Five Critical Reminders About Liberty and Security from the Founders
Today, like every day, is a great day for a reminder of some of the top principles from the founders that we should never, ever forget.
Unfortunately, every one of these top-5 has been thrown down the memory hole for generations. So it’s up to us to turn that around by educating as many people as possible. Brick-by-brick. Person-by-person. State-by-state. Building a strong foundation for the constitution and liberty.
5. There is no Liberty OR Safety
We can only be “safe” when we’re free.
We’re all familiar with some version of Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote (one of many, of course), so here’s the original, from 1755:
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
A little over a decade later, John Dickinson wrote “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania” in response to the hated Townshend Acts. These were the most widely-read documents on American liberty up until publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in 1776. Here, Dickinson expanded on this view:
“If money be raised upon us by others, without our consent, for our “defense,” those who are the judges in levying it, must also be the judges in applying it. Of consequence the money said to be taken from us for our defense, may be employed to our injury. We may be chained in by a line of fortifications – obliged to pay for the building and maintaining them – and be told, that they are for our defense.”
In other words, when government says it’s “for your safety,” it’s often really, “so we can control you” or “so we can rip you off.”
The latter is what John Taylor of Caroline discussed in his 1822 book Tyranny Unmasked:
“National defense is the usual pretext for the policy of fleecing the people.”
4. A Massive National Debt is a threat to National Security
George Washington warned us in his 1796 Farewell Address:
“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it”
Thomas Jefferson also recognized the connection between national debt, security and war:
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which, if acted on, would save one half the wars of the world.”
Pretty obvious that all this has been ignored for far too long. But wait, there’s more.
3. War is the Greatest Threat to Liberty
Because it “comprises and develops the germ of every other.”
That’s how the “father of the constitution” described things. Writing in “Political Observations,” James Madison gave us more detail:
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”
Armies, and debts, and taxes – we have a trifecta, and there’s no sign of them slowing down.
Madison warned what would happen in such a situation:
“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
2. Law is often but the tyrant’s will
“And always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
That’s Thomas Jefferson, recognizing that liberty is much more than action ‘within the limits of the law.” He recognized that the view that you have to obey “because it’s the law,” without any consideration of what that law is or does – is the argument of tyrants.
Jefferson, like Samuel Adams, and so many other leading Revolutionaries, was greatly influenced by Algernon Sidney, a man they considered a hero because he was put to death by the British for merely writing, but not publishing a book hammering ln the people in power.
Jefferson cited Sidney, along with Locke and others as being influential on the Declaration of Independence. He gave Sidney’s book, which was published posthumously, a glowing review:
“The best elementary book of the principles of government, as founded in natural right, which has ever been published in any language”
With that, here’s a favorite quote from Sidney, which looks like a precursor to Jefferson’s view above:
“That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed.”
More than a century later, Lysander Spooner took the same view:
“An unconstitutional statute is no law, in the view of the constitution. It is void, and confers no authority on any one.”
1. Relying on government to limit itself means government will always grow
As James Iredell, one of the first associate justices of the Supreme Court, put it:
“The only resource against usurpation is the inherent right of the people to prevent its exercise.”
Not just a mere good idea. Or one option of many. The ONLY way to deal with government when it exercises power not delegated to it by the people of the several states.
Thomas Paine summed it up like this:
“The strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it.”
Ultimately, the Constitution doesn’t enforce itself. It’s up to the people to protect and defend their own constitution and their own liberty – whether the government does the right thing, or not
As John Dickinson wrote in Fabius IV – “A good constitution promotes, but not always produces a good ad-ministration.”
So when there is a bad administration, what is to be done? Dickinson said the answer is to be found “before the supreme sovereignty of the people.”
IT IS THEIR DUTY TO WATCH, AND THEIR RIGHT TO TAKE CARE, THAT THE CONSTITUTION BE PRESERVED; Or in the Roman phrase on perilous occasions—TO PROVIDE, THAT THE REPUBLIC RECEIVE NO DAMAGE.
Sorry for the caps – they’re in the original.
In short, “we the people” need to learn how to exercise our rights – whether the government likes it, or not.
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