We hold these truths to be pretty obvious: that the Declaration of Independence is poorly punctuated propaganda, and rebels ought to be hanged!

Rebel Yell
Hutchinson’s Strictures
Hey Kids, Let’s Commit Treason!
Why I Am Not a “Conservative”
Recommended Reading
Letters to the Editor

Rebel Yell

The Declaration of Independence has no shortage of admirers at either end of the mainstream political spectrum, from the ultra-progressive far left to the fairly progressive “far right.” These latter-day Sons of Liberty can often be found debating what the Declaration “really means.”

According to Obama’s second inaugural address, what makes Americans “exceptional” — indeed, what makes them Americans — is their “allegiance” to the second line of the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident” — I’m sure you know the rest — from which it clearly follows that America must have more “Medicare and Medicaid” (invented 1965) and “Social Security” (invented 1935). This will “free us to take the risks that make this country great” (like starting wars with Britain and Germany).

Not so fast! National Review, that great bastion of neutered “conservatives” (of what, unclear), won’t let the president’s speechwriters get away with co-opting “one of the most important sentences in world history” to bolster a “liberal-left agenda.” Actually, the Declaration is all about “individual liberty and rights” (and probably a couple other late 18th century murderous insurrectionary war cries of the far left), not “a collectivist government” — from which it clearly follows that America must rein in Medicare, not to mention “green energy” subsidies.

But wait! The very next line of the Declaration reads, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,” a point not lost on the communist newsletter Huffington Post. The rebel leaders “were not opposed to all governments, just the one run by an absolute monarch” (albeit an “absolute” monarch with a parliament). So, when the new “very weak central government” failed, they whipped up “a stronger central government” to secure “other rights such as justice and the general welfare” — from which it clearly follows that America must subsidize “green energy,” but not pass voter ID laws. It’s all right there in the Declaration!

Even the occasionally sensible Heritage Foundation believes that if Americans let Obama “reframe the Founding,” he will be able to drag the country “backwards, away from America’s principles toward a world in which nothing is permanent, our rights are not secure, and government is unlimited” — a mythical time when, in the words of Calvin Coolidge, “there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.” Thus, Obama’s speechwriters’ plan for America is far from “the great self-governing constitutionalism of Lincoln” — the same Lincoln who revoked the Constitution and introduced military slavery to the U.S. — from which it clearly follows that America must set aside the petty distractions of voter ID and green energy to ensure that its “great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.” Wait, hang on, that’s a bit vague. How about: America must ban same-sex marriage, in an unmistakable triumph of “equality,” “rights of the individual,” and most of all “limited government.”

Thanks guys, that’s not confusing at all.

Muskets blazing: even PBS wants in (image)

Seriously, have you ever actually read the Declaration of Independence? You probably should, or you might say something incredibly foolish — like the hero of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, who calls it “the single greatest piece of American writing.” (Later he tops even that inanity by calling the modern, non-violent Tea Party “the American Taliban,” presumably because both are obsessed with cutting taxes and melting little girls’ faces with battery acid for learning how to read.)

And I don’t just mean the initial barrage of warmed-over Lockean political philosophy (or whichever bits you think support your own theory of government); I mean the details, too. The Declaration tells us, for example, that the King “has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Which laws? “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” What places were those? How far away were they? “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” How many officers does it take to make a swarm?

It’s time we looked a little more closely (than not at all) at that stalest piece of American mythology. I warn you, open-minded Patriot, that you may find it, in certain respects, including clarity and honesty, somewhat lacking. My condolences: your revolution was a sham. Still, no one can say you didn’t take a firm stance on stamp tax.

Hutchinson’s Strictures

Thomas Hutchinson served as the royal governor of Massachusetts Bay from 1758 to 1774 (an interesting time to hold the position, as you can imagine). In 1776, he read the Declaration of Independence — quite carefully, in fact — and tried to explain, to a baffled English lord, what the rebels were talking about. That letter comes to us as Thomas Hutchinson’s Strictures upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia. I’ll assume you were never assigned this remarkable document in history class. After all, the rebels won.

Hang on: explain the Declaration? Aren’t these truths held to be self-evident? “All men are created equal,” “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” — all that good stuff.

Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Hutchinson

Well, aside from that “self-evident” business of “unalienable Rights,” Thomas Jefferson went to the trouble of compiling a list of everything that impelled the rebels to such a violent separation: his “long train” of over two dozen more or less specific “abuses and usurpations” allegedly inflicted on the colonies by King George III, “all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States” (About American History):

The text of the Declaration has been compared to a ‘Lawyer’s Brief.’ It presents a long list of grievances against King George III including such items as taxation without representation, maintaining a standing army in peacetime, dissolving houses of representatives, and hiring “large armies of foreign mercenaries.” The analogy is that Jefferson is an attorney presenting his case before the world court. Not everything that Jefferson wrote was exactly correct. However, it is important to remember that he was writing a persuasive essay, not a historical text.

Certainly history abounds with creative writers who provoked, prolonged, expanded, or exacerbated brutal wars with a well-timed (maybe not exactly correct, but certainly persuasive) little essay, speech, cartoon, or other form of lie. In this respect, Jefferson is not the all-time worst offender, so… well done, I suppose.

Dr. Seuss pitches in to help out the Soviet Union and start a war with Japan — months before Pearl Harbor.
(“Velly Scary Jap-in-the-Box… Wasn’t It?”)

But we should read the Strictures anyway, lest we forget that there were two sides to the American rebellion, neither of which was made up of storybook villains.

Fisking the Declaration

John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence (above) depicts the five-man drafting committee presenting their work to Congress. That Second Continental Congress is the target of Hutchinson’s Strictures.

The Last time I had the honour of being in your Lordships company, you observed that you was utterly at a loss to what facts many parts of the Declaration of Independence published by the Philadelphia Congress referred, and that you wished they had been more particularly mentioned, that you might better judge of the grievances, alleged as special causes of the separation of the Colonies from the other parts of the Empire. This hint from your Lordship induced me to attempt a few Strictures upon the Declaration.

Upon my first reading it, I thought there would have been more policy in leaving the World altogether ignorant of the motives of the Rebellion, than in offering such false and frivolous reasons in support of it; and I flatter myself, that before I have finished this letter, your Lordship will be of the same mind. But I beg leave, first to make a few remarks upon its rise and progress.

I have often heard men, (who I believe were free from party influence) express their wishes, that the claims of the Colonies to an exemption from the authority of Parliament in imposing taxes had been conceded; because they had no doubts that America would have submitted in all other cases; and so this unhappy Rebellion, which has already proved fatal to many hundreds of the Subjects of the Empire, and probably will to many thousands more, might have been prevented.

(A counter-insurgency strategy about as effective in the New World in 1776 as in the Middle East today.)

The Acts for imposing Duties and Taxes may have accelerated the Rebellion, and if this could have been foreseen, perhaps, it might have been good policy to have omitted or deferred them; but I am of opinion, that if no Taxes or Duties had been laid upon the Colonies, other pretenses would have been found for exception to the authority of Parliament. The body of the people in the Colonies, I know, were easy and quiet. They felt no burdens. They were attached, indeed, in every Colony to their own particular Constitutions, but the Supremacy of Parliament over the whole gave them no concern. They had been happy under it for an hundred years past: They feared no imaginary evils for an hundred years to come.

But the tyrant King George was poised to crush the American people! Just look at what happened to the English colonies that didn’t rebel: Australia, Canada, New Zealand — desolate wastelands! Oh, wait…

But there were men in each of the principal Colonies, who had independence in view, before any of those Taxes were laid, or proposed, which have since been the ostensible cause of resisting the execution of Acts of Parliament. Those men have conducted the Rebellion in the several stages of it, until they have removed the constitutional powers of Government in each Colony, and have assumed to themselves, with others, a supreme authority over the whole.

Their designs of Independence began soon after the reduction of Canada, relying upon the future cession of it by treaty. They could have no other pretense to a claim of independence, and they made no other at first, than what they called the natural rights of mankind, to choose their own forms of Government, and change them when they please. This, they were soon convinced, would not be sufficient to draw the people from their attachment to constitutions under which they had so long been easy and happy: Some grievances, real or imaginary, were therefore necessary.

Which is where the Declaration comes in: to list all the necessary grievances — real or imaginary.

It does not, however, appear that there was any regular plan formed for attaining to Independence, any further than that every fresh incident which could be made to serve the purpose, by alienating the affections of the Colonies from the Kingdom, should be improved accordingly. One of these incidents happened in the year 1764. This was the Act of Parliament granting certain duties on goods in the British Colonies, for the support of Government, etc. At the same time a proposal was made in Parliament, to lay a stamp duty upon certain writings in the Colonies; but this was deferred until the next Session, that the Agents of the Colonies might notify the several Assemblies in order to their proposing any way, to them more eligible, for raising a sum for the same purpose with that intended by a stamp duty.

The Colony of Massachuset’s Bay was more affected by the Act for granting duties, than any other Colony. More molasses, the principal article from which any duty could arise, was distilled into spirits in that Colony than in all the rest. The Assembly of Massachuset’s Bay, therefore, was the first that took any public notice of the Act, and the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons.

As we’ll see, most of the trouble in the colonies can be traced back to “Massachuset’s Bay.”

I have this special reason, my Lord, for taking notice of this Act of the Massachuset’s Assembly; that though an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet it was only intended to amuse the authority in England; and as soon as it was known to have its advocates here, it was renounced by the colonies, and even by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable.

In every stage of the Revolt, the same disposition has always appeared. No precise, unequivocal terms of submission to the authority of Parliament in any case, have ever been offered by any Assembly. A concession has only produced a further demand, and I verily believe if every thing had been granted short of absolute Independence, they would not have been contented; for this was the object from the beginning.

“A concession has only produced a further demand” — a point we’ll come back to later…

It will cause greater prolixity to analyze the various parts of this Declaration, than to recite the whole. I will therefore present it to your Lordship’s view in distinct paragraphs, with my remarks, in order as the paragraphs are published.

[…]

They begin my Lord, with a false hypothesis, that the colonies are one distinct people, and the kingdom another, connected by political bands. The Colonies, politically considered, never were a distinct people from the kingdom. There never has been but one political band, and that was just the same before the first Colonists emigrated as it has been ever since, the Supreme Legislative Authority, which hath essential right, and is indispensably bound to keep all parts of the Empire entire, until there may be a separation consistent with the general good of the Empire, of which good, from the nature of government, this authority must be the sole judge. I should therefore be impertinent, if I attempted to show in what case a whole people may be justified in rising up in oppugnation to the powers of government, altering or abolishing them, and substituting, in whole or in part, new powers in their stead; or in what sense all men are created equal; or how far life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness may be said to be unalienable; only I could wish to ask the Delegates of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, how their Constituents justify the depriving more than an hundred thousand Africans of their rights to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in some degree to their lives, if these rights are so absolutely unalienable; nor shall I attempt to confute the absurd notions of government, or to expose the equivocal or inconclusive expressions contained in this Declaration; but rather to show the false representation made of the facts which are alleged to be the evidence of injuries and usurpations, and the special motives to Rebellion. There are many of them, with designs, left obscure; for as soon as they are developed, instead of justifying, they rather aggravate the criminality of this Revolt.

The first in order, He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good; is of so general a nature, that it is not possible to conjecture to what laws or to what Colonies it refers. I remember no laws which any Colony has been restrained from passing, so as to cause any complaint of grievance, except those for issuing a fraudulent paper currency, and making it a legal tender; but this is a restraint which for many years past has been laid on Assemblies by an act of Parliament, since which such laws cannot have been offered to the King for his allowance. I therefore believe this to be a general charge, without any particulars to support it; fit enough to be placed at the head of a list of imaginary grievances.

Ouch. Well, you can’t say Governor Hutchinson isn’t taking the rebels seriously.

Tyranny soon rears its hideous head:

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

We shall find, my Lord, that Massachuset’s Bay is more concerned in this Declaration than any other Colony. This article respects that Colony alone. By its charter, a legislature is constituted: The Governor is appointed by the King — The Council, consisting of twenty-eight members, were appointed, in the first instance by the King, but afterwards are to be elected annually by the two Houses — The House of Representatives is to consist of two members elected annually by each town, but the number of the House is nevertheless made subject to future regulations by acts of the General Assembly. Besides the Council, the Civil Officers of the Government are also to be annually elected by the two Houses.

It appeared in a course of years, that by multiplying towns, the House of Representatives had increased to double the number of which it consisted at first. Their importance in all elections was increased in proportion; for the number of the Council continued the same as at first. To prevent further deviation from the spirit of the Charter, an instruction was then first given to the Governors, not to consent to laws for making new towns so as to increase the number of the House; unless there should be a clause in the law to suspend its operation, until the King signifies his pleasure upon it.

But here, my Lord, lies the most shameful falsity of this article. No Governor ever refused to consent to a law for making a new town, even without a suspending clause, if provision was made that the inhabitants of the new town should continue to join with the old, or with any other town contiguous or near to it, in the choice of Representatives; so that there never was the least intention to deprive a single inhabitant of the right of being represented; and, in fact, such provision has ever been made, except where the inhabitants of the new town chose to forego the right, which we must suppose they did not think inestimable, rather than pay the wages of their Representatives. This has been the case in several instances, and it is notorious that the Assembly of that Province have made it their practice, from year to year, to lay fines on their towns for not choosing Representatives. This is a wilful misrepresentation made for the sake of the brutal insult at the close of the article.

Here are three of my all-time favorite “abuses and usurpations”:

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

To the same Colony this article also has respect. Your Lordship must remember the riotous, violent opposition to Government in the Town of Boston, which alarmed the whole Kingdom, in the year 1768. Four Regiments of the King’s forces were ordered to that Town, to be aiding to the Civil Magistrate in restoring and preserving peace and order. The House of Representatives, which was then sitting in the Town, remonstrated to the Governor against posting Troops there, as being an invasion of their rights. He thought proper to adjourn them to Cambridge, where the House had frequently sat at their own desire, when they had been alarmed with fear of small pox in Boston; the place therefore was not unusual. The public rooms of the College, were convenient for the Assembly to sit in, and the private houses of the Inhabitants for the Members to lodge in; it therefore was not uncomfortable. It was within four miles of the Town of Boston, and less distant than any other Town fit for the purpose.

When this step, taken by the Governor, was known in England, it was approved, and conditional instructions were given to continue the Assembly at Cambridge. The House of Representatives raised the most frivolous of objections against the authority of the Governor to remove the Assembly from Boston, but proceeded, nevertheless, to the business of the Session as they used to do. In the next Session, without any new cause, the Assembly refused to do any business unless removed to Boston. This was making themselves judges of the place, and by the same reason, of the time of holding the Assembly, instead of the Governor, who thereupon was instructed not to remove them to Boston, so long as they continued to deny his authority to carry them to any other place.

They fatigued the Governor by adjourning from day to day, and refusing to do business one session after another, while he gave his constant attendance to no purpose; and this they make the King’s fatiguing them to compel them to comply with his measures.

A brief narrative of this unimportant dispute between an American Governor and his Assembly, needs an apology to your Lordship; how ridiculous then do those men make themselves, who offer it to the world as a ground to justify rebellion?

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

Contention between Governors and their Assemblies have caused dissolutions of such Assemblies, I suppose, in all the Colonies, in former as well as later times. I recollect but one instance of the dissolution of an Assembly by special order from the King, and that was in Massachuset’s Bay. In 1768, the House of Representatives passed a vote or resolve, in prosecution of the plan of Independence, incompatible with the subordination of the Colonies to the supreme authority of the Empire; and directed their Speaker to send a copy of it in circular letters to the Assemblies of the other Colonies, inviting them to avow the principles of the resolve, and to join in supporting them. No Government can long subsist, which admits of combinations of the subordinate powers against the supreme. This proceeding was therefore, justly deemed highly unwarrantable; and indeed it was the beginning of that unlawful confederacy, which has gone on until it has caused at least temporary Revolt of all the Colonies which joined in it.

The Governor was instructed to require the House of Representatives, in their next Session to rescind or disavow this resolve, and if they refused, to dissolve them, as the only way to prevent their prosecuting the plan of Rebellion. They delayed a definitive answer, and he indulged them, until they had finished all the business of the Province, and then appeared his manly firmness in a rude answer and a peremptory refusal to comply with the King’s demand. Thus my Lord, the regular use of the prerogative in suppressing a begun Revolt, is urged as a grievance to justify the Revolt.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

This is connected with the last preceding article, and must relate to the same Colony only for no other ever presumed, until the year 1774, when the general dissolution of the established government in all the Colonies was taking place, to convene an Assembly, without the Governor, by the mere act of the People. In less than three months after the Governor had dissolved the Assembly of Massachuset’s Bay, the town of Boston, the first mover in all affairs of this nature, applied to him to call another Assembly. The Governor thought he was the judge of the proper time for calling an Assembly, and refused. The Town, without delay, chose their former members, whom they called a Committee, instead of Representatives; and they sent circular letters to all the other towns in the Province inviting them to choose Committees also; and all these Committees met in what they called a Convention, and chose the Speaker of the last house their Chairman. Here was a House of Representatives in everything but name; and they were proceeding upon business in the town of Boston, but were interrupted by the arrival of two or three regiments, and a spirited message from the Governor, and in two or three days returned to their homes.

This vacation of three months was the long time the people waited before they exercised their unalienable powers; the Invasions from without were the arrival or expectation of three or four regiments sent by the King to aid the Civil Magistrate in preserving the peace; and the Convulsions within were the tumults, riots and acts of violence which this Convention was called, not to suppress but to encourage.

Maybe Massachusetts should have declared independence, and left the other colonies alone.

In any case, here come the “swarms”:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

I know of no new offices erected in America in the present reign, except those of the Commissioners of the Customs and their dependents. Five Commissioners were appointed, and four Surveyors General dismissed; perhaps fifteen to twenty clerks and under officers were necessary for this board more than the Surveyors had occasion for before: Land and tide waiters, weighers, etc. were known officers before; the Surveyors used to increase or lessen the number as the King’s service required, and the Commissioners have done no more. Thirty or forty additional officers in the whole Continent, are the Swarms which eat out the substance of the boasted number of three millions of people.

Why else, pray tell, are the rebels rebelling?

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

Certainly, my Lord, this could not be a cause of Revolt. The Colonies had revolted from the Supreme Authority, to which, by their constitutions, they were subject, before the Act was passed. A Congress had assumed an authority over the whole, and had rebelliously prohibited all commerce with the rest of the Empire. This act, therefore, will be considered by the candid world, as a proof of the reluctance in government against what is dernier resort in every state, and as a milder measure to bring the Colonies to a re-union with the rest of the Empire.

Hang on, I feel like we’re missing something here… Hey, whatever happened to those terrible taxes?

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

How often has your Lordship heard it said, that the Americans are willing to submit to the authority of Parliament in all cases except that of taxes? Here we have a declaration made to the world of the causes which have impelled separation, and that if any one cause was distinguished from another, special notice would be taken of it. That of taxes seems to have been in danger of being forgot. It comes in late, and in as slight a manner as is possible. And I know, my Lord, that these men, in the early days of their opposition to Parliament, have acknowledged that they pitched upon this subject of taxes, because it was most alarming to the people, every man perceiving immediately that he is personally affected by it; and it has, therefore, in all communities, always been a subject more dangerous to government than any other, to make innovation in; but as their friends in England had fell in with the idea that Parliament could have no right to tax them because not represented, they thought it best it should be believed they were willing to submit to other acts of legislation until this point of taxes could be gained; owing at the same time, that they could find no fundamentals in the English Constitution, which made representation more necessary in acts for taxes, than acts for any other purpose; and that the world must have a mean opinion of their understanding, if they should rebel rather than pay a duty of three-pence per pound on tea, and yet be content to submit to an act which restrained them from making a nail to shoe their own horses.

Hutchinson makes no excuses for America’s so-called “Founding Fathers”:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

These two articles are so much of the same nature, that I consider them together. There has been no Colony Charter altered except that of Massachuset’s Bay, and that in no respect, that I recollect, except that the appointment and power of the Council are made to conform to that of the Council of the other Royal Governments, and the laws which relate to grand and petit juries are made to conform to the general laws of the Realm.

The only instance of the suspension of any legislative power is that of the province of New York, for refusing to comply with an Act of Parliament for quartering the King’s troops posted there for its protection and defence against the French and Indian enemies.

The exceptions, heretofore, have rather been to the authority of Parliament to revoke, or alter Charters, or legislative powers once granted and established, than to the injurious or oppressive use of the authority upon these occasions.

When parties run high, the most absurd doctrines, if a little disguised, are easily received, and embraced. Thus, because in the Reign of Charles the First, resistance to Taxes imposed by the authority of the King alone was justifiable, and the contrary doctrine of having taken the names Passive Obedience and Non–Resistance, those terms became odious; therefore in the Reign of George the Third, resistance to Taxes imposed, by the King, Lords and Commons, upon America while not represented in Parliament, is justifiable also; and the contrary doctrine is branded with the odious terms of Passive Obedience and Non–Resistance; as if the latter case were analogous to the former. And because in the Reign of Charles the Second and James the Second, Royal Charters were deemed sacred and not to be revoked or altered at the will and pleasure of the King alone; therefore in the Reign of George the Third, they are sacred also, and not to be revoked nor altered by the authority of Parliament.

The common people who, relying upon the authority of others, confound cases together which are so essentially different, may be excused; but what excuse, my Lord, can be made for those men, in England as well as in America, who, by such fallacies, have misguided the people and provoked them to rebellion?

“Mankind,” wrote Jefferson, “are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Well, however much “freedom” the rebels may have won for America by “abolishing accustomed forms,” here’s one thing they undoubtedly achieved: eight years of war, tens of thousands of men killed in battle or by disease, and many tens of thousands more crippled and maimed.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

These, my Lord, would be weighty charges from a loyal and dutiful people against an unprovoked Sovereign: They are more than the people of England pretended to bring against King James the Second, in order to justify the Revolution. Never was there an instance of more consummate effrontery. The Acts of a justly incensed Sovereign for suppressing a most unnatural, unprovoked Rebellion, are here assigned as the causes of this Rebellion. It is immaterial whether they are true or false. They are all short of the penalty of the laws which had been violated. Before the date of any one of them, the Colonists had as effectually renounced their allegiance by their deeds as they have since done by their words. They had displaced the civil and military officers appointed by the King’s authority and set up others in their stead. They had new modelled their civil governments, and appointed a general government, independent of the King, over the whole. They had taken up arms, and made a public declaration of their resolution to defend themselves, against the forces employed to support his legal authority over them. To subjects, who had forfeited their lives by acts of Rebellion, every act of the Sovereign against them, which falls short of the forfeiture, is an act of favour. A most ungrateful return has been made for this favour. It has been improved to strengthen and confirm the Rebellion against him.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

What these oppressions were your Lordship has seen, for we may fairly conclude, that every thing appears in this Declaration, which can give colour to this horrid Rebellion, so that these men can never complain of being condemned without a full hearing.

But does your Lordship recollect any petitions in the several stages of these pretended oppressions? Has there ever been a petition to the King?

To give his Assent to these wholesome and necessary Laws to which he had refused it?

To allow his Governors to pass laws without a suspending clause, or without the people’s relinquishing the right of representation?

To withdraw his instructions for calling legislative bodies at unusual, uncomfortable and distant places?

To allow Assemblies, which had been dissolved, by his order, to meet again?

To pass laws to encourage the migration of foreigners?

To consent to the establishment of judiciary Powers?

To suffer Judges to be independent for the continuance of their offices and salaries?

To vacate or disannul new erected offices?

To withdraw his troops in times of peace, until it appeared that the reason for it was to give a free course to Rebellion?

And yet these, my Lord, are all the oppressions pretended to have been received from the King, except those in combination with the two Houses of Parliament; and they are all either grossly misrepresented, or so trivial and insignificant as to have been of no general notoriety in the time of them, or mere contests between Governors and Assemblies, so light and transient, as to have been presently forgot. All the petitions we have heard of, have been against Acts of the Supreme Legislature; and in all of them something has been inserted, or something has been done previous to them, with design to prevent their being received.

They have petitioned for the repeal of a law, because Parliament had not right to pass it. The receiving and granting the prayer of such petition, would have been considered as a renunciation of right; and from a renunciation in one instance, would have been inferred a claim to renunciation in all other instances. The repealing, or refraining from enacting any particular laws, or relieving from any kind of service, while a due submission to the laws in general shall be continued, and suitable return be made of other services, seems to be all which the Supreme Authority may grant, or the people or any part of them, require. If anything, my Lord, short of Independence was the redress sought for, all has been granted which has been prayed for, and could be granted.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Indignant resentment must seize the breast of every loyal subject. A tyrant, in modern language, means, not merely an absolute and arbitrary, but a cruel, merciless Sovereign. Have these men given an instance of any one Act in which the King has exceeded the just Powers of the Crown as limited by the English Constitution? Has he ever departed from known established laws, and substituted his own will as the rule of his actions? Has there ever been a Prince by whom subjects in rebellion, have been treated with less severity, or with longer forbearance?

And that right there is how Great Britain lost her Thirteen Colonies.

They have, my Lord, in their late address to the people of Great Britain, fully avowed these principles of Independence, by declaring they will pay no obedience to the laws of the Supreme Legislature; they have also pretended, that these laws were the mandates of edicts of the Ministers, not the acts of a constitutional legislative power, and have endeavoured to persuade such as they called their British Brethren, to justify the Rebellion begun in America; and from thence they expected a general convulsion in the Kingdom, and that measures to compel a submission would in this way be obstructed. These expectations failing, after they had gone too far in acts of Rebellion to hope for impunity, they were under necessity of a separation, and of involving themselves, and all over whom they had usurped authority, in the distresses and horrors of war against that power from which they revolted, and against all who continued in their subjection and fidelity to it.

Gratitude, I am sensible, is seldom to be found in a community, but so sudden a revolt from the rest of the Empire, which had incurred so immense a debt, and with which it remains burdened, for the protection and defence of the Colonies, and at their most importunate request, is an instance of ingratitude no where to be paralleled.

Suffer me, my Lord, before I close this Letter, to observe, that though the professed reason for publishing the Declaration was a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, yet the real design was to reconcile the people of America to that Independence, which always before, they had been made to believe was not intended. This design has too well succeeded. The people have not observed the fallacy in reasoning from the whole to part; nor the absurdity of making the governed to be governors. From a disposition to receive willingly complaints against Rulers, facts misrepresented have passed without examining. Discerning men have concealed their sentiments, because under the present free government in America, no man may, by writing or speaking, contradict any part of this Declaration, without being deemed an enemy to his country, and exposed to the rage and fury of the populace.

How things change.

What Have We Learned?

What, in the end, have we learned from reading this Loyalist’s Strictures upon the Declaration? Mencius Moldbug leads us to the answer in his Gentle Introduction:

Of course, you don’t really think of the Declaration as a list of factual particulars. You think of it as a deep moral statement, about humanity, or something. Nonetheless, it does contain a list of particulars. Isn’t it odd that it strikes us as odd to see these particulars closely examined? One simply doesn’t expect to see the Declaration argued with in this way. And, reading the Strictures, one gets the impression that the authors of the Declaration didn’t, either.

Which should not surprise us. What we learn from the Strictures is that, as in the rest of American history, there is absolutely no guarantee that a detailed and rational argument about a substantive factual question will prevail, whether through means military, political, or educational, over a meretricious tissue of lies. So why bother — especially if you’re the one peddling the lies?

Two lessons, then. Firstly, that history is written by the winners, not to mention taught by their ideological descendants; secondly, that the winners of wars are not necessarily correct about every little factual particular — or any little factual particular. (“Not everything that Jefferson wrote was exactly correct.”)

I like to keep these lessons in mind when I study history — or politics, which is after all only present history.

1-4 Battle of Guilford Courthouse v3

H. Charles McBarron’s Battle of Guildford Courthouse

Hey Kids, Let’s Commit Treason!

Just look at that thrilling scene of liberty, equality, and more than a few bullet-riddled and bayonet-slashed corpses. Are you ready to teach your kids to idolize the men responsible for it? You better be. Anything less would be un-American. We can start with PBS (not Sesame Street, unfortunately):

The Liberty! Teacher’s Guide is designed to fully engage students in the drama and rich educational information presented in the six-part PBS series Liberty! The American Revolution.

Students are expected to understand “how the basic premises of liberalism and democracy are joined in the Declaration of Independence, in which they are stated as ‘self-evident Truths’ (e.g., ‘all men are created equal,’ authority is derived from consent of the governed and people have the right to alter or abolish government when it fails to fulfill its purposes).” Needless to say, students are also expected to agree with every word of this warmed-over 18th century radicalism.

Need a version of the Declaration that’s accessible to younger rebels — say, “ages 10 and over”? Try Sam Fink’s illustrated Declaration of Independence:

When pondering the Declaration of Independence, many readers get as far as “When in the course of human events…” before their eyes glaze over. But when author-illustrator Sam Fink took the time to read the document, he was so impressed, he decided to do what he could to make it more accessible to everyone. By dividing the text into short phrases, hand lettering the words on one page, and illustrating the ideas expressed on the facing page, Fink succeeded marvelously in his goal. His scratchy, historically accurate illustrations are compelling (and often witty) in their representation of the Declaration’s significance. In one spread, the text reads “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” On the facing page, a grumpy King George stands over a dictionary opened to a definition of tyrant, pointing to the word and saying, “THAT’S ME!” and “I am also a usurper.” A complete version of the Declaration of Independence follows the illustrated portion of the book, as well as a chronology of events, a glossary of terms (such as “usurpations”), and a selected bibliography. A fabulously readable surprise!

“Witty.”

‘Give Me Liberty!’ Scholastic (“the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books” — Wik) demands, with a lesson plan suited for rebels in grades six through eight:

Russell Freedman’s Give Me Liberty! The Story of the Declaration of Independence recounts the American colonists’ arduous journey to freedom in a richly detailed narrative, complete with prints and illustrations. Reading Freedman’s words, the reader is transported back in time and ready to join the fight for independence.

That’s supposed to be a good thing. (Can a sixth-grader even fix a bayonet?)

According to one Amazon reviewer (member of the “Hall of Fame” and “Top 500”):

This book may be aimed at young readers between 9 and 12 years old, yet readers of any age can benefit from Russell Freedman’s basic yet very informative look at the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the events and ideas that helped shape it. Opening with the exciting story of the Boston Tea Party, Freedman walks the reader through the series of events leading up to the start of the Revolutionary War and America’s formal declaration of independence from the English government. After a quick summary of American history up to the crucial events of the 1770s, Freedman describes the range of taxes, burdens, and laws that the British Crown and Parliament forced on its increasingly recalcitrant colonies. The words of such men as Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry are once again called upon to reveal the unquenchable thirst for freedom which would help convince a divided population to take up arms in defense of a new, independent nation. He closes with a discussion of the Declaration of Independence, imparting the true significance and provocative importance of this document too easily taken for granted today.

(Five stars.) But beware! Another review identifies certain suspicious sympathies:

This is an odd book. The American author is sympathetic to the British. He describes them as being “frightened soldiers” attacked at the Boston Massacre. Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry are both characterized as propagandists. At one point “the Americans were bent on revenge.” The British are “hounded redcoats… saved from disaster” in Concord. Most of our American patriots are described simply as rebels. As an avid student of American history these descriptions annoy me. More because they may be overlooked for what they are. It is a new way to rewrite our history. Subtly make the American patriot look like the bad guy. Especially in the current climate of the Tea Party and frustration with Washington we can not allow these subtleties to sneak in to our kids history books.

Exactly right: if we don’t challenge this outrageous notion that it was somehow bad for the original Tea Party, in a climate of frustration with the lawful government of America, to start a violent revolt against it, then the new Tea Party, in a climate of frustration with the lawful government of America, just might start some kind of violent revolt against it, which would obviously be bad. An “avid student of American history” indeed. (Two stars.)

Don’t worry, Scholastic’s lesson plan will help you avoid any confusing subtleties, and other Loyalist tricks and traps:

Through the aid of Give Me Liberty!, students will learn about freedom and self expression, in the process they will learn about differing viewpoints.

Before Reading

Pass out a list of invented rules that infringe on the students’ personal rights and freedoms. Possible rules include:

You may only write in blue ink. If you write in any other color, you will receive detention.

The price of school lunch has been raised three dollars.

You cannot wear jeans to school. Anyone wearing jeans will be suspended.

(“Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”)

As a recommended “follow-up activity,” we ask our students: “What did you learn about the pursuit of freedom? Why is independence important/not important?” Ah, probing questions indeed.

Better yet, pass out this list of slightly more historically accurate invented rules:

You may only write in blue ink. If you use your blue ink to poison the Principal’s Tea, you will receive detention. While in detention, write many long Treatises on popular government. Sharpen your bayonet.
The price of school lunch has been raised three cents. Your Rights are being trampled! Loot the cafeteria! Dump the French fries in the Bay! Hang the Hall Monitor! Poison the Principal’s Tea!!!
Due to a recent outbreak of poisoned tea, the Principal has posted a Tea Guard at each classroom. The mad Tyrant has gone too far! Clearly this infringes upon Several Rights. Negotiations would fail if we tried them, so why even bother. Thus, we are left with no choice but to poison the Usurper’s Tea.

As a follow-up activity, ask your students: “What did you learn about the essential role of mob violence in any revolution? Also, when we break into the principal’s house tonight, should we murder his children first, or murder them later? Why is murdering the principal’s children in their beds important/not important to the pursuit of freedom?”

Revolutionary Terror

I refer you to Chapter 3, ‘The Stamp Act,’ of The Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion: A Tory View (1781) by Peter Oliver (1713–1791), Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts Bay:

In this Year 1765, began the violent Outrages in Boston: and now the Effusions of Rancour from Mr. Otis’s Heart were brought into Action. It hath been said, that he had secured the Smugglers & their Connections, as his Clients. An Opportunity now offered for them to convince Government of their Influence: as Seizure had been made by breaking open a Store, agreeable to act of Parliament; it was contested in the supreme Court, where Mr. Hutchinson praesided. The Seizure was adjudged legal by the whole Court.

Yes, the same Hutchinson who wrote the Strictures.

This raised Resentment against the Judges, Mr. Hutchinson was the only Judge who resided in Boston, & he only, of the Judges, was the Victim; for in a short Time after, the Mob of Otis & his clients plundered Mr. Hutchinsons House of its full Contents, destroyed his Papers, unroofed his House, & sought his & his Children’s Lives, which were saved by Flight. One of the Rioters declared, the next morning, that the first Places which they looked into were the Beds, in Order to Murder the Children.

Or, as Wikipedia spins it: “Hutchinson’s Boston mansion was ransacked in 1765 during protests against the Stamp Act, damaging his collection of materials on early Massachusetts history.” His poor “materials.”

All this was Joy to Mr. Otis, as also to some of the considerable Merchants who were smugglers, & personally active in the diabolical Scene. But a grave old Gentleman thought it more than diabolical; for upon viewing the Ruins, on the next Day, he made this Remark, vizt. “that if the Devil had been here the last Night, he would have gone back to his own Regions, ashamed of being outdone, & never more have set Foot upon the Earth.” If so, what Pity that he did not take an Evening Walk, at that unhappy Crisis; for he hath often since seen himself outdone at his own outdoings.

The Mob, also, on the same Evening, broke into the Office of the Register of the Admiralty, & did considerable Damage there; but were prevented from an utter Destruction of it. They also sought after the Custom House Officers; but they secreted themselves — these are some of the blessed Effects of smuggling. And so abandoned from all Virtue were the Minds of the People of Boston, that when the Kings Attorny examined many of them, on Oath, who were Spectators of the Scene & knew the Actors, yet they exculpated them before a Grand Jury; & others, who were Men of Reputation, avoided giving any Evidence, thro’ Fear of the like Fate. Such was the Reign of Anarchy in Boston, & such the very awkward Situation in which every Friend to Government stood. Mr. Otis & his mirmydons, the Smugglers & the black Regiment, had instilled into the Canaille, that Mr. Hutchinson had promoted the Stamp Act; whereas, on the Contrary, he not only had drawn up the decent Memorial of the Massachusetts Assembly, but, previous to it, he had repeatedly wrote to his Friends in England to ward it off, by shewing the Inexpedience of it; & the Disadvantages that would accrue from it to the english Nation, but it was in vain to struggle against the Law of Otis, & the Gospel of his black Regiment. That worthy Man must be a Victim; Mr. Otis said so, & it was done.

Such was the Frenzy of Anarchy, that every Man was jealous of his Neighbour, & seemed to wait for his Turn of Destruction.

Mr. Otis is James Otis, Jr., one of America’s lesser-known Founding Fathers. His catchphrase was “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” and he died from being struck by lightning. Why was the young Otis so fiercely Patriotic? Well, for a time he held a prestigious position as Advocate General of the Admiralty Court; this was about as un-Patriotic as you could get (for instance, the infamous Stamp Act fell within the Court’s jurisdiction). Otis resigned, and took up the smugglers’ — I mean, the Patriots’ case against Writs of Assistance, when the governor appointed Thomas Hutchinson Chief Justice of the Superior Court — instead of Otis’ father.

American Mythology X

Even those who claim to “debunk the myths” of the American rebellion tend to conceal more than they reveal. The reliably egregious New York Times, for example, offers a lesson plan to teach students to “examine and debunk historical myths,” based on David Greenberg’s ‘Debunking America’s Enduring Myths’ (2003).

Ever year as Independence Day draws near, we debunk old myths — pointing out that Betsy Ross didn’t sew the first flag, or that the Continental Congress actually proclaimed independence on July 2. But historians say that the real misunderstandings of history run deeper than a botched date or the unmerited canonization of a Philadelphia seamstress. Here are a few of what scholars describe as the true myths of Revolutionary history.

The “real myths” turn out to be: that the Declaration was Jefferson’s “solitary work”; that the rebels “fought to separate themselves from the British monarchy,” “not to remake their society”; that “Americans won the war because of their Indian-style guerrilla tactics”; and that the colonists “made a clean break with the Old World.”

All these fine points about the Revolution may seem beside the point to the public. And in the end, most people do grasp the basic idea. “The central question was one of the protection of liberty against political power,” Professor Bailyn said. “That seems as relevant as ever today.”

What do you make of these “fine points,” gentle reader? This “central question”?

Why I Am Not a “Conservative”

In every stage of the Revolt, the same disposition has always appeared. No precise, unequivocal terms of submission to the authority of Parliament in any case, have ever been offered by any Assembly. A concession has only produced a further demand, and I verily believe if every thing had been granted short of absolute Independence, they would not have been contented; for this was the object from the beginning.

So wrote Governor Hutchinson. Let me then take this opportunity to explain why I am not a “conservative.”

For some time now — three or four hundred years, in fact — Anglo-American “conservatives” (Republicans, Tories, Cavaliers, etc.) have consistently failed to grasp Hutchinson’s simple point: A concession has only produced a further demand. That is why “conservatives” never conserve anything.

Recall how ultra-progressive Aaron Sorkin wants conservatives, his enemies, to conceive of a conservative movement that refuses, even occasionally, to give in to progressive demands:

Ideological purity, compromise as weakness, a fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism, denying science, unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, a hostile fear of progress, a demonization of education, a need to control women’s bodies, severe xenophobia, tribal mentality, intolerance of dissent and a pathological hatred of the U.S. government.

[…]

They can call themselves the Tea Party. They can call themselves conservatives and they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn’t. But we should call them what they are. The American Taliban.

“Compromise as weakness.” Well, a compromise between good and evil is basically evil; a compromise between a plan that will work and a plan that won’t work is a plan that basically won’t work; and a compromise between standing still (what conservatives want) and moving rapidly to the left (what progressives want) is still basically leftward motion (what progressives think they can get away with).

If, in a typically brazen display of Whiggery, you choose to call this leftward motion “progress,” you should hardly expect conservatives, your enemies, to surrender to you simply because you observe that they are “hostile” to this “progress” (“towards anarchy and social dissolution”). And if you’ve already taken over the education system and the civil service — well, what did you expect, if not “demonization” and “hatred”?

I mean, can you imagine the alternative? How pathetic and useless would conservatives have to be, if all you needed to do to beat them is cry “xenophobia” or “tribal mentality” or “racist” or — oh, wait (AP):

A bipartisan group of leading senators has reached agreement on the principles for a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, including a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country.

Let’s see if the same trick works on progressives (Huffington Post):

Hints that Republicans may end up playing ball on sequestration emerged this week. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) hinted that he would be willing to trade sequestration relief for entitlement reforms. Democrats aren’t ready to make that exchange yet because they view it as imbalanced, and because they want to get through the current crisis first.

Result (Politico):

Despite tossing and turning for weeks, Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ended up extracting exactly no concessions from the Obama administration in the final deal that was heading for a vote Wednesday evening.

There’s a reason for this: progressives want to win, not lose slowly. In the words of the Reverend Robert Lewis Dabney, the great Confederate theologian (Discussions, p. 496):

This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. […]

It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. […]

The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it ‘in wind,’ and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.

And that is why I am not a conservative.

Radish

Consider this an invitation to think

4. American Rebellion

Table of Contents

Rebel Yell