Patri Friedman of seasteading fame, has an interesting post reopening an old debate: whether the Declaration of Independence launched a revolution or a secession movement. This was a hotly contested issue in the 19th century, when southern secessionists claimed they were following in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers who seceded from the British Empire, while many northerners responded by drawing a sharp distinction between secession and revolution.
The truth is that the Declaration of Independence was both a revolution and a secession. There is little question that American Patriots sought to secede from the British Empire in the sense that they wanted to break off their part of it and form a separate nation. Certainly, they weren't trying to replace the existing British government with a new one, while keeping the empire intact. On the other hand, the American independence movement was also revolutionary in the sense that it sought to institute a radically new political system. The revolutionaries certainly were not trying to gain independence simply for the purpose of establishing a smaller country with a political system that largely copied Britain's. For example, the rebels sought to create a polity with far stronger protections for individual freedom, no hereditary aristocracy, and a much more democratic political system than existed in 18th century Britain (or any other European state). Historian Gordon Wood discusses these and other radical changes sought by the revolutionaries in his excellent book The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Of course, the new United States did not consistently pursue liberal principles across the board, as witness the continuation of slavery in the South. But it did pursue them to a far greater extent than the British government of the day.
In sum, therefore, the revolution-secession dichotomy fails to capture the true nature of the American independence movement, which was an attempt to use secessionist means for revolutionary ends.
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Indeed, the similarity of the Confederate Constitution to the US Constitution was always a puzzlement, since it deprived the South of a powerful rhetorical device.
Washington himself squelched the idea, and that's one of many, many things we have to thank him for.
The Constitutionality of secession was disproven in Texas v. White, 1869.
Taxation without representation is wrong, I guess, but a lot of property was destroyed and a lot of people lost their lives for the GRRReat PRRRincipul of saving a little extra money and a lot of pride. As long as the "voice of the people is heard," I guess it doesn't matter.
Don't get me wrong, the ideas used to rationalize the revolution were great, and the world is probably better off because there was and is an independent United States. And the US, because it was formulated on such high ideals, has been forced to follow them, at least in some circumstances. But I certainly don't think it was a just war.
In the end the details of the tax that broke the camel's back itself were meaningless, it was the fact that it, like so much Colonial-specific legislation, was levied on the Englishmen in the Americas but not also levied on the Englishmen in England.
The continuing disparate treatment of subjects/citizens of the Empire based on residency, systematized discrimination without legal recourse, was the principle in play.
So the Colonies would have been content with the status quo of 1750. The innovation of a Federal Government, a navy, and an army were just the unfortunate consequences of having to ditch an irresponsible King (remember that formally the British army and navy and colonies were under the authority of the King and his Government, not Parliament). And then it was necessary to restrain the Federal Government with a Bill of Rights.
Thus, the legal position of the American Revolution, from the American side, was not secession from England, or revolution, but replacement of the monarch by a new central executive.
I see it somewhat differently. For one thing, the franchise in England was so much more restricted than in the colonies, and if I'm not mistaken, the English people in England had to pay higher taxes than did the colonists. True, the larger franchise in the colonies did not translate into representation in parliament, but it did translate into representation in the colonial assemblies, which had at least some (informal) voice in how the colonists were governed.
The colonists--or at least the plurality or minority who supported the "Revolution"--had their reasons for revolting. I was perhaps too glib to ascribe so much of it to the dispute over the Tea Act. Still, I don't believe such disputes--or the principle of a lack of legal recourse--rise to the level of requiring or justifying violent resistance. Obviously, the colonist plurality felt differently.
I am an American citizen, and I benefit perhaps more than most citizens from the legacy of the American Revolution or War for Independence or whatever one wants to call it. But that legacy, as I see it, is one of ultimate good proceeding from unjust circumstances. The American "Revolution" was an unjust war, in my view.
* Winning including having that victory accepted at the international level.
Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U.S. 176, 186 (1877).
Well, there were some additional, important facts between the tea tax and the actual outbreak of fighting. Most significant were the fact that the King declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion, the Intolerable Acts (e.g., here and here and here), the use of military force against the colonists, and various other of a "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinc[ing] a design to reduce them under absolute despotism".
All this came at least a year before the Declaration.
JMHO, but I think representation is a pretty important principle, one worth fighting for.
There was no executive under the Articles of Confederation. In any case, those weren't ratified until 1780, at which time the new nation was already 4 years old. That makes it hard to use the Articles to reason backward to the causes. It's the Declaration which is the formative document, and while that was centrist in the US, it was very radical indeed for the rest of the world.
This is a fairly liberal view of 1688-9, though it certainly was the majority view in America. The conservative theory was that James II abandoned his throne, which allowed his replacement. In England, the Tories never did agree to the theory you suggest (and even some Whigs were squishy on it).
I should say that the "minor tax on a luxury item" statement was part of my assertion that the Tea Act (and by extension, the Boston Tea Party, Coercive Acts, and, eventually, Lexington and Concord) was one of the proximate causes of the war, not the underlying ideology or principle.
The Constitutionality of secession was disproven in Grant v Vicksburg, July 4, 1863.
It seems to me that almost all of what you mentioned happened after the colonists (or a small number of them) commenced their campaign to destroy property or kill British soldiers. The King declared the colonies in rebellion after Lexington and Concord, not before. The Coercive Acts were imposed after the mob inspired by the Sons of "Liberty" dumped the tea into the Boston Harbor.
Not to mention in Meade v. Lee the same week.
See, nowadays Lee could've pled "ineffective assistance of Longstreet" and maybe gotten the battle reversed.
(Slandering poor Longstreet for a lame joke. I am so ashamed. --Okay, feeling better now.)
Re: the colonies' grievances, I tend to think that the Atlantic Ocean made some sort of break inevitable, once you had a critical mass of Anglo-Americans on the other side of the water, rather like it's inevitable that finches on an island with one kind of seed will grow different beaks from finches on another island with different seeds. How the colonists expressed the issue to themselves is, what's the word? ... epiphenomenal?
That's difficult to square with the writings and political beliefs of the leaders of the revolution, and in particular with the strong support many subsequently gave to the French Revolution. I mean, there is no amount of post-hoc analysis that can turn Thomas Paine into anything but a radical; even calling him a moderate liberal would be a stretch. But even those less radical than Paine generally sided, in their political philosophy, with the likes of Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire; rather than Burke, Hamann, and de Maistre.
If there's anything conceivably worse in the minds of the colonists than the rule of the English King, it has to be the rule of the French King.
I tend to agree. However, it is interesting that Canada did not join in the Revolution but, instead, waited patiently for independence in 1867.
I have always found it interesting that even before the American Revolution, the two sets of British colonies on the North American mainland were very distinct. If the Canadian colonies were invited to the Continental Congress, that would be news to me.
Hannah Arendt compared the three main revolutions, the American, the French and the Russian. She considered the American revolution to be a true revolution in contrast to the French revolution. This went against the current left-wing influenced thought. She has been criticized as being overly influenced by anti-French sentiment (as a Jew who fled Europe during the Holocaust) but I find her arguments to be anything but emotional. Her analyis of the American Revolution (as the rest of her work) is very convincing, IMO.
Destruction of property was hardly a cause for declaring MA in a state of rebellion, which came in March 1774, a full year before Lexington and Concord. By the standards of the time (see, e.g., the Wilkes Riots or the Gordon Riots), the Tea Party was a tame affair. Property had been destroyed before (Hutchinson's house and others) with no such overreaction as the Intolerable Acts. And it's hard to argue for an American campaign to kill British soldiers when it was, after all, Gage who sent the troops out on April 18, 1775.
Letters to the inhabitants of Canada (1774, 1775, and 1776).
Thank you for the link. I learned something new today.
And so--if the South had won the war, it would have proven secession was Constitutional? Is Constitutionality really a matter of might makes right? Window dressing, indeed.
Cf article 11 of the Articles of Confederation:
Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.
In the world of international relations might makes right is the only practical measure I see being available. If you can get away with it, iy's all good.
Freebird!
I don't think it's about representation at all. The entire "taxation without representation" argument is a canard.
Counterfactual: suppose each American colony had been granted 1 MP in, say, 1764 after the Seven Years' War ends. A year later the Stamp Act passes Parliament 205-62 instead of 205-49. A few years later the Townshend Acts are passed as well, despite colonial MPs voting against them.
Even if we imagine the colonies were given proportional representation, they'd still lose; Britain was about 3 times as populous as the colonies.
So do you imagine the colonies just decide to tough it out under burdensome British taxes? The taxes were going to happen, even with representation. Frankly, I don't think so. The gentlemen and merchants and intellectuals who led the Revolution had too much to gain by doing so.
Ultimately, yes. The legislation out of Congress and the decisions from the Court are not magically self-enforcing.
Orval Faubus learned this the hard way ...
For a simple contemporary example, a law taxing all goods shipped to and from Alaska, passed by the Federal government, would be taxation without representation. The law was not passed by the representatives of the people taxed but by some other body (that happens to include them and other people, but is *NOT* the people taxed).
You and a billion other people voting to take everything you own is not how representative government works. The set of people represented and the set of people affected must be substantially the same.
And yet you still felt compelled to add something. Really Anderson, your comments have been a bore for a long time now. You used to post more meaningful and thoughtful comments. These days it's just poorly-done snark or else reflexive substance-free affirmations of ideological agreement - or disagreement. In a word: witless. If you have nothing to add, don't.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Indeed. This is why allocating extra power in the senate to small states is a wise thing. It's important that the small and distant parts of a nation not perceive themselves as being ridden over roughshod by a distant majority unfamiliar with local conditions.
What about Texas and Hawaii?
I believe the argument is that they were sovereign before joining the US.
The key passages from the SC ordinance of secession:
"The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "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."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy."
There is no mention of the word "tariff".
Yes, that's because Lincoln had a strong sense of the limitations of the President's war power and wanted to be certain that he could defend the Proclamation -- making it irreversible -- on the most secure legal ground.
Yep, and one of those who fought was my great great g'father, a Kentuckian born and bred who knew and understood the value of the Union. I remember that every year about this time.
The Brits were always occupied on the Continent, and 3,000 miles of open ocean provided a significant obstacle, tempting the revolutionaries to take advantage.
Winning brings on legitimacy, and the Confederacy lost, so they never attained it. The rest is just details, including questions concerning semantics, like this blog post.
I have a feeling Prof. V might have some thoughts on the order in which you've listed us. Still, the competition does seem to be dropping like flies.... Several million more such incidents and we're in.
It's impossible to refute a counterfactual, of course, but I think the psychology of representative government is pretty sound. When people believe that they CAN change the rules, even if they need to convince others of the justice of their cause, "all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Vermont, actually - but they weren't really trying to be an independent nation, they just didn't join the Union until they convinced New York to stop claiming Vermont as part of New York.
I see your argument but it just doesn't work that way in reality. It's completely untenable.
I certainly agree, but I don't the psychology of representation was really the issue. There were overwhelming economic and cultural reasons for independence, whether or not the colonies felt properly represented.
"I gotta agree, the American Revolution was about something more than taxation without representation, and would have taken place even if the colonies had reps in the Brit parliament.
The Brits were always occupied on the Continent, and 3,000 miles of open ocean provided a significant obstacle, tempting the revolutionaries to take advantage."
Except, you know, Australia. If a bunch of ex-cons with 16,000 miles of open ocean can't get it up for a Revolution, there had to be something more to the American case. I'd say the searing rays of the Enlightenment burning at its brightest. A closer look at the progress of the views of that Franklin fellow might shed more light on the subject.
MarkField,
"I have a feeling Prof. V might have some thoughts on the order in which you've listed us."
I get excited. But the hits just keep on coming. Damn, you're good. Truly a man with the common wealth ever at heart.
Someone already quoted South Carolina's ordinance; Georgia also declared at secession:
Or Mississippi's:
Or Texas's:
So even if you don't think the civil war was about slavery, the states seceding definitely did. This whole "the war wasn't about slavery" is ridiculous revisionism.
I suppose one COULD analyze it this way as what ACTUALLY happened. However, one would have to ignore the rhetoric of the DOI and many of the letters and addresses of the Founders: They were clear; it was a REVOLUTION. Most Americans, at the beginning thought the French Revolution was a continuation of the American. Then as time went on, opinions changed. The FR MIGHT be a good example of what happens when you follow the RHETORIC of the DOI to its logical conclusions.
Also the failure of the French Revolution, following the rhetoric of the American Revolution to its logical conclusions, might rightly instruct Christians just what happens when one embraces the "revolution" that is forbidden in Romans 13.
My friend Dr. Gregg Frazer (PhD Claremont Grad. University and Prof. of History and Poli Sci at the Master's College -- an evangelical institution) has stated the rebellion in which the FFs engaged in was a sin worthy of death.
Perhaps that is why the signers of the DoI pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. And plenty of them paid that bill when it came due.
That is lawyer thinking (not unexpected for this site, I suppose). It would be like saying that someone who robbed a bank and wasn't convicted "has not robbed a bank".
Certainly discussion of law routinely includes statements like "I think so-and-so law violates the Constitution" even if there's every sign the government has gotten away with it.
I see international relations as perhaps the purist embodiment of a group trying to leave the state of nature. Right now agreements are made but there is very little enforcement mechanism. And even what enforcement mechanisms that do exist, if they are successfully resisted then provide legitimacy to whatever the precipitating action was.
Look at Tibet as an example, where I recently read that the UK is at last acknowledging Tibet as part of China. According to some that's not just bank robbery it's stealing an entire country.
If uou have the strength to get away with something at the IR There just isn't the level of organized society at the IR level to bring most of those who flout its commands to any sort of heed. Others might complain but the cost of enforcement is just too high in nearly all cases.
I don't necessarily disagree with this, but as Desiderius points out, there is Australia. And Canada.
RI and NC were late to the party, as it were. I guess their legal status is a little unclear between July 1788 and May 29, 1790 and Nov. 21, 1789, respectively.
Your point is irrelevant. You could pledge your "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" to something that is unbiblical. Indeed that sentiment of "sacred honor" seems to stem from their noble pagan Greco-Roman worldview, ala Publius and Cato.
My blog American Creation has engaged in extensive study on whether the DOI is compatible with historic Christianity. Romans 13 was actually a MAJOR theological obstacle for the Founding Fathers to overcome. And they overcame that obstacle in large part by arguing Locke and "Nature" (i.e., what man discovers from "reason") and cleverly explaining away Romans 13. However there was a long intellectual tradition that stemmed back from Aquinas, and before him Aristotle, of "discovering" essences in "Nature" from "reason." This was where Locke "discovered" the "state of nature" (he sure as Hell didn't find it in the Bible).
"Also, for orthodox Christians reading this, the dominant understanding throughout history on Romans 13 is that revolt is categorically forbidden."
What is this, hoary old chestnut day? I think John Witherspoon might want to have a word with you.
See also this thread.
As for your friend being evangelical, it is difficult to conceive of a less evangelical comment than your own on this day in this forum.
My friends' evangelical bona fides are not only beyond reproach but exceed Witherspoon's. He and I have both studied Witherspoon in meticulous detail and following the work of Mark Noll, show that Witherspoon's case for revolt came from Locke and "Nature" not the Bible. John Witherspoon was an enlightenment rationalist as well as a Calvinist Christian. He was politically and spiritually schizophrenic. When he preached his sermons, he was a Calvinist. When he taught politics to his students at Princeton, he taught then enlightenment rationalism and the natural law. His politics were not based on the Bible.
In that thread you directed me towards, I commented the following quoting Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden, the three preeminent historians of America's religious history, esp. of the Founding era. Quoting myself, quoting those three scholars:
"My friends' evangelical bona fides"
There is nothing good nor faithful in coming into a libertarian forum on Independence Day and declaring that the American Revolution was against God's will and the biblical teaching through which you discern it. For your next act, will you be yelling fire in a crowded theater, with your proof text from Exodus 13 at your side?
Thankfully, your take flies directly into the face of the entire logic of the Reformation itself and the not less studied views of legions of your fellow believers - no doubt you can find there more welcoming fora for your intellectual preening.
Then again, you do have the Quakers on your side, though it is perhaps an uncomfortable fact that the DOI was signed in Pennsylvania. God works in mysterious ways.
First off, I am not a Christian and I made clear that revolt could be squared with various versions of "Christianity" like a heavy natural law, rationalistic like Christianity. The DOI seems in tension with evangelical, fundamentalist, Sola Scriptura, Christianity.
Second, what "GOOD" that comes from my participation here is illuminating the history of political theology, a subject matter about which I know quite a bit. It is what it is, whether one likes it or not.
And third, I have a Hell of a lot more than the Quakers on my side, but the majority of history of Christendom, including Luther and Calvin.
Here are a few choice quotes from Calvin:
"We are to be subject not only to the authority of those princes who do their duty towards us as they should, and uprightly, but to all of them, however they came by their office,even if the very last thing they do is act like [true] princes."
"[W]e must honour [even] the worst tyrant in the office in which the Lord has seen fit to set him...."
"[I]f you go on to infer that only just governments are to be repaid by obedience, your reasoning is stupid."
"Make no mistake: it is impossible to resist the magistrate without also resisting God."
"And even if the punishment of unbridled tyranny is the Lord's vengeance [on tyrants], we are not to imagine that it is we ourselves who have been called upon to inflict it. All that has been assigned to us is to obey and suffer."
-- Book IV, Chapter 20 of Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion"
For more see the following. (Where I took the quotes; however, I have gone back to the original and read them in context.)
This is a question that should interest those who take Leo Strauss' concern seriously that we must strongly consider the politics of Reason and Revelation (it should be no wonder than Dr. Frazer's PhD is from Claremont Graduate University). One could be even a pomo atheist (as many Straussians are) and take the politics of Reason and Revelation seriously. However if one doesn't take those politics seriously, the issue is likely to bore you.
The Founding Fathers, though, did take the politics of R &R seriously.
Or am I reading far too much into what you are saying?
I have always been taught that the indpendenc movement was largely fueled by three sources: 1) Lockean Natural Law Theory, 2) the admiration of several founders for Greco-Roman republicanism, and 3) economic resentments - particularly the British laws requiring the colonists to send their raw materials to England and pay for finished products sent back to the colonies.
I cannot see how Enlightenment views could have influenced the revolutionaries at the time of the war, although it certainly had an impact on later developments in the newly founded U.S.
#1 (Lockean natural law) IS enlightenment.
Troll_dc2,
This might sound like a cop out, but it depends on whether the DOI is part of the "organic law" that gets constitutional status or not. If we JUST have the Constitution, and not the Declaration as part of our "Law" (with a capital L) then indeed, we could via the positive law pass and ratify an amendment that "limited the right to bear arms, gave special rights to the religious, or authorized the creation of a nobility."
But IF the DOI is part of our "Law," we could not. I believe that the DOI IS part of our "Law," but that is a matter of dispute. Of the current Supreme Court, only Justice Thomas, so far, believes this.
The American Civil War was an attempt by Scotch-Irish to assume rights from Saxons. Prominent Scotch-Irish directors and incitors like Jackson and Calhoun long discerned inferior status of their tribe and perceived any increase in federal authority as both an invasion of their tribe's space and an assumption of their rights; thus Scotch-Irish insistence on "States' Rights" was nothing more than code for Scotch-Irish independence from not only Saxon England but also Saxon America.
History professors and other scribes create a maze of convoluted insubstantial theories and other fictions of their imagination, while those who cogitate clearly and expertly perceive correctly using quotidian but true prism of Force and Interest. Saxons assumed trade and manufacturing rights from the Crown by force of arms; what Saxons did differed not at all in substance from what Mugabe did in Zimbabwe; describing such a violent assumption of rights as a "revolution" is nothing more than justification.
Suppose we follow the procedures of the Constitution and adopt an amendment of the sort that I suggested. Suppose you are the final decider of what can be done and what is forbidden. How would you argue that the DOI limits the amendment process? Does this mean that the DOI prevails to the extent that it conflicts with the Constitution? If so, would the drafters of the Constitution and the people who ratified it agree with that proposition? Or are their beliefs immaterial? (This raises an interesting question as to what Original Intent would focus on, but that is another issue.)
This is the million $$ question. It's really complicated and I don't have the time, space, or motivation to answer it here. For this "natural right" proposition, I would suggest, among others Harry Jaffa, Justice Thomas, Roger Pilon and Randy Barnett. For the opposite proposition, I would suggest Alan Dershowitz, Justices Holmes &Scalia, &Robert Bork. You can find quotations from the historical record that go both ways. On a personal note, I think the natural right trumps the Constitution is what the Founding stands for, but not all learned scholars agree with this (8/9 of SCOTUS disagree).
I would say the only point that the DoI becomes ultimate Law is the point at which whatever is going on becomes intolerable and a new order is crafted. That is the only rule that the DoI actually puts forward.
As for the theological argument, I find it rather boring, much like the argument over the origin of life or the universe as a whole, at some point it becomes unknowable what actually happened.
Unlike the Australians, the American Colonists had been the recipients of two hundred years of "benign neglect". For the majority of that time the Colonials had pretty much run their own affairs, in some cases fighting their own wars. A few seats in Parlement wouldn't have come close to what they were used to and expected as "representation". And many British actions (such as closing the far side of the Alleghenys to settlement), made it plain that the wants and needs of the colonists would always come second to the interests back in London.
That wasn't the dominant understanding in the colonies (even among colonists who did not class Paul as a scoundrel and traitor), which is why VA wrote into its constitution that "the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind."
The divine judgment was in any event soon apparent:
George III died blind and insane and rejected by his son and successor.
George Washington died in honor.
Ben Franklin died about 800 years old, having boinked over 25% of the female population of the US and Britain, and 42% of that of France.
Who was favored and who was punished should be obvious here.
Thank you for your take, John Rowe.
2) The colonists did not want to sit in Parliament, they wanted there own colonial assemblies to be parliaments.
3) The King did not have to send troops here, at all. And the King was given multiple chances to retract his offences. When he decided to occupy cities and to wage war on his subjects, they were right tear down his government.
A political revolution can be thought of as a revolution of the wheel of life. That is those on the top of the wheel are replaced by those at the bottom. Politically in England, the Civil War was a revolution, that is rule of the monarch was replaced by rule by his subjects. The restoration was largely a completion of a 360 degree revolution, with Charles II reclaiming, at least in theory, many of the powers his father had claimed. The Glorious Revolution, by placing sovereignty firmly in Parliament, was a revolution.
The colonies, of course, as dependencies of England, were influenced by all of the forgoing.
Revolution? Removal of sovereignty from the (by now) United Kingdom to the individual colonies and their creation, the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation.
Secession? The philosophical basis of American political thought being that of Hobbs, Locke, and Paine, the continuance of the common law, the continuance of the individual colonies' (now states') governments, and the placing in the new Constitution of the legislature first (an echo of Parliament's position).
The French Revolution is also a turning of the wheel, but it also looks to England's Glorious Revolution and its aftermath for often unacknowledged inspiration (via, in part, Voltaire's 'vacation' there and well as Montesquieu.)
Replacement of the Monarch is a revolution. Charles I, Cromwell, James II, the Whigs, George III and the American founders, all agreed on this.
To come in later times and try to equate, sorry, not going there.
I think John Adams claimed that 1/3 of Americans were loyalists, 1/3 were Whigs and 1/3 were on the fence at the very beginning. That's whey there needed to be ARGUMENT on behalf of the cause. And when the ministers rallied the people (for instance the unitarian Jonathan Mayhew -- the "morning gun" of the revolution) they turned to Locke and Nature, not Calvin or Rutherford. They did deal with the Bible, but not as ultimate authority; they usually dealt with it in self serving, clever ways like explaining away Romans 13.
In the document, the colonies call themselves "free and independent states," in the plural, claiming "they have full power." An anti-secessionist argument that relies on the colonies never being independent entities fails on this point. No further argument on that from me; I honestly have not made up my mind on secession. But that right there is weak.
Go read it all for yourself here:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/17th.asp
The issue was decided by force of arms rather than constitutional process (amendment). The 13th and 14th amendments were not even proposed until after the war.
The remaining vestiges of the "Republic" have been steadily eroded ever since, and any rational analysis of our present government can only conclude that it is operating far beyond the bounds of any legitimate constitutional authority. The limitations on federal power have eroded steadily through the years, punctuated by the Civil War, and the major power grabs since (FDR, LBJ, perhaps now BHO?, commerce clause, Roe v. Wade, etc.). This country ceased to be governed by anything remotely resembling the Constitution many many years ago, and the full story of the U.S. Civil War is a major part of how that came to pass.
If you are largely satisfied with the present state of affairs in terms of how the U.S. government functions... congratulations, your victory is nearly complete. Please think of me when that day arrives that you are deprived of life, liberty, or property by the unchecked power of the state... coming soon to a town near you.
Happy "Independence" day!
I assume that we all agree that, legally, the colonies were not "free and independent states" as long as they were under British rule. Thus, they could not possibly have been such prior to July 1776.
The next step is to decide what legal status they attained by the DOI. Let's get the words exact: "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do."
While I think the language is nicely ambiguous, and probably intentionally so, the natural reading is that the status of "free and independent" applies to the united colonies. If we take their actions afterwards as indicative of the correct interpretation, we see that they never did act as independent sovereigns -- all foreign policy and military decisions were made by the Union in Congress.
I think the irony of such arguments by slaveowners is pretty obvious.
And those who fired the first shot might well have taken that into account.
To the contrary, the country is more republican now than it has ever been. Leaving aside the issue of women and their undoubted right to participate in a true republic, in Madison's words, “In proportion as slavery prevails in a State, the Government, however democratic in name, must be aristocratic in fact. The power lies in a part instead of the whole; in the hands of property, not in numbers.” Only the abolition of slavery made a true Republic possible; only the heroism of MLK and the political acumen of LBJ made it actual.
Even if seccesion was a legal right in 1861, theft of US property, entering in an illegal compact between states, and firing on US soldiers performing their duty would not have been a legal way to exert such a right.
An assertion that you are owed wages by a bank does not give you authority to rob it.
The national government of the United States shall, "provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union [and] suppress insurrections" Art. 1, Sec. 8, para. 15.
Moreover, the states are prohibited from forming confederations: "No state shall enter into any . . . confederation". Art. 1, Sec. 10, para 1. Or make any alliance with another state: "No state shall . . .enter into any agreement or compact with another state". Art 1, Sec. 10, para 3.
I'd feel comforted were there as much support for the Revolution here as there is for the Union. At least some of the regulars are "officers of the court," sworn to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic--an oath taken, as I recall it, without mental reservation, blog nics notwithstanding, and for keepsies, you know, you said you really believed that. If the South was guilty of treason, most of the commenters above are at least worthy of suspicion.
"1) Desiderus - It seems odd that one who claims to be honor a libertarian blog, would try to shut down someone else for reasonably expressing a view different from yours."
Stan, if I believed he were offering his view in good faith, I would not have done so, and my riff on the term "evangelical" was indeed ill-chosen for this forum for some of the same reasons that I question that good faith, i.e. the likelihood that many here would lack familiarity with the discipline for which he claims to speak. Alas, all I have to offer is familiarity, not scholarship, but that familiarity extends to several scholars at least as accomplished as his "friend," and they would not only take issue with his view, but also the manner in which it was presented.
I see his original post as roughly akin to stepping into an environmental forum on Earth Day with the revelation that his "friend" the Libertarian professor had determined that the dominant orthodox Libertarian view on the environment was malign neglect backed with a single supposedly determinative quote from Ayn Rand. It just ain't so, no attempt at context is offered, and it libels Libertarianism among a crowd not inclined to be entirely sympathetic to Libertarianism.
Of course there are authoritarian traditions within any religion, and the early churches for which the New Testament was written had little choice in the matter*, but to claim that it is the dominant orthodoxy, especially within the American and/or Reformed tradition, is just wrong.
And to be wrong in just that way in just this place at just this time is highly suspect. To do so ex cathedra, as he originally did, is offensive. As is his psychoanalysis of John Witherspoon. BTW, I am an enlightenment rationalist as well as a Calvinist Christian, and I'm not alone. Nor crazy. Often.
* - for instance, he flogs his proof text from Paul written in a position of utter weakness. What about Moses? These questions were at the heart of the Reformation, and to pretend them away as he does would make the most corrupt medieval cardinal blush.
Really? Then maybe the states that were seceding should have said that instead of saying "we're seceding to protect our right to own slaves".
But certainly there was no shortage among those pulling the triggers and supplying the musketballs who considered themselves orthodox Christians, and Greatly Awakened ones, to boot.
"He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity, will revolutionize the world."
- Ben Franklin
* - nothing wrong with that, quite a bit right, far as I can tell, just step away from the airbrush please
The Americans said that the appropriate legislature was the colonial legislatures; the British (including Blackstone, I think) said that the appropriate legislature was Parliament.
Thomas Jefferson, and perhaps everyone (I've just been reading Jefferson) made the parallel with England and Scotland in 1700, two nations with two legislatures and a common king. That was very common in Europe-- a king would often hold several titles simultaneously, like a businessman who was president of several companies. Thus, while the King was the executive of the Colonies, Parliament was not the legislature. For it to become the legislature would take something like the Act of Union of 1707 between England and Scotland, a merger of legislatures approved by both sides. The Colonies would not have approved such a merger without big concessions on trade rules (as I recall, free trade with England and han proportional representation were inducements for Scotland to merge).
The Declaration is a conservative document. It says a lot about government being for the good of the people, but that is conventional Lockean Whiggism, not revolutionary sentiment. It has no objections whatsoever to the old government system. Rather, it objects to innovations introduced by George III. There were those in Congress who also objected to the restrictive trade laws that existed even before George III, but the Declaration omits those as grievances. Instead, the argument is that rule by a law-abiding king is unobjectionable, but that the present king is, with the acquiescence of Parliament, attempting to become a tyrant over the Colonies, and has thereby forfeited his authority. Indeed, "He has abdicated Government here," the same argument applied to the flight of James II in 1688. The Crown being vacant, the Colonies could have chosen a different king-- Frederick the Great, for example-- but instead they chose to become a republic. (Recall that the Calvinist Netherlands offered their throne to Queen Elizabeth of England during their revolt from Philip II, who tried to conquer them with troops from his bigger kingdom, Spain. She turned it down, and they decided to become a republic instead.)
To see this, look at the Declaration. It is mostly about the bad innovations of George III, and makes no objection to the legitimacy of the pre-1763 link with Britain.
(1) As a commentor pointed out, actual hostilities began because South Carolina fired on Federal troops and seized Fort Sumter.
(2) I bet secession would have been allowed if the only seceders had been South Carolina and Georgia, the only early seceders who were part of the 13 Colonies (Virginia and North Carolina only seceded after hostilities began). The legal position of the western seceders was much weaker, since they were all, except Texas, federal land from which states had been created. Indeed, Louisiana was acquired from France precisely because the U.S. didn't want to have a foreign country control access to the Mississippi. Any defense of the Confederacy has to realize that secession of Louisiana was far more objectionable than secession of South Carolina. Indeed, the Republicans would have welcomed getting rid of South Carolina's two senators.
You must have misunderstood what I originally wrote. When I noted "dominant" view among evangelical or orthodox Christians, I did not mean that such view (that the American Revolution was a sinful rebellion) is dominant today in 20-21 Century American evangelical or conservative Christian circles (although there is a strong remnant; John MacArthur for instance is one of the most prominent evangelical theologians in the nation and he holds this view; my friend Dr. Frazer belongs to MacArthur's Church and teaches at the college where MacArthur is President).
Rather I meant *dominant* looking at the ENTIRE 2000 years of Christendom. Christianity is a Hell of a lot older than America. If folks understood the history of Christendom and the three *big* revolutions (the English, American, and French) you'd understand that these three events were a watershed in Christendom regarding Romans 13 and it's not clear from a strict orthodox biblical perspective (i.e., the Bible is the infallible word of God), than the "revolutionary" understanding of Romans 13 is correct. From the plain meaning of Romans 13's text, the revolutionary perspective seems to flip it on its head.
We've dealt with Moses (and every other single biblical text that has been erroneously cited to justify "biblical rebellion," which is an oxymoron) as well. Moses didn't rebel. We've done our homework. As Dr. Frazer wrote:
Ha! I didn't necessarily mean "schizophrenic" in the literal sense. Still I was citing Frazer and I think he was citing Noll, Hatch, and Marsden, who are the top three conservative Christian academics on American religious history. I noted that one could be, like Witherspoon was, an orthodox even a Calvinist Christian and argue for a right to rebellion; but one would have to jettison the strict "Sola Scriptura, the Bible is all we need" perspective common in evangelical Christianity to reach that conclusion. The right to rebellion cannot be found without, a the very least, a naturalist, rationalist, supplement to one's understanding of Scripture.
However I don't believe the following quotation from BF supports your assertion:
To Franklin, who in all likelihood understood himself to be a "Christian" not a "Deist" for most of his life, "primitive Christianity" was not "orthodox." "Primitive Christianity" was one of those Founding era buzzwords for unitarian Christianity, how Franklin and the other key Founders (J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, G. Morris, perhaps even Washington) understood themselves. That is, "Christianity" without original sin, the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, eternal damnation, infallibility of the Bible....I'll let you folks decide whether this qualifies as "Christianity."
I agree with most of what you wrote except this: "The Declaration is a conservative document."
Much of what the DOI says (what you reproduced) was "conservative." However the following is not; the following is revolutionary in an anti-traditional, subversive sense:
Lino Graglia, I think gets it right when he describes how NOT conservative the DOI's religious rhetoric is:
Just a question, but how do you square the biblical account with the growing archeological evidence that the Israelites were actually mercenaries of some form and left with bloodshed rather than fleaing? I do find that evidence odd however, why would people hide such events?
Having read a good deal of his works, I think Franklin was pretty clear what he meant when he used the term "Primitive Christianity".
Franklin never decided, or if he did never wrote, whether he believed Jesus was the son of God or not (he wrote once or twice about this). But he felt strongly, and said a few times, that if you just take the things Jesus himself said and professed and followed it, ignoring other peoples interpretations or add-ons, that it would be the best thing for man.
Several other of his peers used the same phrase to refer to Quakers or their beliefs, as I think it was William Penn who wrote something with Primitive Christianity in the title.
It's also worth noting that you lumped things into Christianity that not all Christians believe in. Realistically neither the Catholics or the Orthodox Christians buy into the Sola Scriptura stuff.. I mean, that was one of the tenets of the Reformation after all..
I think it's totally within the realm of Christianity to just take Jesus words and works and run with them, as Franklin suggested. With all the fractions in Christianity, there's room for one that just says "Jesus was a cool dude, and we should do the things he said we should" :)
Replacement of the Monarch is a revolution. Charles I, Cromwell, James II, the Whigs, George III and the American founders, all agreed on this.
I'd add that no one bothered to make a Tory-like argument that George III had "fallen from the crown" or abdicated the throne as James II supposedly did.
"it's not clear from a strict orthodox biblical perspective (i.e., the Bible is the infallible word of God), than the "revolutionary" understanding of Romans 13 is correct. From the plain meaning of Romans 13's text, the revolutionary perspective seems to flip it on its head."
So we've gone from it's clear that it's not to it's not clear that it is. Good that we're now agreed.
The plain meaning of Romans 13 does not stand on its own among scripture any more than your original comment stands on its own apart from your subsequent clarifications. Sola Scriptura does not imply the charge of the light brigade of sole passages of scripture.
The ex-cons had not nearly the agglomeration of wealth and wealth production, nor the arable land and climate, nor the requisite critical mass of population, nor the mature systems of self governance, nor the recent experience of fighting off the last vestiges of a multi-national colonial tussle, leaving only 1-man standing... to be defeated or not, as circumstances and divine providence arouse.
All of the above contributed to the gold and cold steel required to win a war... and all the Franklinsteinian pamphlets and full pulpits combined cannot win without gold and cold steel, brought to bear upon a fertile ground which enlightens men to become willing to further leaven it with their blood.
The 3,000 miles created the broken communications that propogated Yorktown, and packaged the result into a dispatch, that struck as a thunderclap to the Brit parliament, forcing their reconsideration of matters.
A better example for your point might be India, but they too had not the cohesion to fight off the mighty Brit empire, and the other colonial powers didn't seem to contest them as much, as they had in NA. Canada, same way, and it's somewhat fragmented yet today, and was held together and made prosperous only under the Jack. I grew up with pictures of Elizabeth on several walls of our house in Detroit, and on numerous knicknacks... and on the funny money occasionally passing about. And in Canada, that image wasn't so sparse as that. Take that away, and the boot, and Canada goes another way for sure... and may yet. So may the US.
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Reading through this discussion, I think the blog topic might require an addendum, querying whether the American Revolution was in fact the first Civil War here in the colonies.
This grounding of intent is not a small matter, since in real time, one of the most extraordinary things about the DoI and the events that followed it, is that the founders were driven by a sober comprehension of two things. First, that what they were doing, if successful, would have a profound impact not only on the destiny of the citizens of the new country, but on the entire world. And second, that they were not facts on the ground did not leave them all that favorably disposed to success. The first speaks to the essence of their ideals (and thus what actually drove them), and the second to their sincere commitment to them (as opposed to being riddled with hidden agendas as some would posit). Their letters not only for public consumption, but to friends and even to each other reinforce this so obviously that to state otherwise is to engage in the utmost of revisionist folly.
In the world they lived in, it must be understood that there had already been several generations of "revolutionary" events. England/Britain had already been profoundly changed by several waves of transformative ideas (a not often acknowledged fact being that England was actually ahead of the curve in absorbing the revolutionary ideas of equality and the rights of man, than the other, generally more rigid European states which would go through their processes in the decades that would follow). Most had a strong sense of what ordered Liberty meant, as opposed to illusory freedom leading to anarchy. The eminently quotable Paine, though often cited as evidence of the radicalism within the founders, is in fact the unchecked firebrand within, not the author of, the American Revolution. In the main, even in the disagreements, there is a prevailing belief that the creation of a State that drew its power from the people, and was itself highly constrained, yet established a society that sought order and rule of Law as coequal with Liberty, was TRULY revolutionary. (Its my opinion actually, that this revolution is possibly the most clearly reevolutionary in all of human history, and is certainly the only true revolution in modern times.)
To the main question here, the question of whether the DoI defined a Revolution or a secession, there are two ways of looking at this. Obviously, and other posters have made the point, since the DoI did not seek to overthrow the State in London, if one uses a tightly defined literal definition, it was not a revolution, and in the same vein, it was a war of secession. But the word revolution is not so readily constrained by tight literalism (where secession, being quite specific, is). The war was a secession by definition, but it was a Revolution by nature. Its ends were far broader than mere secession, and as such (and as stated above), the war WAS a revolution, because of what would be birthed by it. Its true perhaps that there was no clear view as to precisely what would be the final framework for independence, but this is not as important as it might seem (and as some make it out to be). Because the fact is that the thinking of those who were there at the time, committing their honor, fortunes and lives to the case, had a pretty good sense of it in flavor, even if were not yet formalized in a recipe.
In that, it should be stressed that it was indeed the philosophies of the likes of Burke and Hume and Locke (who does not deserve overall to be grouped with the likes of Voltaire and Rousseau IMO) far FAR more than those who informed the French Revolution of the following decade, that influenced the thinking of the framers. So those who make the seemingly counter-intuitive point that it was a "Conservative" Revolution, are I believe, right in the main. The principles for the outcome were constraining rather than "liberating", and soberly sought to define liberty in terms of virtue in a meaningful framework mindful of "posterity" (itself a metaphysical rather than material concept, especially as they saw it), rather than unleashing propensities in nature (such as those based on Rouseeaus's "noble savage"). Seen in this way, the American Revolution was almost the diametric opposite of the French one, and this is made even more the case based on the intent of the major players in each case. The obvious intent of the "framers" of the French version, were indeed quite profoundly different. (One could take this argument on to a very interesting set of analyses of the distinct differences in the histories of Europe versus the US that followed, but that is a discussion best had elsewhere.)
I think that any discussion of the true nature of the War for American Independence in order needs to first ground itself in the actual intent and understanding of those who instigated it. As is so often the case, revisionist theories cite materialist arguments and a variety of anecdotal facts in order to recast the motives of the major players, even at the cost of acknowledging the obvious understanding that these players certainly had of the origin and implications of their actions. There are a number of commenters here that have taken this tack (corneille1640 for example), and it is an unfortunate fact that this particular flavor of revisionism tends to follow the same intellectual path. Some of the Founders would have recognized the deconstruction by virtue of a classical education, but would have labeled it differently (Sophistry among other things I think, which is not to say that all who put such arguments forth are themselves sophists... they may merely be subject to it).
This grounding of intent is not a small matter, since in real time, one of the most extraordinary things about the DoI and the events that followed it, is that the founders were driven by a sober comprehension of two things. First, that what they were doing, if successful, would have a profound impact not only on the destiny of the citizens of the new country, but on the entire world. And second, that they were not facts on the ground did not leave them all that favorably disposed to success. The first speaks to the essence of their ideals (and thus what actually drove them), and the second to their sincere commitment to them (as opposed to being riddled with hidden agendas as some would posit). Their letters not only for public consumption, but to friends and even to each other reinforce this so obviously that to state otherwise is to engage in the utmost of revisionist folly.
In the world they lived in, it must be understood that there had already been several generations of "revolutionary" events. England/Britain had already been profoundly changed by several waves of transformative ideas (a not often acknowledged fact being that England was actually ahead of the curve in absorbing the revolutionary ideas of equality and the rights of man, than the other, generally more rigid European states which would go through their processes in the decades that would follow). Most had a strong sense of what ordered Liberty meant, as opposed to illusory freedom leading to anarchy. The eminently quotable Paine, though often cited as evidence of the radicalism within the founders, is in fact the unchecked firebrand within, not the author of, the American Revolution. In the main, even in the disagreements, there is a prevailing belief that the creation of a State that drew its power from the people, and was itself highly constrained, yet established a society that sought order and rule of Law as coequal with Liberty, was TRULY revolutionary. (Its my opinion actually, that this revolution is possibly the most clearly reevolutionary in all of human history, and is certainly the only true revolution in modern times.)
To the main question here, the question of whether the DoI defined a Revolution or a secession, there are two ways of looking at this. Obviously, and other posters have made the point, since the DoI did not seek to overthrow the State in London, if one uses a tightly defined literal definition, it was not a revolution, and in the same vein, it was a war of secession. But the word revolution is not so readily constrained by tight literalism (where secession, being quite specific, is). The war was a secession by definition, but it was a Revolution by nature. Its ends were far broader than mere secession, and as such (and as stated above), the war WAS a revolution, because of what would be birthed by it. Its true perhaps that there was no clear view as to precisely what would be the final framework for independence, but this is not as important as it might seem (and as some make it out to be). Because the fact is that the thinking of those who were there at the time, committing their honor, fortunes and lives to the case, had a pretty good sense of it in flavor, even if were not yet formalized in a recipe.
In that, it should be stressed that it was indeed the philosophies of the likes of Burke and Hume and Locke (who does not deserve overall to be grouped with the likes of Voltaire and Rousseau IMO) far FAR more than those who informed the French Revolution of the following decade, that influenced the thinking of the framers. So those who make the seemingly counter-intuitive point that it was a "Conservative" Revolution, are I believe, right in the main. The principles for the outcome were constraining rather than "liberating", and soberly sought to define liberty in terms of virtue in a meaningful framework mindful of "posterity" (itself a metaphysical rather than material concept, especially as they saw it), rather than unleashing propensities in nature (such as those based on Rouseeaus's "noble savage"). Seen in this way, the American Revolution was almost the diametric opposite of the French one, and this is made even more the case based on the intent of the major players in each case. The obvious intent of the "framers" of the French version, were indeed quite profoundly different. (One could take this argument on to a very interesting set of analyses of the distinct differences in the histories of Europe versus the US that followed, but that is a discussion best had elsewhere.)
Didn't the Colonies issue declaratoins of independence independently?
Also, what would you had suggested then? That the COlonies each fight for their independence without taking advantage of helping each other in the task?
Because they worked together to achieve their respective independences does/did not make them subject to a central authority.
The seceded State had every authority/right to get the foreign government out of their jurisdiction. Whatever happened to the forts owned by the Crown after the Unanimous Declaration, during and after the war?
The hostitlites began when Lincoln dealt in bad faith with the Southern delegation and sent resupply ship with armed escort with full understanding that it was the begining of the war.
I believe you left out at least one "not" (between "could" and "impose"). I wouldn't be so sure that the doctrine of non-resistance was unconventional. The exact proportion of Tories/Whigs in 1688/9 is impossible to define, but believers in non-resistance certainly formed a large subset of the English population and very possibly a majority. This was NOT the case in America, where Whiggish views were far more common.
Yes, but he made this argument fairly late in the game (1774). Part of the disagreement here may be a focus on different time frames.
One of the problems I have with this (others I mentioned above) is that Locke himself was a revolutionary. He was, after all, in exile in 1688, hanging out in the Netherlands with the most radical of James II's opponents. For a great book on this aspect of Locke's career, see this book.
And when they seceded they withdrew consent from that.
Also, it was the north that invaded the south. It was the southern States' duly elected governments that called their citizens to defend themselves from the invaders. It was no insurrection.
If memory serves me, Lincoln violated the Constitutin by usurping Congress authority by calling the militia. the uS Congress, retroactively, called the militia in violation against the prohibion against ex post facto laws, in
violation of the restriciotions as to when they can "call forth" the militia. In addition, the Central government could not emply that militia until there was an "Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence." Which happen to be the definition of insurrection. And there was NO insurrection.
Interesting point, isn't it? Since that is exactly what happened in 1789 when 9, of 13 former Colonies, violated the Articles of Confederation when they ratified a new Constitution forged in deceit and in secret.
As an evangelical myself, Romans 13 was not violated by the Colonies in their bid for independence. But ratificatin of the Consitution of these united States of America was.
Perhaps I should have been more clear with my assertion. I concede that there are "orthodox Christians" who claim to strictly follow the Bible AND who believe that revolt is permitted. However I was trying to note the IRONY that Romans 13 seems to CLEARLY FORBID revolt. I attribute that irony to a lack of spiritual discernment or "thought" about Romans 13 and other texts of the Bible.
That's a good Q. I'm not dealing with archeology but with what the Bible says. On a personal note, I don't hold the Bible to be infallible.
Once a piece of land gets a political definition, and the Federal government decided to accept tht political entity into union as a State, it does not matter that it was not one of the original 13. At that point that States has equal rights among all the other States in union.
Furthermore, the Federal government had no authority to acquire territory. The territory they had authority over are very specific land areas at the time of the ratifiction of the Consitution. There is no general authority for the Federal governments to conquer or purchase lands outside of the Consitutionally allowed places (within States) and for specific purposes.
It has equal legal status, no doubt, but the point was that its moral status vis-a-vis secession is considerably weaker, since it never existed as an independent state.
Secession is not a legal act, it's a (putatively) moral one.
Uhuh.
As Gregg Frazer put it:
I think he wrote enough that one could conclude he was a unitarian who disbelieved in the Trinity. Some unitarians thought of Jesus as "savior" or "son of God" in a non-divine sense. Jefferson hung out with Joseph Priestley and Richard Price (i.e., the unitarian "dissenters" in England) and used Priestley's term "corruptions of Christianity" in his letter to Ezra Stiles. Priestley defined those corruptions by name and they were original sin, the trinity, incarnation, atonement and plenary inspiration of scripture.
I agree if we lower the bar for anyone who thinks Jesus was the greatest moral teacher, a man, though not divine himself, but who lived his life on a divine mission, we could throw Jefferson, J. Adams and Franklin in the "Christian" box and get a "Christian" founding. However that's not how the "orthodox" promoters of the "Christian America" thesis define "Christianity." They define that system as "heresy."
Of course, it did:
"I am not a Christian"
"I attribute that irony to a lack of spiritual discernment or "thought" about Romans 13 and other texts of the Bible."
Now there's a combination one doesn't see every day. Perhaps next you'd like to grace us with your views on the depth of spiritual discernment of Buddhist monks in Burma.
BTW, you can claim to speak to 2000 years of strict orthodoxy or Sola Scriptura, but one cannot have both. Thus I am compelled to take a view of orthodoxy just a skosh broader than yours - one that encompasses action as well as thought, and extends so far as to include Franklin himself, but not, say, Marx.
Thus ends our discussion of exegesis/hermeneutics/ ecclesiology, as I suspect that the gathered multitudes have long grown weary of it.
Some of the most prominent biblical scholars and scholars of orthodox theology are atheists (which I am not). But I have cited scholars, indeed those who have mentored me on this issue, from Calvin to Drs. Gregg Frazer and John MacArthur whose orthodox evangelical Christian bona fides are beyond reproach.
One of the marvels of Franklin is that many religions considered him "one of theirs". He classified himself at one point as a Deist, but I suspect he was no more a Deist than a Unitarian than a Quaker.
The reality is that he was someone that, from his Puritan background, saw the actual words and deeds of Jesus as penultimate, and disliked the interpretations and add-ons that many had put in after Jesus died. However, he was one of the biggest proponents that even with all the negative, people needed organized religion to guide them and keep them along a proper path. It's a very interesting set of beliefs, but once arriving there Franklin was able to hold that line for decades up to his death.
You spoke about his friends, but the reality is that argument can be made in the many opposite directions, as he had many closer friends of other religions. Just because Franklin hung out with someone, did not mean he subscribed to their views on any given subject, just that they were friends or that he was working on something with them :)
hospis for the win :)
Sola Scriptura reformed Protestantism is a subset of orthodoxy. For the overwhelming history of orthodoxy until the revolutionary watershed era, the view was that of unlimited submission to authorities. As Harry Jaffa has noted:
"for more than a millennium and a half of the history of the Christian West, the prevailing opinion was that political authority descended from the top down, from God to kings and rulers, and that the obligation of the ruled was simply to obey."
This was the position of the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, and Calvin and Luther.
And btw, Franklin was not "orthodox."
No I am actually speaking of Franklin's actual words. In his letter to Ezra Stiles:
So what we can see from the letter is Franklin believes in God, believes Jesus of Nazareth (note how he doesn't call Him Christ) was the greatest moral teachers and like the dissenters of England (the unitarians) he has "doubts" as to Jesus' divinity. And he uses the terms "corrupting changes" which were defined by his spiritual mentor Joseph Priestley as original sin, the trinity, incarnation, atonement, and plenary inspiration of scripture.
If you want to get to some specific examples of Franklin's heterodoxy, 1) he rejected original sin, 2) he rejected the infallibility of the Bible, and 3) he held (like Jefferson and J. Adams clearly did, and GW probably did) men were justified thru works, not grace.
On original sin:
On the infallibility of the Bible:
In that same source Franklin intimates his unitarianism.
Here is another source to the unitarian minister Richard Price (a very important influence on the FFs) where Franklin seems to intimate his own unitarianism. His term for unitarianism is "rational Christianity."
Finally, here is Franklin on justification, how men are justified through works, not grace:
If you look at all of this in overall context you see Franklin is turning Christianity into a generic moralizing unitarian creed. Jesus of Nazareth was the greatest moral teacher and if men are good people, even if they are not consciously "Christians," they are "Christians." This is almost exactly as Jefferson, J. Adams, and probably GW and JM believed.
I fail to see how Franklin knowing people of various relgious thinking lends any support to his being one of their number. From everything I've seen of him, Franklin would very likely have responded in much the same manner were it any other flavor of Christianity being inquired about, including going to the service.
Well I am not a Christian and I DO credit MacArthur with being a Christian; AND I credit Bob Jones and the Pope as Christians and Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and anyone who believes in the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, Virgin Birth and Resurrection of Christ. Fundamentalist and the "orthodox" are people too.
I am even willing to lower the bar and include Mormons and theological unitarians, those folks who deny the virgin birth and resurrection, "Christians" (because many folks who believe this call themselves "Christians"). It's just we need to make clear our definitions, especially when arguing the "Christian Nation" controversy which is my forte.
Because I showed much more than that.
I had never heard of this guy so I looked him up. And Wiki said the following:
On a personal level I have no problem with this; but one should be able to see how the "orthodox" whether of the Protestant, Roman Catholic or Capital O bent WOULD have a problem with this and call it "not Christianity" and a "false" religion. That's what orthodox Christians believe: Christianity is true other religions are false; Christ's -- the 2nd Person in the Trinity -- blood Atonement is the ONLY way men are saved.
We have to be careful what we mean when we state the term "Christian"; because to many people this at the very LEAST is what they mean. And one should be able to understand why if one held to orthodox Christianity one might sound hostile towards what they regard is a false religion leading men to Hell, or in the Roman Catholics case perhaps Hell or a longer time in purgatory.
I can agree with this as long as we are clear as to what those ADD ONS are (by the way, this was exactly Jefferson's view, another "Christian Restorationist" who wanted to "restore" the "primitive simplicity" of Jesus' words, sans the "corruption" added on like everything St. Paul had to say):
Original sin, the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement and infallibility of the biblical canon. Those were the "add ons" Franklin, Jefferson and the other key Founders had a problem with.
The only statement of fellowship in what you quoted would be the inquiry about whether the particular pastor was well supported. I don't see this as a statement of endorsement given that I've seen plenty of indication that Franklin was patron to a wide variety of religious thinkers.
There may well be material indicating his personal beliefs, I just don't see the two passages about financial support for the one pastor and where another service might be found as material to that question.
You have to look at the larger picture and understand the larger context. The unitarians of that era on the one hand railed against the trinity and cognate orthodox doctrines, but on the other hand sought fellowship with trinitarian believers, provided the trinity and those orthodox doctrines were downplayed.
The orthodox, on the other hand, wanted no fellowship with unitarians; they viewed unitarianism as a soul damning heresy. So mere creedal indifference towards unitarianism OR trinitarianism is itself a sign of unitarianism.
Virtually NO ORTHODOX Trinitarian person of that era would have stated:
The "orthodox" did not consider UNITARIAN MINISTERS to be "honest" and certainly weren't concerned that they were "comfortably supported?"
Franklin's non-sectarian support for religion was so broad that it extended to Muslims. Again here is Franklin conflating Islam with the orthodox Christianity of his friend George Whitefield:
The orthodox of that era (and most today!) don't believe Muslim Mufti's should be preaching Mohammedanism in Christian Churches.
Franklin was no deist. But he wasn't an orthodox Christian either. He was a "unitarian" or to use my friend Dr. Frazer's term, a "theistic rationalist" which Frazer defines as some place between Deism and orthodox Christianity with rationalism as the predominant element.
Ok, rant away on theology, and I can't speak to the unwashed Irish heathens, but any reference to "bullshit" arising from the Scots' lineage is gonna bring on the blade weapons.
Everything you touch or read has been influenced by them. They are your betters. Deal with it. ;-)
Yeah, we kicked your boot-lickin' Tory asses in '76 and if you want to bring it again, we'll kick 'em again.
=^)
"quotidian but true prism of Force and Interest"
How'd that work out for Stalin?
As I also stated, Territory in the Constitution has a very specific meaning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statecessions.png
Still, there is no general delegated power to acquire lands outside of the States in union.
Look, I feel for you guy. You've obviously put in a lot of work on this and I think I'm actually somewhat sympathetic with where you're going if I understand it correctly - that evangelicals need to lay off the politics for a bit and work on getting their game together instead of immanentizing the eschaton all the time.
I'm working on similar things from the Left side, or what's left of us.
Like I said, though, this is a singularly inauspicious forum for such a discussion.
P.S. Franklin's heterodoxy is, of course, the dominant orthodox position. On that one matter, and a few more, but none that you list, I am heterodox myself.
This proclamation from Sam Houston's puppeteer.
Andy is wrong and just justifying his abuse of power.
But if quote other we must then here is Mr.Federalist himself:
At any rate, we are talking about secession and not nullification, another issue in which he was wrong:
Virgina Resolution
Kentucky Resolution
Another quote: "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dear!"
Yes I think you get where I am coming from. If you are of the "Left," I am interested in someone whose describes himself as a Calvinist, enlightenment rationalist, and of the "Left."
I think the key FFs were the "liberal Christians" of their day -- "liberal" in the classicial, not necessarily the "modern" sense of the term. Today, issues such as same sex marriage and abortion are the "hot button" issues that divide the church. During the Founding era, it was issues like the Trinity and eternal damnation. Just as there are those today who claim if you are pro-choice, or in favor of same sex marriage (or a homosexual yourself) you can't be a "Christian," back then it was if you denied the Trinity (and other orthodox doctrines) you weren't a "Christian" even if you called yourself one. From my studies, even Franklin and Jefferson (the two key FFs most likely conceded as "Deists") I think understood themselves to be "Christians" as opposed to "Deists," albeit "Christians" who denied the Trinity, eternal damnation, infallibility of the Bible and other orthodox doctrines.
Conventional Lockean Whiggism was revolutionary. And a "dissolution of government" as Locke termed it is a form of revolution or regime change.
And once again we agree.
"Conventional Lockean Whiggism was revolutionary."
And furthermore, continuously revolutionary - the true gem of the American Exception, now thankfully, slowly, becoming less exceptional every year due to the efforts of men and women like Dr. Samuel Moffett, the finest I have ever had the honor of meeting.
There are now four times as many Presbyterians in Korea as in the United States.
"I think the key FFs were the "liberal Christians" of their day -- "liberal" in the classicial, not necessarily the "modern" sense of the term."
Liberalism is more than merely classical, and the "modern sense" of the word too shall pass.
Far as I can make out, this is a liberal blog in the truest and most time-tested sense of the word.
And, yes, the FF's were "liberal Christians" of their day. They were far from alone. Thank God.
Rosey,
Good points on Australia, but by the 1850's they had plenty of gold, yet were still, nearly to a man, over the moon for their queen. Outstanding book here. Alas, nearly my only source on the matter.
"If you are of the 'Left,' I am interested in someone whose describes himself as a Calvinist, enlightenment rationalist, and of the 'Left.'"
"That pretty much describes the dominant view within the Presbyterian Church (USA)."
There is a faithful remnant that would fit that description, but our Leftism is now old and threadbare, though not yet so discredited that the aspersions it has cast on the other three descriptors can be with confidence countered, let alone dispelled. The Marxian disease hit us hard.
The cavalry is, however, on the way character-wise, and I have faith that the ideas will eventually follow.
The snark toward the Presbyterian Church (USA) was deliberate. As a former member of that denomination, I agree with your description. I did not say that the view was shared by a majority of Presbyterians, but it certainly is the public face that has helped drive hundreds of thousands away from the denomination.
Plenty of gold, perhaps, but little ability to defend the mines. You, too, would be quite comforted by the Queen's portrait, if it also meant a Royal Navy battlecruiser made port in Perth, once in a while.
Heck, Canada was still over the moon for the crown, in 1950! And my relatives all swooned over Lady Di for crisakes, when she first deigned to call on them. It all seems to be over now for the crown, though, finally and mercifully.
"It all seems to be over now for the crown, though, finally and mercifully."
Just you wait.
Don't write the old girl off just yet. Each new generation brings its own take, and this one seems to have a critical mass that has finally figured out that the Old Deluder has the affliction of the comfortable quite well in hand, and neither needs nor wants assistance from the likes of a church called into being rather to comfort the afflicted.
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