by Rob Tolp
We are nearly halfway through 2023 and the difficulties facing our nation seem to be increasing and escalating in both number and ferocity. We have lessons from both recent and distant history from which to learn and find solutions to those difficulties. Our country is facing, in the opinion of many citizens, a pivotal moment in our history. Some refer to our time as a 4th Turning where chaos, violence, and upheaval reign. What were the attitudes and mindsets of our founders when a burgeoning, rag-tag group of Colonies told the world’s largest Empire to go pound sand? What were the mindsets of the colonists prior to and at the beginning of the Revolutionary War?
Our founders who participated and contributed to the decision to declare Independence from the English crown, at first, were split as one would expect with differing educations, upbringings, and backgrounds. Some said we dare not offend the Crown. Some of the founders wanted to play the middle, and some saw that Independence was the only way to solve the problem after a long time, attempting to receive a redress of their grievances perpetrated by the King of England upon them. The exhaustive attempts to have their grievances rectified are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, some very specifically. The “long train of abuses”, showing not only did the Crown ignore their pleas, but further increased its tyrannical actions upon the colonists. George Washington’s resolve based on the cost of not resisting the tyranny was made abundantly clear when he said:
“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves, whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die”
Washington quickly acknowledged his religious view regarding the founding of our nation and to Whom the credit belonged for its cause and the victories won to achieve independence. He said:
“It having pleased the almighty Ruler of the universe to defend the cause of the United American States, and finally to raise up a powerful friend among the princes of the earth, to establish our liberty and independence upon a lasting foundation, it becomes us to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the divine goodness, and celebrating the important event, which we owe His divine interposition.”
The colonists also reflected the early views of the founders. Some were loyalists to England. Some were fence sitters and some were revolutionaries, committed to the cause of liberty at any cost to themselves. But where did this dedication to the cause of liberty begin? Perhaps John Adams can give us some insight when he stated :
“As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; It was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington. ”
Adams acknowledged that there was apprehension among the Colonists when He said,
“I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than the means.”
Notice that while Adams understood and communicated that he was aware of the sense of doom and “gloom” which views some colonists held, he pointed them to the fact that achieving liberty and independence from a tyrant, was worth the cost to achieve it.
The writer of the famous and perhaps one of the most important pieces of American Literature, Thomas Paine, put his views forth from an author’s perspective in the book ‘Common Sense’, penned in 1776. He stated:
“In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day ...
The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a City, a County, a Province, or a Kingdom; but of a Continent — of at least one-eighth part of the habitable Globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed-time of Continental union, faith and honour. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters.”
Paine clearly understood the long-lasting ramifications of the actions which the colonists and founding fathers would undertake.
However, we face similar circumstances in many ways to those of the colonists. We suffered a long train of abuses under then heavy handed tyrants at every level of Government under Covid. Our liberties were infringed, at will. They are still under attack. The tyrants seem untouchable and injustice appears to abound. The national opinion of our citizens is much like that of the American colonists. Some people declare that we must take a stand against the globalist push for control of nearly every aspect of our lives, both analog and digital. Others choose to ride the fence and avoid rocking the boat or interrupting their monetary gravy train. The last group, perhaps the most insidious, side with the people and nations that would subject the entire global population to abject slavery and tyranny, evidenced by the statement of Danish MP Ida Aiken, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.” But a nagging question exists which we must ask ourselves in complete honesty, divested of our prejudices and pre-conceptions, and our own pride set aside in order to understand something that matters now more than anything: truth and liberty. How will our actions in response to the siege against our liberties and Constitution be viewed by people 300 years in the future when we are gone? Will we be found to be worthy and up to the task of defending our Constitutional Republic and liberties compared to other historical American patriots or will we be found to be too weak, too cowardly, too distracted, too ignorant, and too selfish, to offer our intellects, money, time, and efforts all on the table for the liberty of our children, their future progeny, and our neighbors? Does the Spirit of Liberty reside in us as it did in those in 1776? Does it reside in you?