Liberty

A Cluster of Concepts

Four waves of English settlers colonized America, each wave bringing its own version of "liberty." This helps explain why there is no single American concept of liberty, one of the three unalienable rights specifically named in the Declaration of Independence, but rather a family of ideas, a cluster of concepts, all related and continuously connecting and intertwining as our human society evolves.

The settlement of the English colonies in America began at a time of severe turmoil in England. Charles I decided he could run England without Parliament, which led to heavy-handed authority and severe discipline to maintain the order of the King. Many early settlers fled these hardships. They came in four major waves, as meticulously documented by David Hackett Fisher in his book, Albion's Seed, Fisher, David Hacket, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989.

The first major settlements were in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the settlers were Puritans—the Pilgrims. The Puritans were strict Calvinists.

The second wave to hit the American beaches was the settlers of Virginia. These were the sons of the nobility and the lesser nobility, with their servants and slaves, seeking their fortunes in the New World. They were Royalists of the Anglican Church.

The third group was the Quakers, who settled in Pennsylvania and Delaware—the Delaware River Valley. They were the Friends.

And finally came the Borderers—the people from Northern Britain and from Northern Ireland, to which land they had previously fled from Northern Britain. The Borderers settled in Appalachia.

Setting the Tone

All the people of Great Britain undoubtedly had antecedents in the Vikings, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Britons, Celts, etc. but by the time they emigrated to America each had its own set of cultural attributes that made them distinct from one another and from the other peoples of Europe. It was the cultural attributes they brought with them that set the tone for language, philosophy, religion, politics, justice and social relationships in the regions of America in which they settled. Each new group that entered the area influenced by one of these four groups was assimilated into that group as part of the process of becoming an American.

More Texan than the Texans

As emigres from Austrian Galicia, my own family was "Americanized" into the Quaker values. Even as I write, this process still is going on in Pennsylvania. A friend who is first generation Dutch—his family is from Frisia—was raised in the Appalachian region of Ohio and went to Texas as an adult. He came back to Ohio more Texan than the Texans. Texas was settled by Borderers from Appalachia who, because of their early move out of Appalachia, carried and retained an older form of the cultural attributes of Appalachia than is present in Appalachia today.

What were the values in these great assimilation machines that transformed succeeding generations of emigrants into "modern Americans?" What I am now going to say I owe largely to Fischer's "Albion's Seed" where he has very conveniently catalogued these values and virtues.

Calvinist Beliefs

The Puritans lived under four types of freedom (=liberty): (1) public, collective or ordered liberty; (2) liberties granted by reason of rank, station, or position to individuals or organizations; (3) liberty of conscience; and (4) freedom from the tyranny of circumstance.

The Puritans believed they had the right to govern themselves in the manner they saw fit. They asserted the right to establish their own government and the right to endow that government with authority to rule important aspects of their lives in common. Along with their ordered liberty they had ordered morality—"Publick Morality." The General Court of Massachusetts controlled the public morality of Massachusetts even to the determination of who could come to the colony and who could stay. The Massachusetts General Court saw social distinctions among its citizens and granted the higher orders more rights and privileges than the lower orders. It also granted special privileges to certain trades and occupations and gave special hunting and fishing rights to selected citizens or groups.

The Puritans came to the new world seeking freedom of religion. The liberty of conscience was the right to worship God in their own way. Their search for freedom of worship was within the framework of their ordered liberty; they sought the freedom as a group and were intolerant of other religions. They wanted the right to practice their own Calvinism.

In asserting that all should be free from the tyranny of circumstance they were advocating a form of the "unalienable rights." Freedom from the tyranny of circumstance was not social welfare; it was a recognition that everyone had a right to basic sustenance—food, clothing, and shelter—as part of the original covenant of the group. These liberties, from this early stage of American history, took the shape of the Four Freedoms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Speaking to the Congress on January 6, 1941 in his State of Union address, President Roosevelt enunciated the four freedoms as (1) freedom of speech and expression, (2) the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, (3) freedom from want, (4) and freedom from fear.

All Men are Created Equal

The Virginians had their own version of liberty. Since for the most part the settlers of Virginia were nobility, the lesser members of important families in England, they came with the notion that they had a God given right to rule. They brought with them hegemonic liberty. The word hegemony is normally used in the context of nations and states, to signify their power or dominion. The Virginians used it to describe themselves as individuals. This was entirely consistent with their own view of themselves as the ruling class, (which in fact they were). The settlers of Virginia consisted of a nobility who ruled, and their servants and slaves, whom they ruled.

The aristocratic land owners of Virginia were a ruling class. They had a fine sense of equality for members of their own class, and moreover considered that on their plantations they had the undisputed right to rule. These settlers subscribed to the notion that once they lost the right to rule, they themselves would become slaves—a sentiment shared by the mainline aristocracy of England. When Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal..." he was referring to his land-owning peers. Servants and slaves were not a part of that free society. This is not a strange or unprecedented circumstance; in ancient Athens and Rome, a democracy and a republic flourished on an economic base of slavery. Virginia operated on class freedom for the owners of slaves.

Individual Equality

The unique characteristic of Virginia's hegemonic liberty is that when the social barriers came down, the concept of individual liberty remained. The concept of individual equality is still evolving, but with harsh reminders of the past, such as the use of race in the 1988 Presidential election. The realignment of the South with the Republican Party ends many years of struggle with former fellow Democrats over civil rights issues and military spending. The enduring virtues, however, persist. Jefferson's call for equality is not going unheeded and the Institute for domestic Tranquility is dedicated to seeing that his concept of the unalienable rights become a reality.

Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

The Quakers brought with them the idea of reciprocal liberty—the Golden Rule. There is no place better than the question of slavery to see the Friends' Golden Rule in action. They did not wish to be slaves, therefore their position was that they had no right to enslave others. Early in their occupancy of their new lands in Pennsylvania the Quakers did own slaves, but through the vigorous activities of an anti-slavery faction they abandoned the notion of chattel slavery. They had a program of freeing slaves with compensation to the owners and in many cases compensation to the former slaves. They did not abandon slavery for economic reasons, they abandoned slavery because they believed it to be morally corrupt.

The Golden Rule

The Quakers set great store by the concept of "liberty of conscience". They were persecuted in England because of their refusal to tithe to the Anglican Church. For these infractions they were severely fined, up to and including the confiscation of their estates. When they arrived in the new World they quickly adopted two principles: (1) personal liberty — liberty of conscience and rights of property.

The Quaker concept of freedom required a great deal of discipline. What they were hoping to achieve by their liberty of conscience was the fulfillment of their Christian beliefs and the full implementation of the Golden Rule. They were willing, unlike many other religious organizations, to extend the notion of tolerance to religious beliefs with which they fully disagreed.

They insisted on orderly government and orderly behavior. Penn, himself, as quoted by Hackett in Albion's Seed said, "Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery." Quaker concept of liberty was complex and quite advanced for its time. The Quakers insisted not only on the liberty of conscience, but also on the rights of property, representative government, trial by juries of peers, and the abolition of slavery.

The Quaker thought has been influential throughout our history. Quakers were strong supporters of women's suffrage and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry's mother thought the American Revolution was simply lowland troubles."

The backcountry of the American colonies was settled for the most part by people from the border country of England and Scotland and from Northern Ireland. The people of this area caused no end of trouble for the authorities, whether King or local. They thought themselves possessed of "natural liberty." They were interested in their rights as persons first and all other rights second or last. At the very least, they chafed at the idea of authority; at most, they rebelled. The English were in the process of imposing their will upon these people and would have had them subdued or driven out when the American frontier opened up to them. It was a match made in heaven—vast expanses of "empty" land with little or no authority and few people. These people were not anarchists. They had an intense dedication to their idea of liberty and would defend it to the death. They had no problem killing people who disagreed with them. Daniel Boone's movement westward was typical of the response of many to the encroachments of civilization. Elbow room was what Boone wanted and what was considered the due of any free man in the border country of England and Northern Ireland.

Minimalist Government

The border people wanted little government...just what was necessary at a minimum to run the affairs of the locality, county, or whatever. They insisted on individual or personal rights even if others had to suffer as a consequence. Rugged individualism was the meat and potatoes of their society, yet they were gathered into family groups and relationships to which they were fiercely loyal.

The backcountry and border people had no problem supporting the American cause in the American Revolution. They hated strong central government and that is what the British government was to them. Patrick Henry vehemently opposed the Constitution and campaigned against it because it proposed a strong central government. He had no problem with the violent overthrow of a government that was oppressive in his estimate. The British solved the problem with their borderers to some extent by enlisting them in their armed forces. Even to this day regiments of highlanders etc. form the bulwark of British forces the world over.

Wellsprings

As already noted, there is no one American concept of freedom or liberty. Instead, there is a reticulum of thought, each facet emphasizing some other concept, which melds into the whole. There is no one preferred liberty or freedom. We have, and want, them all. In essence the range of thought on liberty covers all aspects of community and individualistic ecology (syn- and aut-ecology, respectively). What's best for the community? What's best for the individual? The relationships between them are as important as the items themselves. Balancing the needs between individuals and the community is not the same as balancing the needs between individuals and the State. Individuals and communities are people; the State is a mechanism — a process. The State does not have needs,—it has requirements...the requirement to serve being the paramount one.

The Government is not a Person

Edmond Cahn in his book Cahn, Edmond, The Predicament of Democratic Man, 1969, Harper and Row, NY. specifically admonishes us not to view the State or government anthropomorphically. The government is not a person and should not be personified. The government can not be compared to a person because it has such radically different characteristics. The government has great authority and has continuity beyond the life of any given individual. Personifying the government leads to the imperial or official view of government, as though the government had an independent existence over and above the powers granted to it through the consent of the governed. The government does not serve a purpose other than service to citizens. As Lincoln said, it is a government, "...of the people, by the people and for the people." We may be here to serve our country but we are not servants of our country. By depersonifying the government it is possible to see it for what it is—a collection of people, ordinary people such as you and I, whose work is the running of the government, with powers delegated to them through legal processes of which we are all a part. Alas, these include fallible people, incompetent people, corrupt people, dishonest people, as well as honorable, noble, trustworthy specimens of our breed. Their individual judgments may or may not be better than those of any other person possessing the same information. The infallibility of kings was a myth, and a fallible president is much more believable than an infallible one.

Eternal Vigilance

Having depersonified the government, how should we look at our liberties? A casual examination of the history of any freedom or liberty enjoyed by common humans reveals discord, bloodshed, suffering, martyrdom, persecution, and flight. Our liberties, whether the natural liberty of Patrick Henry, the ordered liberty of the Puritans, the reciprocal liberty of the Quakers or the absolute equality of the royalist Virginians. were valiantly fought for, gained under duress, and maintained by eternal vigilance. Our job is to protect them all. Each in its place contributes to our overall climate of liberty. All taken together form a protective environment wherein individuals can survive and thrive.

IdT's emphasis of "freedom from the tyranny of circumstance", namely the exercise of the unalienable rights, does not preclude the espousal and advocacy of all other rights enjoyed by the citizensovereigns of the nation.

The Government is not the Sovereign

The Federal government and the governments of the States may have sovereign immunity, but they are not the sovereigns. These governments have sovereign immunity because it was granted to them, and it can be taken away, as it has been in a number of areas where the power of the State or Federal government was overwhelming and detrimental to the health of the citizenry or lesser governments. Jimmy Carter, by executive order, surrendered Federal sovereignty over Federal water rights, allowing the States to claim excess Federal water and allowing the suit for same in State courts. The Administrative Practices Act of 1949 permits judgments of Federal officials to be questioned on procedural grounds and as to their arbitrariness or capriciousness. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 allows citizens to question the procedures of the Federal government with respect to the protection of the environment. The Highway Act of 1968 allowed citizens to challenge the decisions of the Federal Highway Administration with regard to arbitrary and capricious decisions, particularly when viable alternatives exist.

The Basis of Our Sovereignty

The Constitution, important as it is, is not the basis of sovereignty. The basis of our sovereignty is the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Paris. We were a sovereign nation under the Articles of the Confederation. What the Constitution did was change the basis of our government, not the basis of our sovereignty. The Constitution reaffirmed the Declaration that the people are the sovereign. It reaffirmed representative government but changed its form. The Constitution is amendable and from time to time we should expect it to change in the future. We may, for instance, grow increasingly suspicious of our imperial presidency and wish for a more representative form of government. In such a case we may want the president to be elected by the House of Representatives so that the president is more accountable to the people rather than our top official who has a reviewless term for four years where demagoguery may get him an additional four. If people feel their liberties threatened by the Office of the President they certainly can do something about it.

Threats to liberties, that is the reason for change. As long as liberties are not threatened there is no reason to change government or leaders. Any threat to our liberties gives rise to the most effectively organized action of the citizensovereign. The right of choice in sustaining or terminating pregnancy—a fundamental right of all women, has been threatened by the Supreme Court. This threat has already resulted in the defeat of candidates at the polls and is tending to be the focal point of future political activity. Liberties lost are not readily regained and the right to privacy, which is threatened by the Reagan Majority of the U. S. Supreme Court, seems to be the ordering principle in our current operation of government.

Government Works Because We Want It to

Our liberties come from many places. They come from English Common Law, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights.

Edmond Cahn says we should look at government from the point of view of consumers—consumers of rights and justice. We should have the self-confidence to believe the government is here to serve us, we are not here to serve government. As citizen-sovereigns and electors we are part of the governmental system. In fact, if we do not consent to obey the law our government is not possible. We have seen numerous instances where citizens have defied their governments and the governments collapse. So we have to accept our role. Our government works because we as citizens want it to, and when we don't, it won't. Patrick Henry was only too willing to oppose an arrogant government with force. The Smith Act notwithstanding, the nation was born in a test of arms and the document that stated the grievances of the colonies said they were perfectly justified in taking up arms against an oppressive government.

So we give our consent to be governed. We are the sovereign. Only through another Constitutional Convention attended by citizens, not representatives of States, can our form of government be changed, and then it can be changed to anything the people want. If a Constitutional Convention were called it would not be bound by any rules or laws of this government. It would be bound only by the Declaration of Independence and common sense. The results of the Convention would in turn have to be ratified by conventions of the people of the several States, not representatives of the States.

Slavery was abolished but civil rights were not extended in consumable ways. Citizens of the United States even today do not have their rights in ways they can use or consume. For want of education, for instance, advantage cannot be taken of the opportunities to participate in free enterprise. States like Texas and Virginia, which support their schools through local taxation, permit vast differences in the quality of education depending upon locality, clearly a matter of discriminating in a most fundamental right, that of education.

Without Life Liberty is Moot

Life is the most fundamental right. Without life, the discussion of liberty is moot. Having gained life, what is it without the unalienable rights? As Edmond Cahn says, of what use is the right to vote when one does not have enough to eat, or a roof over one's head. The homeless, the indigent, the needy, the ill in body and spirit who cannot obtain the goods and services to live meaningful lives are all victims of discrimination.

To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, our government was organized along four principles: Justice, domestic Tranquility, common defense, and the General Welfare. To secure the unalienable rights we gave our consent to be governed. Anything short of implementing these principles is operating the government under false pretenses.

The best defense of our liberties is to (1) not take them for granted and (2) use them. If children drop out of school, if we accept discrimination, if we permit our government to abridge our rights without contest, then we will surely lose our liberties. Liberties are like the muscles and nervous system of our bodies—use them or lose them. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We must protect them from our enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Sweet Land of Liberty

"My country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died.
Land of the pilgrim's pride.
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring."

Samuel Francis Smith 1832

Many of you will remember that the tune usually accompanying this poem is the British national anthem. It is said that a young British student returning home to England after studies in the United States was overheard singing these words at an official gathering where everyone else was singing God Save the Queen. His father muttered in astonishment, "My God, they've brainwashed the boy."

Our Roots are British

Professor Jack Western, Head of the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Manchester, England was giving a farewell address to the Plant Pathology Seminar at the University of Minnesota. His audience was students of Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Polish, and French extraction, the faculty was similarly mixed. I may be wrong but I do not believe there was a person of English extraction in the room. I was there, and my background is first generation American, my father and mother both having come here from Austrian Galicia at the beginning of the century. There were Scots, Irish, and English in the room but they were the real thing, none of them Americans. Nevertheless, Professor Western admonished us to remember that our roots are British. Our histories and our destinies were intertwined inextricably. He reminded us that "we" were as one nation, in language, culture, experience, philosophy, love of freedom. He suggested that together we won World War I and II etc and et al. The remarkable thing was that everyone in the room was in complete agreement with him and he was given a vigorous ovation when he finished. We are as Jose Ortega y Gasset described us in his book, The Revolt of the Masses, a western expansion of Europe. Our cultural philosophical, linguistic and political development was shaped early on by the first settlers who came here in number and they were British. As a nation we assimilated peoples from all over the globe and these people became "rooted in Britain." My father came to the United States when he was sixteen. When he came he wanted to be an "American." The extraordinary assimilation of all ethnic and racial groups has produced a remarkable amalgam of custom, food, tradition, celebration, and physical racial diversity, but with the underlying political philosophy British. The British dominated the young America and set the moral, philosophical and political basis for the development of our experiment in representative government. Most of the migrants did not import the acceptable political doctrine of their day; many in fact were escaping it, although the settlers of Virginia were, for the most part, loyal royalists. All the early settlers were British patriots who considered their moral, philosophical and political way of life superior to others.

© Copyright 1990
Institute for domestic Tranquility