Of our Founding Principles

Article V Blog ^ | January 15th 2018 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

There is no reason to shirk from confronting the Marxists who infest our institutions and culture. On the contrary, since they despise the foundations of our Declaration and Constitution, they are typically ignorant of them. Few people study what they regard as loathsome.

A year before the “shot heard ‘round the world,” Josiah Quincy Jr. bequeathed certain books to his son:

When he shall arrive to the age of fifteen years, I give to my son, Algernon Sidney’s works, - John Locke’s works, - Lord Bacon’s works, - Gordon’s Tacitus, - and Cato’s Letters. May the spirit of liberty rest upon him!

What traditions and intellectual constructs compelled men, especially those of the professional and landed classes who had so much to lose, to risk their necks in revolution? The American Revolution was not a flash occurrence over representation or taxation, but was instead the logical, if not inevitable, reaction of colonial society to the 17th century English Enlightenment. The forces, the principles behind revolution and our Constitution in the 18th century developed from our earliest days in the 17th century. What were these principles and where did they come from?

Look toward the Bible. Ironically, the first Stuart King, James I, helped ignite the sectarian violence that consumed 17th century England when he commissioned an English language Bible. The King James Bible launched a multitude of sects which threatened the established Church of England, and with it, civil order, including the King himself.

His Britannic Majesty’s North American lands were a convenient dumping ground for these troublesome religious minorities. While it is difficult today to regard Pilgrims, Puritans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Catholics, and Quakers as any sort of civil threat,

[PGalt]

OUTSTANDING post. Thank you.

History, education, philosophy BUMP!

[Jacquerie]

Thank you PG!