Posted on 07/04/2005 9:58:33 AM PDT by neverdem
SEEKING to understand this nation's democratic spirit, Alexis de Tocqueville journeyed to the famous centers of American liberty (Boston, Philadelphia, Washington), stoically enduring their "infernal" accommodations, food and roads and chatting up almost everyone he saw.
He even marched in a Fourth of July parade in Albany just ahead of a big float that featured a flag-waving Goddess of Liberty, a bust of Benjamin Franklin, and a printing press that spewed out copies of the Declaration of Independence for the cheering crowd. But for all his wit and intellect, Tocqueville never realized that he came closest to his goal just three days after the parade, when he stopped at the "rather unhealthy but thickly peopled" area around Syracuse.
Tocqueville's fascination with the democratic spirit was prescient. Expressed politically in Americans' insistence on limited government and culturally in their long-standing disdain for elites, that spirit has become one of this country's great gifts to the world.
When rich London and Paris stockbrokers proudly retain their working-class accents, when audiences show up at La Scala in track suits and sneakers, when South Africans and Thais complain that the police don't read suspects their rights the way they do on "Starsky & Hutch," when anti-government protesters in Beirut sing "We Shall Overcome" in Lebanese accents - all these raspberries in the face of social and legal authority have a distinctly American tone. Or, perhaps, a distinctly Native American tone, for among its wellsprings is American Indian culture, especially that of the Iroquois.
The Iroquois confederation, known to its members as the Haudenosaunee, was probably the greatest indigenous polity north of the Rio Grande in the two centuries before Columbus and definitely the greatest in the two centuries after. A political and military alliance formed by the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and, after...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Thank you, and Happy Fourth to all FR from me.
I refuse to log on to the NYT but I can guess that it says the native americans gave us our idea of a bicameral legislature, checks and balances, a Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Postal service.
Other than that, the Scots-Irish might have had a little to do with it.
THE 4TH OF JULY
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't. So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.
Remember: Freedom is never free!
That's too bad, because it's free, and the author is a guest. In brief, he wrote that our notion of limited, accountable government, individual liberty and disdain for the elite can be traced to the Iroquois confederation.
The article was better than I would have guesses. It basically says that some of the American ideal of equality and lack of respect for "elites" derives from the essentially libertarian societies of the Indian tribes of the northeast. Which is not utterly implausible.
Of course, to keep this happy attitude towards the Indians, you are forced to ignore a lot of warfare and torture, as well as the social systems found in many other areas of the Americas. The Iroquois and other NE tribes were also not nearly as egalitarian with regard to their women as the author states.
This is the article's URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/opinion/04mann.html
With an unqualified .html suffix, I think you may not have to register. I would appreciate it, if you or someone else not registered with the NY Times try to read the remainder of the article, and please let me know the result as to whether it requires registration.
The New York Times believes the country was founded by the New York Tammany machine.
"disdain for the elite" is not from the Iroqoius. They did not have an elite to disdain. It came from the Scots-Irish.
Individual liberty" --- I would say the same. Although most native American societies are individualistic to the pint of anarchy.
Why is it that none of these things could possibly have come from our founding peoples?
Still have to register.
I trust that you just tried it. Is that correct?
That is correct.
Thomas McKeam...poverty was his reward
Thomas Nelson, Jr., ...died bankrupt.
You ever notice how the money merchants are always around regardless of wars? What kind of demonic sub-human class of "people" are these? No wonder Jesus drove them out of the temple.
Thanks for the info. I guess they cookie program requiring registration. Bugmenot.com is useful for those who don't want to give personal info.
I guess they cookie program requiring registration.
should have been
I guess they have a cookie program requiring registration.
A Google search will usually get you in without registration.
The Founding Sachems CHARLES C. MANN
Address:http://news.google.com/news?q=The+Founding+Sachems%0D%0A+CHARLES+C.+MANN&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr
That gets someone to Google, but they still have to access the Times.
neverdem wrote:
That gets someone to Google, but they still have to access the Times
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