Category: American Revolution

When Innovative Projects Get Hijacked (Part 2 of 2)

As a follow-up to my previous post about innovation hijacking, the above photo shows President George Washington leading 13,000 troops to put down a tax rebellion that was totally just according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

Alexander Hamilton’s plan to pay for the combined war debts of all the colonies with a heavy Whiskey Tax (in today’s terms, $2.50/gallon), in the Distilled Spirits Tax of 1791 act.

How very British of Alexander right? Apparently, the Amerexit (secession of the thirteen colonies from the British empire) was all in vain as the names and flags have changed but power instead of liberty reigns yet again. Hijacked!

So in my last post I had shown how George Washington, as a young British officer, sparked a war between two superpowers in the Ohio country, called the French Indian War (1754-1763), this conflict had a distinct fallout in the American colonies after its conclusion.  My effort today is where:

… I hope to bring both the ramp-up to revolution over the next 25 years (1750-1775) as well as the end result of the quest for independence into focus, and how the dreams of the 20% of the people that were for independence, liberty and freedom were hijacked resulting in a culture in 1790 that involved the very things they were fighting against:

… tyranny, new or higher taxes, monopolies, and restrictions …

By the end of the war the British Empire was the undisputed superpower in both North America and Europe and was all too eager to foist upon their hapless colonial subjects the previously unenforced Navigation Acts along with new taxes. Thanks George!

The liberty experienced for the past 140+ years started losing ground to increased power that the state brings with coercion and violence. To be sure, this shift was gradual, but within a generation it was clear that the British empire failed to understand each of the American colonies to the extent that they should never had intervened from thousands of miles away. As any parent knows, once you have a child on the way to their own independent life, attempting to control that child for the parent’s own well-being is an effort in futility UNLESS you make slaves of everyone.

In England itself, with the liberal Whigs out of power and the warmongering Tories in control, there was fresh support for the new King George III who would station its troops in the colonies during peacetime, enforce the Navigation Acts, restrict western settlement to stunt growth, and institute new Parliamentary taxation. Statist power came like a pendulum to each of the colonies. So with the Proclamation Line of 1763 that restricted western settlement, the 1764 American Revenue Act that enacted taxes on sugar and increased customs enforcement, and the 1765 Stamp Act that raised new taxes on paper products, it was finally The Stamp Act that was especially hated and produced a storm of protest.

Why was there no general revolt in 1763, or 1764? Murray Rothbard has a thought from his fifth volume of Conceived in Liberty:

Ultimately, revolutions are mass phenomena, and cannot succeed without the support—indeed the active and enthusiastic support—of the great majority of the population. . . . Otherwise it will not even make a respectable showing, much less take and keep the reins of government. But the masses will not move, will not erupt, if they lack aggressive leaders to articulate their grievances and to point the path for them to follow. The leaders supply the necessary theoretical justification and analysis of the revolution’s short- and long-term goals. Unaided by leaders, the masses tend to accept each act of tyranny, not out of willing agreement, but from failure to realize that successful opposition can be mounted against the status quo. The articulation by the leaders is the final necessary spark that ignites the tinderbox of revolution.

Leaders are not appointed, they rise to the occasion when this kind of statist tyranny happens. These leaders risk all, as during the American Revolution demonstrated in just the lives of those that signed the Declaration of Independence.

In 1765, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, who respectively wrote the Virginia Resolves and Massachusetts Resolves stepped up their game. Sam Adams also established a resistance group known as the Loyal Nine, which soon expanded into the colony-wide Sons of Liberty. The result was that by 1766 The Stamp Act was repealed.

However, in Massachusetts after the passage of the tax-increasing Townshend Acts in 1767, British troops occupied Boston and colonial assemblies were forced to be dissolved. The colonies responded to this increasing coercion with mass non-importation protests that severely hurt British commerce. This BOYCOTT sent a message to the British that eventually, three YEARS later resulted in that the Townshend Acts were partially repealed in 1770.

Yet again, the British Empire pushed buttons yet again as they are now dealing with a teenager, and enacted the Tea Act of 1773 that extended the British East India Company’s tea monopoly to American shores.

This was epic BS as ANY nation that picks and chooses where their people can purchase products THEY want (i.e. free trade) is not a friend of the consumer and is a fried of both economic warfare and eventual physical warfare. Here is looking at you President Trump with all your sanctions and trade deals. But I digress …

Those in Boston promptly responded accordingly with the famous Boston Tea Party of December 1773. Great Britain responded with the Coercive, or “Intolerable” Acts of 1774, which provoked the assembly of the First Continental Congress in late 1774.

It was at this point that the radicals (I am pretty sure in 2019 USA that these people would have been targeted, marginalized and most likely suicided), led by Massachusetts’ Sam and John Adams and Virginia’s Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, battled the conservatives and decided upon a colony-wide boycott of all British products.

In the spring of 1775, the British redcoats responded by trying to arrest Massachusetts radicals John Hancock and Sam Adams, who were currently near military supplies in Concord. Paul Revere traveled to nearby Lexington to warn of the impending British, and colonial minutemen confronted the approaching British troops. The showdown led to the famous “Shot Heard Round the World,” and the American Revolution began.

At this point, with open warfare on the people, which is what the confiscation of firearms is, how does liberty respond to power? Philosophically, it was with managing the war that the forces of liberty faced their most difficult challenge, since war is naturally a coercive event that leads to death and destruction.

The war itself split the liberty lovers that probably included less than 20% of the general population. Many would align with power within this renegade government and use British tactics and statism against the British. How absurd. Bringing war to a larger power in the same way that larger power does war is a study in insanity. This was accomplished both during the American Revolution as well in the Second American Revolution, the War Against Southern Independence that most people refer to as the American Civil War.

Murray Rothbard, in Conceived in Liberty Volume I-IV, yet again points to what method actually saved the American Revolution, which was the use of guerilla warfare where he is paraphrased as saying:

… the Patriots’ greatest military strength lay in their guerrilla warfare tactics (ambushing armies, sneaking behind enemy lines, disrupting supply chains, etc.) and he argued that the only libertarian method of fighting a war is through such guerrilla warfare. This is because it is relatively inexpensive since there is no standing army, soldiers are better motivated because they are close to home, and there is far less need for a stifling and oppressive military bureaucracy.

.. and beyond this, the strategy that was chosen:

.. the decision to fight the war conventionally led to enormous government intervention in the economy through paper-money inflation, debt financing, price controls, and confiscation of goods

War debt leads once again to a desire for a strong central government that will eventually bring tyranny to the forefront yet again, like in 1794 with Washington leading 13,000 troops into Western Pennsylvania and the very real situation we have today with a militarized Redcoat fully entrenched here in the USA in 2019:

So we have come full circle in showing how this struggle between liberty and innovation has with power and political status-quo bureaucracy.

So quickly, in general, I will offer two of my own experiences with this as I referred to in my previous post:

Also in “Part 2”, I hope to offer my own general experiences of where an innovative project’s dreams were hijacked by political and organizational forces bent on expediency and short term gains.

I have a two in mind, one in business and one in ministry, that I have personally participated in. The parallels are very interesting!

It does seem that innovative projects and initiatives do threaten the political status-quo in any organization. I have no doubt that this is the main reason that Jesus himself resisted the human-natural act of forming an organization to accomplish some vision or mission.

In corporate America, as opposed to smaller businesses, there seems to be a bent toward managing verses leading, that risks are to be totally managed so as to really make no progress at all for years or decades. In the end, the business can no longer sustain itself as management surrounds itself with “yes men” (I know that sounds wrong in this PC-world, just assume someone else e-mailed me about this aggression) and stifles innovation that would actually IMPROVE the ability of the business to provide value to its customers going forward.

In my specific case, a very innovative project was hijacked in the development stage by management that failed to understand the project’s attributes and decided to bring in a partner that was ill-equipped to compete development and bring the project into production. Along the way, typical traits were demonstrated like the marginalization of those who really knew the core philosophy of the project as well as how the design was intended to positively impact this business. In the end, money was squandered and the project, like so many in government circles (F-35, Ford Carrier Class, etc), ends up imploding and being a general dumpster fire where good money is thrown after bad.

In organized ministry circles, similar innovative approaches can also bring the status-quo political fake news people out of the woodwork to halt anything that they can understand as being beneficial for people who could use a relationship with Jesus to bring peace and love to their lives and give them an insight into the way that Papa (God, Father) is especially fond of them. Close-minded church-goers and rule-followers have little patience for alternative ways that people can be reached whether is be from one’s home, from a coffee-house or even in the marketplace.

In my specific case, a ministry that had already transitioned from an inward facing clique/country club to a spiritual family that actually had a heart for those without Jesus, just could not give up their view that the church building was the center of what Jesus-following is all about. Threatened that their years of tithing (investing) might find them not able to realize their ROI, they effectively marginalized any staff (professional/volunteer) personnel that would not maintain the new status-quo.

In both instances, the lost dreams of the innovators has to be grieved, which is a process that every visionary has to deal with in their own terms. While they will many times see the positives and learnings that came out of the process as being very beneficial for the next “project/dream”, there is usually always a scar on ones heart to those that gave their all to attempt something that others barely or rarely understand, something much bigger than themselves.

I can only reflect on how Francis Marion, guerilla leader of the militia in South Carolina (1780-1783) that successfully dogged Cornwallis so that he could eventually be trapped by the French fleet at Yorktown. After much of the conflict was over, he was already being marginalized for the next chapter of life in the American Colonies as I indicated in a previous post:

So by the fall of 1781 as the British catastrophe at Yorktown reverberated throughout the British Empire, there were nationalist forces that were already parting ways with the radicals, and even the militias that brought them to this day. By 1783, Francis Marion saw the writing on the wall. The NOV1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the 06JAN1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Continental Nathaniel Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”. Georgia had also given Greene 24,000 acres as well. Marion eventually was awarded 300 acres in 1785.

It should be noted that the correspondence Marion had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in DEC1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. Marion lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now.

It is little wonder then why there is much more effort needed to be put towards the maintenance of liberty in this broken world than it does to maintain power. It seems that power, and kings, is the default mode of man:

Just some things to reflect on.

I do hope this allows y’all to reflect on history as well as current events.

-SF1

When Innovative Projects Get Hijacked (Part 1 of 2)

I am primarily thinking about the culture in early 1770s America, where those in the British colonies enjoyed a rather “hands-off” approach by their British Empire masters by 2019 standards for sure. With no income tax, the only recent tax that upset the colonies was the Stamp Act that would result in a 2% tax. What would 2019 Americans give for that level of taxation?

What set the stage for the culture in the 1700s to have a “default” of no or little taxation was the life lived in the Americas from the 1607 Jamestown (Virginia) and 1620 Plymouth (Massachusetts) initial settlements in the New World. From this point forward, with the abundance of unsettled land and distance from the primary mother country (after the Dutch were forced out of New Amsterdam) made the typical feudalistic setup very difficult. Settlers were true owners of the land and saw the value of private property. They were all “self” employed, working to provide value to others in the region to barter and trade with as necessary.  Whenever there were attempts to utilize the “state” to impose tyranny, new or higher taxes, monopolies, and restrictions, there was an appropriate response by people shaped by their new-found beliefs and life, Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia (1676), Leisler’s Rebellion in New York (1689), and Morris’ Rebellion in New Jersey (1699).

By 1707 when Great Britain was formed out of a combined England and Scotland, a world power emerged and the American colonies was still just a backwater, out-of-sight, out-of-mind project. There were leaders in the British Empire that realized that possibly the best way for the colonies to grow and prosper (which in turn would benefit the British Empire) was to practice a hands-off approach and let the colonies spontaneously develop. This extremely beneficial policy ended with the French and Indian War (1754–1763), but the expectations had already been set over the past 150 years.

By the way, the culture of 1750 Americas with all these pioneering families, does NOT match the culture of the United States today, no way, no how. This is not something we can revert to with a flip of a switch. The reset towards a life of liberty for families will take generations with a risk of political evils and or genocide at every turn. This is a most difficult road.

Back to 1750, let there be no doubt that the aggressor in the French and Indian War was the English. It turns out that the claims of the “Ohio Company”, directed by the royal governor of the colony of Virginia Dinwiddie, that the other side of the Appalachian Mountains belonged to England.  Knowing that another world super power was probably unaware of this claim, Dinwiddie asked for advice from the British Crown and did not act until 1753. At that time, a young British officer was selected to carry the message on this “diplomatic” mission.

Below you will find how the Mount Vernon historical organization describes this event:

In 1753, Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia ordered a young, ambitious 21-year old George Washington on a mission deep into the Ohio Country to confront the French. Washington’s account of his journey to Fort Le Beouf and back made Major Washington a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1754 Washington’s surprise attack upon a small French force at Jumonville Glen.

It turns out that the Ohio Company had yet to build anything on their claimed land and so Washington’s off-the-record mission in 1753 involved identifying a location to build a fort. The British were intercepted by the French during this first mission and they were promptly sent back across the mountains with a letter from the French that denied British claims.

The Virginia governor then decides to form a 300 man volunteer force and then promoted the young George Washington from major to Lt. Col. Washington then leaves with 186 of these men to go build a fort quickly.

About 25 miles from the location Washington had in mind for a fort, an Indian ally cautioned him with news of a French force of unknown numbers were in the area. Washington decided to entrench his troops, and then found out that less than 50 French troops were approaching Washington’s 150+ (there has been desertions along the way due to low pay and running out of rum).

Washington’s orders were to act only on the defensive unless their passage through this territory or building of the fort is forcefully resisted. Washington instead decides on a preemptive strike with 40 men, 20 Indian allies against 33 French soldiers who were unarmed eating breakfast. The French obviously did not expect violence since they had no sentries posted. Their mission was with peaceful intentions.

Unfortunately, for the colonists in the Americas, this mistake would launch a war that the British Empire would then attempt to recover their expenses from, in the way of new taxes levied to provide for their “safety”.

Sad, isn’t it, that the empire’s aggression, the political ineptitude of political players and their military leaders leads to war of deaths and debt that is then born by those within the empire’s control. This innovative project where people were able to coexist in a land peacefully and without state coercion were about to see their world turned upside-down.

Stay tuned for “Part 2” where I hope to bring both the ramp-up to revolution over the next 25 years (1750-1775) as well as the end result of the quest for independence into focus, and how the dreams of the 20% of the people that were for independence, liberty and freedom were hijacked resulting in a culture in 1790 that involved the very things they were fighting against:

… tyranny, new or higher taxes, monopolies, and restrictions …

Also in “Part 2”, I hope to offer my own general experiences of where an innovative project’s dreams were hijacked by political and organizational forces bent on expediency and short term gains.

I have a two in mind, one in business and one in ministry, that I have personally participated in. The parallels are very interesting!

Stay tuned

-SF1

NOV1781-DEC1781: Charleston Remains Occupied as Patriots Tighten the Noose

In my last post about Francis Marion and his militia, I had mentioned that port city of Wilmington, NC had been evacuated by the British Empire, but that even with the huge victory at Yorktown, VA, this war is far from over.

Maj. Gen Nathaniel Greene had hoped with Cornwallis gone and the British evacuation of Wilmington, NC on November 14th that the French navy might be asked to come to Charleston and/or the Continentals would be deployed to SC to push the Brits out to sea. But the French navy in alliance with Spain went to Jamaica and lost to the British in the attempt to capture that island.

Greene did receive about 300 mountain men from Tennessee but they stayed only for for one engagement but left after they experienced the boredom and heat of the low-country of South Carolina, even in November!.

The final liberation of SC were in the hands of Greene and Marion as Pickens were deployed to the western regions to deal with the various tribes of American Indians and loyalists in that area and Sumter was directed to lead a post in Orangeburg.

Typical of the independent nature of militia leaders, Sumter came up with a secret plan to expedite the liberation of South Carolina but was ignored by Marion.

Brig. Gen. Francis Marion was then given total autonomy by Greene in future operations so on 15NOV1781 two forces were dispatched to the area below Eutaw Springs to stop British plundering. Due to the poor turnout of the militia as harvest time operations were in process, as well as the diminishing threat from British troops in areas away from Charleston, Governor Rutledge and Continental commander Greene agree to create two new regiments of South Carolina State Troops.

From J. D. Lewis’ 2014 work: http://www.francismariontrail.com/EvolutionMarionsBrigadeJDL.htm

On 16-17NOV1781, new elections are held all across South Carolina
to elect new representatives for the General Assembly, which is planned
to be held in early JAN1782. Three men from the militia including Marion are elected to the South Carolina state senate and 25 men from the militia are elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives.

The circumstances of a 17NOV1781 raid on the Fairlawn Plantation where the Brits has munitions and provisions that doubled as a hospital shows that the British resolve to fight has diminished.  Marion takes advantage of the turnover of personnel and sends Lt. Col. Hezekiah Maham with 180 of his men plus 200 North Carolinians under Col. Isaac Shelby and Col. John Sevier,  to Fair Lawn Plantation on the banks of the Cooper River near Moncks Corners. Lt. Col. Maham and his group even  pass another British post and attempt to entice the British cavalry out to a fight, but they refuse.

At Fair Lawn, the patriots consider the main house too formidable to take, so they decide to attack one of the outbuildings, which is a British hospital. At this point the NC riflemen cover the redoubt while Lt. Col. Maham and his cavalry ride up to the building and demand its surrender. The medical defenders offer no resistance at all.

The patriots capture 300 stands of arms and other goods. About 150 patients and staff are made prisoners. Eighty prisoners could walk and are
taken back to Brig. Gen. Marion’s camp, the rest are paroled. Capt. MacLaine’s garrison watch all of this happen, but do nothing. The hospital is burned and the patriot’s ride away.

Two days later, northeast of Charleston, at Wappetaw Meeting House, the British come under attack by the same state troops commanded by Lt. Col.
Hezekiah Maham. The enemy abandoned this post as soon as they saw the Carolinians approaching with no shots exchanged per at least one
source. Apparently, the British enjoyed no long-range success in keeping Brig. Gen. Francis Marion’s patrols out of the vicinity of Charleston.

By the end of the month, North Carolina’s Col. Isaac Shelby and Col. John Sevier leave South Carolina under the command of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and Lt. Col. Hezekiah Maham, and head back across the mountains to home.

In hindsight, we see this season as the calm before the last storm of this attempt at independence from the British Empire:

Designed by Scott Aiken to show Marion’s impact and activity from 1780-1782. http://www.francismariontrail.com/MarionData.htm

In DEC1781 things seem to get even more quite. The news that Gov. John Rutledge writes a letter to Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and requests an escort of 25 men and a proper officer from Lt. Col. Hezekiah Maham’s regiment of cavalry means that there is a cautious return towards civil government rule as the new legislature commences in the new year. Obviously this will not take place in Charleston itself but at some other location away from the remaining British forces still in port.

During the week before Christmas, Marion’s men sweep around Moncks Corner and get as far as Dorchester. The entire area is quiet as the British are hunkered down in and right around Charlestown.

On Christmas Day 1781, in an act of revenge, patriots known as “The Bloody Legion” headed by Capt. John Leacraft and his Hilton Head Company of Militia attack a local Loyalist militia commander Capt. Philip Martingale in his home, killing, or more accurately, murdering him. Apparently, this was to avenge the bloody ambush on Hilton Head Island earlier in 1781 by British Maj. Maxwell and Loyalist Capt. Philip Martingale of Daufuskie
Island, who led a raiding party to Hilton Head and ambushed Patriots at Two Oaks Plantation.

On 31DEC1781, Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene relays Gov. Rutledge’s
announcement for the newly-elected legislators to meet on 08JAN1782 at
Jacksonborough, South Carolina. So the stage is set for civil government to return. The question is, will the British allow this to proceed naturally as rumors of a peace process rising in the British Parliament had yet to change the mind of King George or Lord Germain. The hope for a better future was still something that seemed just out of reach.

Stay tuned for 1782, as hindsight tells us, the Treaty of Paris in 1783 is yet over a year away!

-SF1

Long Term Effects of Hamiltonianism: St. George Tucker’s Antidote – Jeffersonianism

The pendulum swing of politics has revealed much as to the gullibility of the masses who are swept up by emotion but rarely have principles by which to live by when the going gets tough.

It seems that Thomas Paine’s writings in 1776 helped put people in a position to better understand the battles, the war and the cause for which thirteen British colonies aligned with each other, for a moment in time, to repel the British Empire from their midst. By the end of this conflict, there were many who were disillusioned with the cause, either by British tactics used by Patriot forces or even having their property pillaged by the Whig faction that made them choose to be a Tory. The pendulum swung in villages, colonies as well as on this continent as people heard the news, fake or not.

At the end of the day, one wonders if those with power can be trusted to make decisions on their behalf, which is at its root, representative government. We have seen ourselves where HOAs and churches can become hotbeds of contention and power moves that can swiftly cripple the week and the meek. I believe this is why many founding fathers, but definitely not all, preferred the grass roots approach. Keeping the “representative” local, so someone could have the proximity to put a boot up their a** if need be, is essential for accountability.

As the War for Independence concluded, and the Articles of Confederation gave way to the Constitution that was created in Philadelphia in 1787, in secret, many “grassroot” promoters found themselves in the minority.

A recent article about St. George Tucker helps shed light not only on the two types of dreams for America that the “cause” help birth, but also the prophetical vision that this man had for seeing the end of the line for either of these visions. Allen Mendenhall’s article “St. George Tucker’s Jeffersonian Constitution” helps to frame my thoughts on what we gained, and what we lost, after the fight for independence from 1775-1783:

One could argue that there are two basic visions for America: the Hamiltonian and the Jeffersonian. The former is nationalist, calling for centralized power and an industrial, mercantilist society characterized by banking, commercialism, and a robust military. Its early leaders had monarchical tendencies. The latter vision involves a slower, more leisurely and agrarian society, political decentralization, popular sovereignty, and local republicanism. Think farmers over factories.

Both were birthed in the message of liberty. Both indicated the support of the common person in their leadership to create something new here in America that was different from the ways of the Old World, especially in Europe. You can see the thread by who you might consider our heroes:

Hamiltonian:

  • John Adams, John Marshall, Noah Webster, Henry Clay, Joseph Story, and Abraham Lincoln

Jeffersonian:

  • George Mason and Patrick Henry (who, because they were born before Jefferson, could be considered his precursors), the mature (rather than the youthful) James Madison, and then John Taylor of Caroline, John C. Calhoun, Abel Upshur, and Robert Y. Hayne.

So the Federalists (who were not really federalists, but as you know with political parties, their name does not always reveal their core) surged into power on the tails of the Constitution that helped assure a more powerful centralized general government but then over played their hand especially during “Alien and Sedition Act” John Adams administration. The Anti-Federalists, called the Democratic-Republican Party (or simply the Republican party) by the time Thomas Jefferson sought the presidency would sweep into office and would change the political landscape some for the next 30 years or so before the Whigs would emerge and eventually the Republican party that nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

From St. George Tucker’s time, he could see the years and the decades unfolding in his mind. Here are a few of his thoughts:

Under this [Compact Theory of the US Constitution] model, each sovereign, independent state is contractually and consensually committed to confederacy, and the federal government possesses only limited and delegated powers—e.g., “to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations.”

That is indeed one way to interpret the US Constitution, as even Alexander Hamilton would talk this way about it, until it passed and until he was in power with George Washington.

.. summarizing competing contentions about the Sedition Act, Tucker subtly supported the position that “the United States as a federal government have no common law” and that “the common law of one state . . . is not the common law of another.” The common law, in Tucker’s paradigm, is bottom-up and home-grown; it’s not a formula that can be lifted from one jurisdiction and placed down anywhere else with similar results and effects.

This is another core principle that IF had been understood by the political elite of the 20th/21st century, it would not have thought that the USA could bring “democracy” to any other nation in the world.  Even in the United States, the STATES represent different cultures, morals and standards. We would have done well in keeping it that way, but our ancestors believed Hamilton and Lincoln over Jefferson and Calhoun.

Allen ends his article with the wisdom that can be gained in understanding what we lost after the War for Independence:

Reading Tucker reminds us that for most of our country’s formative history the principal jurisprudential debates were not about natural law versus positivism, or originalism versus living constitutionalism, but about state versus federal authority, local versus national jurisdiction, the proper scale and scope of government, checks and balances, and so forth. To the extent these subjects have diminished in importance, Hamilton has prevailed over Jefferson. Reading Tucker today can help us see the costs of that victory.

It seems that only the recovery of the wisdom and the thoughts of these 18th century thinkers can lead this land towards a better day for us, our kids and our grand-kids. The US Empire’s current trajectory is self-defeating in the long term and not sustainable.

Local city-state and region-state philosophy is a much needed idea, but the powers residing in the political elites funded by an evil moneyed elites will not give up their multi-century grasp for total control and power easily.

Something will have to give.

-SF1

Fall 1781: Momentum of the Revolutionary War Shifts, So Does “The Cause”

There is light at the end of the tunnel, and there is movement afoot that takes place mainly north of the Potomac River that I contend is normal in this broken world. When freedom breaks out, there are those that instill fear in the people that politics, bigger and more centralized, is needed to secure our future.

While this article is a bit dated (I believe I was still in the US Navy at the time), it does point out a few things that I have been saying off and on in my blog over the past year or so. I bring it up now since my ongoing coverage of Francis Marion’s activities in South Carolina, which actually saved the colonies in their efforts to exit the British Empire, is entering the post-Yorktown phase where military conflicts and such give way back to the political.

The standard American myth celebrates the Constitution as the triumphant culmination of the American Revolution. This is largely untrue and misleading.

Everyone in government schools has heard, the Articles of Confederation was weak and ill equipped to govern the thirteen colonies, let alone all the additional lands that the Treaty of Paris granted in 1783:

The facts, and not that era’s fake news, paints a much different scene:

The alleged “critical period” between the end of the Revolution and the Constitution’s adoption was not dominated by economic depression, political turmoil, and international peril, jeopardizing the independent survival of the American experiment in liberty.

There was no actual threat, but a threat was thought up in the minds of those politicians whose political descendants include the politicians that orchestrated the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the so-called Civil War and so on. In each of these instances, there was a fear introduced into the population that without a war, catastrophe was imminent.

In context, backing up to the period of time before even the Declaration of Independence was penned (raw thoughts by Thomas Paine and edited by Thomas Jefferson), there was a joining of efforts from people in the thirteen colonies across a political and philosophical spectrum. On one hand, we have the RADICALS:

The American Revolution, like all great social upheavals, was brought off by a disparate coalition of competing viewpoints and conflicting interests. At one end of the Revolutionary coalition stood the American radicals—men such as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson.

Although by no means in unanimous agreement, the radicals objected to excessive state power in general and not simply to British rule in particular. Spearheading the Revolution’s opening stages, they were responsible for the truly revolutionary alterations in the internal status quo: the abolition of slavery in the northern states, the separation of church and state in the southern states, the rooting out of remaining feudal privileges everywhere, and the adoption of new, republican state constitutions containing written bills of rights that severely hemmed in government power.

These were change agents, those daring visionaries that can see life lived differently, and at the same time knew that this would not be a utopia, but in reality would be a struggle, but a rewarding one.

On the other hand, was a class of people that we might consider to be nationalists or those whose major agenda was that of mercantilism:

At the other end of the Revolutionary coalition were the American nationalists; an array of mercantile, creditor, and landed interests. The nationalists went along with independence but opposed the Revolution’s libertarian thrust. They sought a strong American state with the hierarchical features of the 18th-century British state, only without the British.

So by the fall of 1781 as the British catastrophe at Yorktown reverberated throughout the British Empire, there were nationalist forces that were already parting ways with the radicals, and even the militias that brought them to this day.  By 1783, Francis Marion saw the writing on the wall. The NOV1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the 06JAN1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Continental Nathaniel Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”.  Georgia had also given Greene 24,000 acres as well. Marion eventually was awarded 300 acres in 1785.

It should be noted that the correspondence Marion had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in DEC1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. Marion lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now.

So too were the more nationalistic military leaders that benefited from a larger government:

Military conservatives such as George Washington induced Congress to focus the Revolutionary effort on a costly conventional force, the Continental Army, rather than the militias. By the 1781 Yorktown campaign, popular disgust at the army’s continuing hand-to-mouth existence gave the nationalists uncontested control of Congress. They proceeded to implement a financial program that gave the central government much more power.

While the nationalists attempted to strengthen the Articles of Confederation, their attempts through 1784 were met with resistance from the Radicals after the Treaty of Paris. The economic state of the states were generally fine economically except for two groups that put out a very public fuss:

In reality, American merchants were after uniform navigation laws, because they wanted some coercive means of monopolizing the American carrying trade. And American artisans wanted uniform protective tariffs to stop their customers from buying the cheap foreign goods flooding American markets at the end of the war. The unique economic fortunes of these two groups and their quest for special privileges contributed much to the exaggerated impression of postwar depression.

As we see today, coercive means to monopolize as well as protective tariffs are tools used yet today in 2019. Capitalism will always look to enhance their position by government if it will let them. Corporatism is the curse of politics gone too far.

So the Coup d’etat of the cause for the freedoms gained by the American Revolution would come at a convention in Philadelphia in 1787 whose purpose was to rework the Articles of Confederation, however:

Its official function was to propose revisions to the Articles. But the delegates, meeting in secret, quickly decided to draft a totally new document. Of the 55 delegates, only 8 had signed the Declaration of Independence. Most of the leading radicals, including Sam Adams, Henry, Paine,Lee, and Jefferson, were absent. In contrast, 21 delegates belonged to the militarist Society of the Cincinnati. Overall, the convention was dominated by the array of nationalist interests that the prior war had brought together: land speculators, ex-army officers, public creditors, and privileged merchants.

Things had definitely changed in one decade’s time, and not for the better! Look how far we have come since then.

Not cool!

We are much “safer” today as a result of the this early course change in this nation’s history, safe as slaves.

-SF1