The 28 Principles of Liberty| Principle 24

"A Free People will Not Survive Unless They Stay Strong"

A civilized society of free people tend to always go towards prosperity.  It has only been when the federal government has usurped authority and meddled in the free-market economy that this prosperity has become inhibited..

When there is the fruits of prosperity, beautiful cities, flourishing commerce, fruitful farms and thriving industry, it tends to attract the predatory greed of other nations, and even crooked politicians.  By themselves, they may not be considered as much of a threat, but once they are united together, the may present total desolation to a free and prosperous people.  Before the free people know it, their destruction is upon them.  The Founders felt that it was the kind hand of Providence that allowed the United States to come forth as the nation of free people in modern times, and that we would be blessed with freedom and prosperity only as long as we remained virtuous and adequately armed as a nation.

While the Founder's had the goal of peace for this nation, they believed that strength was the means of maintaining it.  Benjamin Franklin said,

Our security lies, I think, in our growing strength, both in numbers and wealth; that creates an increasing ability of assisting this nation in its wars, which will make us more respectable, our friendship more valued, and our enmity feared; thence it will soon be thought proper to treat us not with justice only, but with kindness, and thence we may expect in a few years a total change of measures with regard to us; unless, by neglect of military discipline, we should lose all martial spirit, and our western people become as tame as those eastern dominions of Britain [India], when we may expect the same oppressions; for there is much truth in the Italian saying, "Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you."

Franklin has a low opinion of those that waved the flag but really did little to defend liberty.  He called for action to back up words.

George Washington is often described as "First in peace, first in war, first in the hearts of  his countrymen."  He fought the Revolutionary War with no Navy of any consequence, no trained professional army, and not outpouring of general support from the states that he was trying to save.  No man wanted peace more then he did.  He said, "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means to preserving peace."  He also saw the fallacy of a policy of interdependence with other nations which made our nation only more vulnerable in time of war.  He spoke in the first annual address about the necessity of the people to work towards being independent of others for essentials, and particularly military supplies.  He cautioned the American people about being lured in by politics or world circumstances into a position of complacency.  That vigilance is the price of freedom and if it was not promoted that our future as a nation was in jeopardy.

At the time of Washington's fifth annual address, he could already see the predatory monarchs of Europe wanting to slice up the United States and divide it among them.  He felt that we must take the position that we are at all times ready for war.

Samuel Adams stressed that it is a moral responsibility to preserve our heritage of freedom and the rights that we have been endowed with by the Creator.  That once they had been vouchsafed, that is was wicked and unnatural to allow them to languish by neglect or apathy.  Thus the Founders passed on to their posterity a policy of peace through strength.  They were peace-loving, but not pacifists.  They saw the foundation of security as a bustling, prosperous economy with a high standard of public morality, and they saw the necessity for a level of preparedness which discouraged attack from potential enemies by creating a rate of risk that would be so high that the idea of waging war against this nation would be an obviously unprofitable undertaking.

Thus we point out that this belief was in defense of this nation, on this land, and not by invading other lands.  The Revolutionary War was fought here, not abroad.  It was fought for the basic rights of life, liberty and property.  America does not go aboard seeking for monsters to destroy.  John Quincy Adams said it best,

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

The Principles of Liberty| Principle 23

"A Free Society Cannot Survive as a Republic Without a Broad Program of General Education"

The English colonists in America undertook the education of the whole people.  They believed that they must prepare themselves for a most unique and important role in the unfolding of modern world history.  Universal education was considered an indispensable ingredient for this preparation.

The movement for universal education began in New England, in the 1647 the legislature of Massachusetts passed a law requiring every community of 50 families or households to set up a free public grammar school to teach the fundamentals of reading, writing, ciphering, history, geography and Bible study.  In addition to this, every township with 100 families or more was also required to set up a secondary school in advanced studies to prepare boys for attendance at Harvard.  John Adams said that this program was designed to defuse knowledge generally through the entire body of the people.  He Said:

"They made an early provision by law that every town consisting of so many families should always be furnished with a grammar school.  They made it a crime for such a town to be destitute of a grammar schoolmaster for a few months, and subjected it to heavy penalty.  So that the education of all the ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people, ancient or modern.

The Consequences of these establishments we see and feel every day (written in 1765).  A Native of America who cannot read and write is as rare as a comet or an earthquake.  It has been observed that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians, and philosophers.   And I have good authorities to say that all candid foreigners who have passed through this country and conversed freely with all sorts of people here will all say that they have never seen so much knowledge and civility among the common people in any part of the world.  Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.  They have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."

The way that this system was designed made good local school boards very important.  Not only did they choose what textbooks would be used, they also chose which teachers they would issue certificates to.  It was important that the board have a rotation of officers every three years.  And that it was 1/3 that was always being rotated, that way, there were those on the board with experience (2/3 of the board) that could help keep things maintained while the new board members got familiar with the system.

Something that we should note about this time period, is that at this time illiteracy was quite common in Europe among the common people.  France, for example, had over 24 million inhabitants, but only 500,000 could actually read and write.

In the American colonies, the intention of this education system for the children was so that they could grow up to become well informed citizens through their own diligent self-study.  This also explains why the Founders were so well read having had limited formal education.  After learning the fundamentals, they went on to develop knowledge through a self-learning process.

This system of education was so wide spread, that by 1831, when Alexis de Tocqueville came to visit the United States, he was amazed.  He said that to find a person that was ignorant of the doctrines and evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of the Constitution was very rare, a phenomenon. 

Education includes Morality and Politics.  Alexis also stated that" instruction that enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education.  The American learns to know the laws by participating in the act of legislation; and he takes a lesson in the forms of government from governing.  In the United States, politics are the end and aim of education."

Young children were taught the value of the Constitution, the book was called "Catechism on the Constitution."  Early Americans knew that they had a unique and invaluable invention of political science and they were determined to promote it on all levels of education.

Many Early Americans spoke with great eloquence, and this was due to their extensive education in reading the Bible.  A great example is Abraham Lincoln, whose great speeches cannot be attributed to a college education since he did not have one.  The Founding Fathers felt that the strength of America's moral character came from the studying of the Bible.  "The book teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality to his fellowman. " One need not go very far today to find a school that has eliminated the Bible reading from their curriculum, nor the removal of curriculum for children of the same caliber as "Catechism on the Constitution."  One could also say that this Bible verse says it all,
Hosea 4: 6
6 ¶ My people are destroyed for lack of ^aknowledge: because thou hast ^brejected ^cknowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the ^dlaw of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

Thomas Jefferson Warns of Dangers of National Debt

Benjamin Franklin Calls for Prayer at the Constitutional Convention

The Principles of Liberty | Principle 22

"A Free People Should be Governed by Law and Not the Whims of Man"

If mankind are governed by the whims of men they are subjected to every changing inclination of sudden illogical changes of mind, ideas, or actions of those in power.  This is ruler's law at its worst.  In this kind of society, no rights are secure and nothing is dependable; things are in a constant state of flux.  Nothing is fixed nor predictable for the future.

The Founders defined law as a 'rule of action', which was binding on the ruler as it was upon the people.  It was designed to give society a stable frame of reference so the people could feel secure in making plans for the future.  John Locke said:

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to everyone of that society. and made by the legislative power erected in it.

Under established law, every person's rights and duties are defined.  Such a society gives the people a feeling of liberty, liberty under the law.  The American Founders believed that without the protection of law there can be no liberty.

John Locke also pointed out that unless a society can provide a person with a code of fixed and enforceable laws, he might as well have stayed in the jungle.

To this end it is that men give up all their natural power to the society that they enter into, and the community put the legislative power into such hands as they see fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty as it was in the state of Nature.

John Adams also agreed when he said:

No man will contend that a nation can be free that is not governed by fixed laws.  All other government that that of permanent known laws is the government of mere will and pleasure.

 Aristotle said:

Even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion.  We may conclude then that the law is reason without passion, and it is therefore preferable to any individual.

 And from this we can see that Aristotle disagreed with his mentor Plato, who believed that that the ideal society should be governed by a few who would rule according to scientific principles and make on the spot decisions and force the people to do what is good for them.  He said that if there was not a man with this scientific knowledge, then law would be required, but it was only the second best thing.

the difference appears to be perspective.  Rather then looking at law as a merely a code of negative restraints and prohibitions, the Founders considered it to be a system of positive rules by which they could be assured of enjoying their rights and the protection of themselves, their families and their property.  John Locke said it best:

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.  For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.  For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be when there is no law.

The Founders were sensitive to the fact that people only have confidence in laws that they can understand, as well as feel that it is of relative permanence, which will not be continually changed.  James Madison said this so well:

It will be of little avail to the people that the law are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be revealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.  Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?

 Thomas Jefferson resigned from the congress in 1776 in order to return to Virginia to make certain that the state laws were rewritten so that when independence had been won, the people would have a model system of legal principles which they could both understand and support.  The complex codes and laws of our day could be similarly improved with such a great housecleaning as Jefferson did for Virginia.  Imagine what James Madison would think of our legislature and senate who pass bills that are so large that they have not read them when they vote on them, that vote on bills that are not yet even written!

The Principles of Liberty| The Revolutionary War Remember

The 28 Principles of Liberty| Principle 21

"Strong Local Self-government is the Keystone to Preserving Human Freedom"

Political power automatically tries to gravitate towards centralization, the purpose of the US Constitution is to prevent that from happening.  Centralization of political power ALWAYS destroys liberty by removing the decision-making function from the people on the local level to the officers of the central government.

When this occurs, the people start to lose the spirit of voluntarism and the will to solve their own problems.  They also cease to be involved in community affairs.

This contrasts with the New England town spirit where every person had a voice and a vote.  How different from the Anglo-Saxon tribal meetings, where the people were considered sovereign and every man took pride in participating.  And even more, how different from ancient Israel where the families of the people were governed in multitudes of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands, where problems were solved on the levels where those problem originated.    This is what the Founders considered the golden key to preserving liberty.

Thomas Jefferson said "These wards, called townships in  New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its perservation.

Jefferson was anxious to have America revive the customs of their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, including strong local self-government.  Historian Richard Frothingham has pointed out that in ancient England there were political and territorial divisions that were similar to that of Ancient Israel.  "Tythings, hundreds. burghs, counties and shires", in which the body of inhabitants had a voice in managing their own affairs.  That was until that ruling classes were installed in its place, undermining the ancient freedom of the municipalities.

Even as this situation arose, in the backs of the minds of the people, they remembered the the right of freemen of the past, and thought that it was something that might be brought about again.

And this is exactly what happened as Englishmen pulled away from the mother country and migrated to America.  The assemblies reappeared, and old rights were once again enjoyed.  As they wrote their laws, they were determined to protect the freedom of the individual and provide for a healthy local government.  Only those things that which related to the interest of the entire commonwealth were delegated to central government.

James Madison emphasized the necessity to reserve all possible authority in the states and the people.  The Constitution delegates to the federal government on that which involves the whole people as a nation.  He wrote, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.  Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.  The former (federal powers) will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce....The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."

Thomas Jefferson emphasized that if the oncoming generations continued the Constitutional pattern, the federal government would be small and cohesive and would serve and an inexpensive operation because of the limited problems which would be assigned to it.  He wrote, "The true theory of our Constitution is sure the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations.  Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, ans let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants."

A WARNING from John Fiske:

"If the day should ever arrive when the people of the different parts of our country shall allow their local affairs to be administered by prefects sent from Washington, and then the self-government of the states shall have been so far lost  as that of the departments of France, or even so closely  limited as that of the counties of England, on that day the political career of the American people will have been robbed of its most interesting and valuable features, and the usefulness of this nation will be lamentably impaired."