Summer of 1776

My summer reading has included the history 1776 by David McCullough, which I think I’ll be finishing today, with the battle of Trenton. Last week I was reading about the Declaration of Independence. And the history is worth remembering.

The intentions originally did not include becoming independent from Great Britain; the rebels were, rather, trying to regain their rights as British citizens. They had been taxed unfairly and denied representation.

Among the Americans was a fairly strong showing of loyalists—people who wanted nothing to do with the rebels, who were content to be subjects of the king, whatever inconveniences or insults that might include. But all through 1775 there was essentially no talk among the Continental army (the Americans) of breaking away.

That began to change by the spring of 1776:

Writing to General Thomas, Washington had said the object was “neither glory nor extent of territory, but a defense of all that is dear and valuable in life.”

            Independence was not mentioned. Nor had independence been on the minds of those who fought at Bunker Hill or in Washington’s thoughts when he took command of the army. En route to Cambridge from Philadelphia, he had been quite specific in assuring the New York Provincial Congress that “every exertion of my worthy colleagues and myself will be equally extended to the reestablishment of peace and harmony between the mother country and the colonies.”

            But more and more of late there was talk of independence. The Reverend Belknap, from his visits to the camps, concluded that independence had “become a favorite point in the army.” A “declaration of independence” was heartily wished for, wrote Nathanael Greene, who was one of the first to say it in writing. “We had as good to begin in earnest first as last” (p. 55). 

Nathanael Greene later wrote to Samuel Ward:

Heaven had decreed that tottering empire Britain to irretrievable ruin and thanks to God, since Providence hath so determined, America must raise an empire of permanent duration, supported upon the grand pillars of Truth, Freedom, and Religion, encouraged by the smiles of Justice and defended by her own patriotic sons…. Permit me then to recommend from the sincerity of my heart, ready at all times to bleed in my country’s cause, a Declaration of Independence, and call upon the world and the great God who governs it to witness the necessity, propriety and rectitude thereof ( p. 68).

In early 1776 Thomas Paine wrote, in Common Sense, “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation” (p. 112). And Washington commented that Paine’s tract was having an effect.

Once the Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, penned and signed that declaration, there was no turning back:

By renouncing their allegiance to the King, the delegates at Philadelphia had committed treason and embarked on a course from which there could be no turning back.

            “We are in the very midst of a revolution,” wrote John Adams, “the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations” (p. 136). 

I don’t think we can say enough of how momentous Thomas Jefferson’s words were, declaring what most of the peoples of the world had never realized, that it was “self-evident” that “all men are created equal,” and were endowed with “unalienable” rights: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It may be that more beautiful words were never written to establish the beginning of a nation.

The Declaration of Independence was formally read to the troops, with both solemn ceremony and raucous cheering (and a demonstration that looked similar to what happened in Iraq a couple of centuries later):

The formal readings [of the Declaration of Independence] concluded, a great mob of cheering, shouting soldiers and townspeople stormed down Broadway to Bowling Green, where, with ropes and bars, they pulled down the gilded lead statue of George III on his colossal horse. In their fury the crowd hacked off the sovereign’s head, severed the nose, clipped the laurels that wreathed the head, and mounted what remained of the head on a spike outside of tavern (p. 137).

It would be nice to say that the Declaration struck the British as right and proper, and the contention ended there, but that was not so. Within days, the British showed their force in New York. Additional British victories followed. There were moments in the coming months that, if the British had decided to assert their full force, the nascent nation could have been wiped out.

A media of the day would have declared nothing but discouragement in those next few months. All seemed to be lost and hopeless; Washington knew this more than anyone.

But we know the eventual outcome. Against all odds, with the stakes extremely high, only extraordinary perseverance combined with Providential approval of the cause (God’s will and assistance) could have led to the eventual victory.

The Fourth of July is worth celebrating, to honor the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence. But it is the eventual outcome in favor of freedom that allows us to celebrate. We should remember how much we owe to those stalwart, strong rebels, and how much we owe to God, who allowed them to win.

The Day After

Yesterday was shocking and depressing for people with faith in the Constitution and freedom. Much of the day was filled with people trying to make sense of the Obamacare (now ObamaTax) decision.  So see a broader perspective for what Justice Roberts did. The best of these I read was Sean Trende’s piece, “The Chief Justice’s Gambit," which was definitely worth reading.

But I am not in favor of a “broader” purpose for the Supreme Court. Just tell us whether a law passes constitutional muster or not. And if the explanation is so obscure that plain-thinking Americans familiar with the Constitution itself can’t see where you’re coming from, maybe we need to mostly ignore the reasoning as far as precedent is concerned.

One good thing is that the majority of the court (Roberts plus the four voting against constitutionality) state clearly that the mandate cannot be construed as a constitutional extension of the commerce clause. In fact, Roberts spent so many pages (about 20) saying that, the immediate assumption by CNN and Fox News was that the law must have been struck down, which they needed to walk back a few minutes later.

What I think should not have happened was that, rather than throw out a bad law (that’s a euphemism for what this monstrosity actually is), Roberts went out of his way to find a way to allow it. He declare that the mandate is simply a tax. The biggest tax on middle and lower class Americans (or maybe bigger than on any people at any time in history)—even though Obama et al spent a great deal of energy and words asserting that it was not a tax. [Ironically, in oral arguments, the administration’s lawyer, Verilli, had to argue one day that the law was certainly not a tax, and another day that it certainly was; even Sotomayor pointed out that you can’t have it both ways.]

This law was passed without any help from Republicans—at a time when no GOP help was needed. This is all, in its entirety, the fault of Democrats, who had total control of both houses at the time. Still, it required finagling, bribery, and midnight manipulation to shove it through one weekend night in March 2010. I think we can say without doubt, if this had been billed as a huge tax on low and medium earners, there is no chance it would have passed.

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One description I saw of how this mandate/tax works goes something like this:

Customer: No thank you. I don’t want to purchase that pack of  gum.

Salesperson: OK, tax on that will be $2.35. 

I spent much of yesterday doing summer reading: 1776, by David McCullough. I think I’ll post more about this next week, in honor of the 4^th of July. But the idea that struck me was that, during the early part of the Revolutionary War, the good guys were severe underdogs. If they could have stepped back and seen how outgunned they were, they might have resigned themselves to the tyranny. But they trusted Providence (the hand of God intervening to help them) and just did whatever they could conceivably do for their great cause. They were mostly everyday people, unqualified for what was required of them. And yet we know the outcome.

It may be that what we just experienced was the equivalent of Bunker Hill:

Bunker Hill was proclaimed a British victory, which technically it was. But in plain truth His Majesty’s forces, led by General Howe, had suffered more than 1,000 casualties in an appalling slaughter before gaining the high ground. As was observed acidly in both London and Boston, a few more such victories would surely spell ruin for the victors (p. 8).

We suffered a literal loss yesterday. But it may be that the limit to the commerce clause, as well as the ability for states to opt out of the Medicare section—followed by determined follow-up by voters and their new representatives this November—this “victory” by the anti-freedom side will surely spell their eventual ruin. With the help of Providence, may it be so.