven's command

Arose from out the azure main;

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sang this strain:

"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:

"Britons never will be slaves."

The nations, not so blest as thee,

Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;

While thou shalt flourish great and free,

The dread and envy of them all.

"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:

"Britons never will be slaves.

The charter the first verse refers to was the constitution that created the environment of liberty that would produce the Jeffersons, the Wahsingtons, the Adamses, and, yes, the Hancocks that made the founding of this nation possible.  It was the rights it guaranteed that the Patriots were fighting for from the first battles of Lexington and Concord until July 4th, 1776.  It also became the basis of the principle political philosophy this nation was established on.

I am sharing this because I know that many of you are exploring and studying the founding of this great nation.  For some, it is a return to a familiar but neglected subject.  For others, it is the first real attempt at understanding the founding of this nation.  So, whether you are increasing your knowledge or just starting out, I urge you to look beyond 1776 and beyond the Atlantic.  You may find an understanding that you never realized existed.




John Hancock is a historian specializing in the History of the English-speaking peoples.  His new book Liberty Inherited: The Untold Story of America’s Exceptionalism is due out next month.  Click below if you would like details on how you can get a personalized signed copy for just $13.50 (+S&H).  A saving of 20% off its cover price.

Click below for more details:

http://www.libertyinherited.com.

The Occupy Wall St Movement: The Marxist Corruption of Liberalism

Like many Americans, I have been watching the Occupy Wall St. protest spread across the country.  I have been reading the signs and listening to the slogans the protesters carry and chant.  I have also watched as celebrities, politicians, and the MSM line up in support of the movement.  Through all this, I am struck how much Liberalism has been corrupted by Marxism.  I cannot help recalling the words one of my favorite essays:

              
                     My Creed

I do not choose to be a common man.

It is my right to be uncommon...if I can.

I seek opportunity...not security.

I do not wish to be a kept citizen,

humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk;

to dream and to build,

to fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole.

I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence;

the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence

nor my dignity for a handout.

I will never cower before any master

nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid;

to think and act for myself,

enjoy the benefit of my creations

and to face the world boldly and say,

this I have done.

This essay could have been written by a TEA Partier or other Conservative “Right-winger.”  But it wasn’t.  It was written by Dean Alfange.  During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Mr. Alfange was the leader of the American Labor Party and in 1944 formed the Liberal Party.  Additionally, he held a chairmanship in Franklin Roosevelt’s successful campaign to be a three-term president.  He fervently opposed the GOP and ran several campaigns against them.  By any sense of the word, he was no “Right-Winger.” 

Now compare the words of this traditional Liberal (before the infection of Marxism) and those of the Occupy Wall Streeters and their supporters.  How far has Liberalism moved from its original principles!  The modern version has nothing to do with Liberating people and everything to do with enslaving them under the Marxist yoke.  That is why I call Modern Liberalism “Faux Liberalism.” 

We are all Classical Liberals Now

In 2008 elections the Democratic Party, lead by its leftist members, swept into the White House and took control of both chambers of congress.  The MSM eagerly and giddily pronounced Conservatism dead.  Shortly after Obama’s inauguration Newsweek went so far as to do a cover proclaiming, “We are all Socialists now.”

In the mid-term elections of 2010 Conservative Republicans returned to congress in-force.  They took back control of the House of Representatives and all but eliminated the Democrat majority in the Senate.  The American people had put the brakes on the Socialist schemes of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

This swift shifting of the pendulum left the liberal elites confused and dazed.  I can recall one commentator observing that, “In 2008, they elected Liberals.  Now they elected Conservatives.  This just shows that the American people do not know what they want.” 

At the time, I remember thinking, “No, the American people know what they want.  The problem is that neither party is offering it to them.”  

It has been my experience that the majority of Americans are neither 100% Conservative nor 100% Liberal.  But we tend to take these titles because they are the only two of three options from which we have to choose.  Or we go with the third option of being an independent.  

This does not mean that the American people do not have a political foundation.  They do. It is the uniquely American form of Classical Liberalism.   Although we may argue over implementation, most Americans support the classical liberal principles of: 

·         Limited Government

·         Individual Rights

·         Private Property

·         Free-market Economics

The first two guarantees political freedom while the latter two provide the opportunity for economic freedom.

This was the “Great American” experiment.  It was these principles of classical liberalism on which this nation was founded and remained its basic political philosophy for over 100 years.  Millions of immigrants from all corners of the globe, seeking freedom, were drawn by the hope that classical liberalism offered.   More significantly, it resulted in America becoming the most prosperous and powerful country in history.  A country that, when true to these principles, is truly the “shining light on the hill.” 

Unfortunately, since the early 1900s, there has been an aggressive campaign to eradicate this nation’s Classical Liberal roots.  This campaign has been so successful that most people have never heard of Classical Liberalism.  It is no longer taught in school.  Even political science or history classes, if it is taught, it is done so as a long lost political philosophy from the Enlightenment Age of Europe. 

It is remarkable that its principles still exist.  But they do.  They are in the heart of every American who believes that America is an exceptional country, which, I believe, is the majority of us.

No, Newsweek, the American people are not Socialist. They are not even Liberal or Conservative.  They are what they always have been; Classical Liberals! 

Back to School History Lesson

Last month my daughter returned to school.  As a high-school junior, she is required to take American History.  When I asked her about the class, she told me that they were starting from the beginning.  “Christopher Columbus and all that” is how she put it.  She then handed me the class outline.  The sections leading up to the American Revolution was the same story that most Americans learn.  It essentially starts with the discovery of America by Columbus and then progresses through the settlement of Jamestown, the French and Indian War, and terminates with the events immediately preceding the Revolutionary War, such as the various tax acts, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party.  It confers on the student the impression that nothing of importance was transpiring in Mother England during that time.  That England was asleep until one day George III wakes up and exclaims, “My God, I have colonies.  Let’s tax them!”

The reality is that there were many events that transpired in the mother country that profoundly influenced the development of the American colonies.  In 1707, for example, the union of England and Scotland meant that although the colonies started off as English they fought Britain for their independence.  The most notable and significant of those events was the Glorious Revolution of 1688.  Although the Glorious Revolution took place almost 100 years before America’s struggle for independence, it did more to bring about the American Revolution than any other event in America’s pre-independence history.  It could be argued that if the Glorious Revolution of 1688 did not occur or had the outcome been different the American Revolution probably would not have happened at all.  Additionally, the success of the thirteen colonies forming into one constitutional republic would not have been possible without the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The events surrounding the Glorious Revolution are so vital to the creation and development of the United States that in “Liberty Inherited: The untold story of America’s exceptionalism” I dedicate over a quarter of the book to the subject.  In summary, the road to revolution started when James II wanted to return England to the absolutism that the monarchies on the continent enjoyed.  In this system, the king has absolute power over everything in his realm including its people.  In England, this form of servitude was restricted by a series of covenants or contracts, including the Magna Carta (1215).  Upon seeing this threat to their liberty, the English rose up and through a series of events replaced James II with the Dutch ruler the Prince of Orange and his wife Mary.  But before the Prince of Orange could become William III, King of England, he had to accept what became known as the Declaration of Rights.

This declaration ensured that England would continue on its path to developing the tradition of limited government, of parliamentary supremacy, of personal freedom and of the common law.  The limitations placed on the monarchy by this document meant that the king could not act without the consent of the people as represented by parliament.  Additionally, it ensured the rights and liberties of individual Englishmen.   It guaranteed his right to bear arms, to a speedy trial, to due process, to be safe and secure in his life and property.  Like all good Englishmen, the Founding Fathers believed these to be their God-given rights and made sure that, in one form or another, they were included in the Bill of Rights.  The fact is that the framers of the constitution used the declaration, the system of limited government it established, and the rights it protected as the template for establishing the United States of America.

Additionally, I believe that if James II had not been removed from the throne of England the United States would not exist today, at least in its democratic form.  Once he assumed the throne James set out to reform the colonies along the same authoritarian format used by France and Spain.  His plan was to form the thirteen colonies into four captaincies.  This would be followed by the elimination of the colonial assemblies and an appointment of a Royal Governor with absolute authority and answerable only to the king.  At that time, many of the colonies were just beginning to enjoy representative democracy.  To eliminate it at this point would result in the colonies losing almost 100 years of the democratic experience they would need to establish the new nation.  Under those conditions, it is highly unlikely that the American Revolution would have been fought, much less won.  The events immediately following a victory by the Patriots would certainly have been different.  The probability of establishing the liberty based country we have today would certainly have been almost zero.  Instead, the liberty focused revolution would probably have resulted, not in a Washington, but in an American version of Napoleon, Santa Anna, Lenin, Stalin, or Chavez. 

Until a few years ago I, like most Americans, was ignorant of the Glorious Revolution.  This ignorance was not out of a lack of interest but a result of the way American history is taught.  This is not a partisan issue since both sides have benefited from keeping Americans uneducated.  Conservatives do so because it supports the myth that the establishment of this nation was miraculous.  Liberals do it because if the American people understood the origins of their liberties they would realize what a threat an ever-increasing and powerful government is to those liberties.  Therefore, much to the chagrin of our British cousins, Americans are not informed of the struggles that made this country possible.  This limited education has had dire consequences for our country.  Without this part of our history, we do not have a context to put the American experience into.  We lose the sense of what it means to be an American and clarity as what type of nation the United States was established to be.  We fail to recognize the implication of being an English colony had for the development of the United States.  More tragically we fail to recognize the dangers that threaten to eliminate our liberties forever.

As I explain in “Liberty Inherited: The untold story of America’s exceptionalism,” the founders of this extraordinary nation did not accidently stumble onto the system of government they established in 1789.  It was developed over several centuries and, while I still think that America is based on a miracle, I now realize that that miracle took place several hundred years earlier in a place called England.  In fact, the more I study the origins and history of our liberty the more I marvel at its existence.  The more I learn the more I appreciate the improbability of its survival.  This becomes strikingly clear especially when compared to what was going on in the rest of the world at the time, which, for the common man, was slavery and servitude.  This leads me to ponder a couple of questions:

If schools did not omit the tremendous struggles for liberty that were occurring in England at a time when the United States was nothing more than scattering of fledgling colonies, would we, as Americans, feel or think differently about our country?

Would we still be having the political debate that is currently dividing this nation?  

What do you think?  Leave your comments and thoughts below.

Blame the MSM, not the Tea Party

Sometimes we do not notice the subtle changes that occur over time but they are obvious to those who have not been here to experience them. This was the situation for friends of mine who had returned recently for a visit. For the past three years they have been living in Australia and the changing sentiment in America was, as they put it, “shocking and disturbing.” They cannot believe how much the United States has changed. As they noted, ”it is not a physical change that is easily recognizable, but a psychological one that reveals itself in conversation with others.” Yesterday’s attack on Congresswoman Giffords is evidence that we are no longer the country where freedom of thought and speech can be safely exercised. For those of us who have watched this develop over the last couple of years it is just another step on the road to self-destruction. For those who have not noticed it, it is a wake-up call.


The Main Stream Media (MSM) often claims that what is happening to our nation is the fault of the Tea Part-- that the Tea Party and its supporters are to blame for most if not all the “vitriol” that is consuming the political discourse in this country. They describe Tea Partiers as being white, old, Right-wing, religious zealots who are angry that America is no longer the country it use to be. They worried, even prophesized, that the Tea Party’s actions would lead to violence and, if you get your news from the MSM, yesterday’s attacks seems to bear this out.

Congresswoman Giffords is a democrat who supported ObamaCare and was against SB 1070 (the Arizona illegal immigration bill). Similar to many Tea Party supporters Jared Loughner, the shooter, had railed against the federal government, wants a return to the gold standard, and believes that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. For the MSM this clearly means that Loughner was motivated by the Tea Party’s rhetoric and Sara Palin’s failed efforts to have Giffords defeated in the last election.

The leap to this conclusion is not only superficial, it is also unprofessional. While Loughner is white he is, at 22, not old. He is a self-described atheist who was angry that he was given a Bible at a recruiting center and wrote that he “will not trust in god.” This goes directly against the caricature the MSM has been using to describe Tea Partiers. Furthermore he has posted that his favorite books are Mein Kampf, Communist Manifesto, Animal Farm, and Brave New World. I can safely say that these are not top reading material for Tea Partiers and Conservatives. Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx were both statists who saw a big all-powerful government as the solution to societal problems. In the1960’s and 70s George Orwell’s Animal Farm was a “must read” for any serious leftist radical and Aldous Huxley was a Humanist, pacifist, mystic who advocated the use of psychedelic drugs. Finally, Loughner was even described by a former classmate as being “left-wing, quite liberal.” This makes it very difficult to claim that Loughner was influenced by conservative ideology and Tea Party rhetoric.

But claim they do! Against all information to the contrary the MSM is still trying to paint the Tea Party with the blood spilt by Loughner. In my opinion this is done for one of two reasons: incompetence or outright bias. Either way, it is the actions of the MSM, and not the Tea Party, that has helped create the “vitriol” in American politics. People become angry when they are ignored and this is especially true in a democratic society that is use to having a responsive government and a professional unbiased media. By allying itself with politicians who are attempting to marginalize a large segment of the American people the MSM has created an environment which has forced people to find an alternative way to be heard. So it can be argued that the Tea Party is the unintended consequence of the MSM’s deplorable and unprofessional behavior. It can also be argued that the Tea Party, by providing a voice for the American people, has acted as a valve for the negative pressure being created by the MSM and politicians. But this cannot go on indefinitely and I am worried that the longer the MSM and politicians ignore significant segments of the American population the more acts of violence we will see. Of course, they will blame the Tea Party and the cycle of destruction will continue.