Thanks grimalkin.
Posted on 05/31/2024 9:36:39 AM PDT by grimalkin
During patriotic holidays, the news media applaud the Founding Fathers. But rarely does anyone mention some important facts about them: that they were smugglers, tax evaders, and traitors.
Not only is this important, it is also praiseworthy; it produced the most advanced civilization ever known.
The Revolution is often said to have begun in 1775 at the Battle of Lexgton [sic]. In truth, it began in the 16th century when the first colonists began traveling to the New World. Consider the hardships these people faced. Abandoning their relatives and friends, they boarded small leaky boats like the Mayflower—which was only as long as six automobiles—to spend months crossing 3,000 miles of storm-tossed ocean.
Many of these tiny, primitive vessels went down, yet as the years passed, more and more colonists risked their lives to make the journey. In The Oxford History of the American People, historian Samuel Eliot Morrison tells us:
"Gottlieb Mittleberger, who came to Philadelphia in 1750, described the misery during his voyage: bad drinking water and putrid salt meat, excessive heat and crowding, lice so thick that they could be scraped off the body, seas so rough that hatches were battened down and everyone vomited in the foul air; passengers succumbing to dysentery, scurvy, typhus, canker, and mouth-rot. Children under seven, he said, rarely survived the voyage, and in his ship no fewer than thirty-two died. One vessel carrying 400 Palatinate Germans from Rotterdam in August 1738 lost her master and three-quarters of the passengers before stranding on Block Island after a four-month journey."
Why? What in Europe could have been so horrible that rational people would risk their lives and their children’s lives to escape it?
Socialism. It wasn’t called socialism in those days, but that is what it was—unlimited government control and taxation of everything and everybody. There were no free markets and no free enterprise. Regardless of how honest or hard working a person was, it did him little good unless he was in bed with the government.
Out of desperation many rebelled. They evaded the controls and taxes, creating an underground economy. In Roots of Capitalism, historian John Chamberlain writes that in France:
For example, it took more than two thousand pages to print the rules established for the textile industry between 1666 and 1730. Weavers had to negotiate with the government for four years in order to obtain permission to introduce “blackwarp” into their fabrics. The effect of the regulations was to freeze French textile production at a certain level, though smuggling and evasion of manufacturing regulations did alleviate the situation somewhat. The violation of the rules often brought terrible penalties: for breaking regulations governing printed calicoes some 16,000 people were either executed or killed in armed brushes with government agents."
America was a vast, uncharted wilderness beyond the reach of the politicians and tax collectors. It was nominally under the control of the European governments, but everyone knew it was too big and too far away for laws to be enforced there.
In short, America was a huge underground economy. Here trade was free and enterprise unrestricted. Taxes were so often evaded that for all practical purposes there were none; a person could keep everything he earned. He could save and invest, and eventually have his own thriving business or farm that would provide jobs for the next wave of immigrants.
Inhabited by rebellious, individualistic smugglers and tax evaders, America quickly became the most prosperous place on earth.
You may have seen pictures of the Pine Tree Flag flown by American warships during the Revolution. Why would the colonists put a pine tree on their battle flag?
The government had enacted a regulation saying no colonist could cut down tall, straight trees; these trees were to be reserved for masts on Navy ships. This meant the best, most valuable trees on a person’s land had, in effect, been confiscated by the government.
When a government tree inspector would come through the forest to select and mark the best trees, colonists would follow him. These inspectors were highly trained experts, good at identifying the best trees for Navy ships—the Navy ships that were constantly pursuing smuggling ships.
When the government’s lumberjacks then came through the forest to collect the marked trees, they would find the trees had already been cut and sold—for use on the smuggling ships.
One of these ships was The Liberty, owned by John Hancock. Hancock was a successful wine merchant known throughout the colonies as “The Prince of Smugglers.” His reputation eventually earned him the honor of being the first to sign the Declaration of Independence.
Unfortunately, as the story of the Pine Tree illustrates, America did not remain beyond the reach of government. As the colonists’ wealth increased, politicians began making more and more efforts to steal—”tax”—this wealth. More and more bureaucrats and troops were sent to the colonies to enforce laws and shut down the underground economy.
The colonists’ reaction was dramatic. The infamous Stamp Tax, for instance, was greeted by armed rebellion; tax collectors were tarred and feathered, a procedure which usually resulted in death. When John Hancock was arrested, the people rioted and the government’s agents barely escaped with their lives.
This brings us to one of the most important but forgotten events in American history. In his 1818 analysis of the Revolution, John Adams spoke of it when he asked,
"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations."
The key word here is religious. In Adams’ analysis, he said a sermon delivered by Reverend Jonathan Mayhew on January 30, 1750, was “read by everybody” and was crucially important in leading to revolution.
In that sermon Mayhew argued that there is a Higher Law than any government’s law. The people, he said, are required to obey their government’s law only when it is in agreement with Higher Law. Indeed, he argued, if the government violates Higher Law, “we are bound to throw off our allegiance” and “to resist.”
What was this Higher Law? The ancient Common Law, which most colonists understood and obeyed faithfully even though they ridiculed and ignored the laws and taxes enacted by politicians.
Common Law had evolved from two basic principles: 1) do all you have agreed to do, and 2) do not encroach on other people or their property. These are the two principles on which all major religions and philosophies agree. Each expresses them a bit differently, but all agree on these two laws and not much else).
These two laws are the source of all our essential prohibitions against theft, fraud, murder, rape, etc. “Do all you have agreed to do” is the basis of contract law; “do not encroach on other people or their property” is the basis of criminal and tort law.
Common Law was the law to which the American colonists were dedicated, and it was the law the politicians and bureaucrats were breaking—they were encroaching. So the colonists overthrew their government; they committed treason.
This is what the American Revolution was all about—treason. And this treason was regarded as moral, ethical, and right in every way. It was derived straight from Common Law which was based on the people’s religious beliefs. Wrote the great legal scholar Sir William Blackstone, “This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other...no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.”
Contrary to what we so often read, the Americans were not fighting the British. The Americans were British. The war broke out at Lexington in April 1775, fifteen months before independence was declared. Therefore, for the first fifteen months of the war, America was still a part of Britain and Americans were still Englishmen fighting their own government. As their many pamphlets and speeches explained, they were fighting for “The Rights of Englishmen!”
They were enforcing Higher Law. This eternal and immutable law said the politicians and bureaucrats were as human as anyone else and they had no special rights or privileges; they could not encroach on others. “All men are created equal,” wrote Thomas Jefferson.
So, the most important and praiseworthy fact about the Founders which is rarely discussed is that they believed in a Higher Law than any government’s, and they did something about it. They evaded their government’s taxes and regulations. They delivered speeches and wrote pamphlets informing others, and they eventually overthrew their government and set up a new one more closely in agreement with Higher Law.
The highly advanced, prosperous civilization we now enjoy was the direct result of their enforcement of Higher Law, and this civilization will continue only if Higher Law is reapplied, soon. Tell others.
For a good analysis on the comings and goings during the Founding era, with an emphasis on Boston and a big section about the Tea Party/Destruction of the Tea, see the free open source audio book we created:
New audiobook release: The Life and Times of Joseph Warren
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4189418/posts
https://librivox.org/life-and-times-of-joseph-warren-by-richard-frothingham-jr/
Thank you for sharing. I will check it out.
Thank you much for posting this. Fascinating read.
Secrecy. Not perfect secrecy, but as close as one could get.
Most of the founding fathers were Masons who understood secrecy.
That is not the case today.
Few men are Masons.
Few people can keep a secret.
Even if they could, today every 3rd member of any group is an FBI or CIA plant either egging folks on to break some law so they can be arrested or gathering evidence.
This is not the era of the Revolution, it is the era of Idiocracy.
Thanks grimalkin.
Bump.
The Stamp Act really set them off.
And people today complain about being inconvenienced by the airline industry......LOL!
You are quite welcome. I was going to post this on X (Twitter), but apparently I am censored for a period of time because I said Adam Kinzinger should be tarred and feathered. My, have we become soft.
Hi.
For posterity, to the FBI and NSA.
I will not comply.
Heads up America, you are now officially a banana republic
Check stores.
Check commo.
Check your friends and relatives.
Secure lines of supply, commo and ordinance.
Bloat.
Next year will be decided by tyrants or patriots
Always remember the government monitors this forum.
FJB.
5.56mm
Oddly enough Hancock became one of the prime leaders of the Federalist Party in the new republic's government which was the party supporting a strong central government which of course leads to just the sort of oppressive regulation that made smuggling profitable.
Trump NY Trial Commentary
Your rights as an American citizen are directly at stake here
Please stop aggressively torturing words the way progressives aggressively torture words to achieve some purpose/agenda.
There was no "strong central government" in the early years of the U.S. during the Constitution. Strong centralized government would rise and become dominant through today in the Progressive Era.
Seems to me you are the one twisting words, mine.
My meaning is that Hancock and his fellow Federalist advocated a stronger central government than that under the Articles of Confederation.
The Constitution 1789 formed a far more powerful central government that over time became the monstrosity we live under today.
Certainly the powers granted under the constitution were perverted by judges over time and the people that swear an oath uphold the constitution when elected to congress have failed consistently to push back on those usurpations of power, but that was foreseeable.
Hancock was also an advocate of a central bank and we all know how well that has worked out.
There was no central government at all. That is the point. It didn’t exist. It flat did not exist.
The government was centralized during the Progressive Era, leading to what we have today. That centralization did not exist in the 1880s and through pretty much all of the 1890s as well. And the 1870s too.
Previous to the Progressive Era the government (mostly) followed the model setup by the Founders for a generally de-centralized federalism.
All roads lead back to progressivism. Progressivism is America’s cancer.
That is a unique view of history, I will give you that.
So, what exactly is it that the Constitution of 1789 did?
I will give you that the powers of the central government expanded at a rapid pace following the Civil War, the power of Washington has grown and the power of the states has wained.
Have you read Article 6? How do you understand the words ‘Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land’?
It created a generally de-centralized federalism. There's nothing unique at all about this viewpoint.
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