Publication:New York Sun; Date:Jul 3, 2007; Section:Editorial & Opinion; Page Number:8Our First Revolution
Michael Barone
The events that we celebrate this Fourth of July are familiar to most of us.
In recent years, even as some universities declinetoreplacescholars of America’s Founding, American readers have been snapping up — and reading — terrific books about the founding fathers.
We want to know more about how our system of government was established and our liberties proclaimed. But the founding fathers did not write on a blank slate. When they began protesting the acts of George III and the British Parliament, they asserted their rights as Englishmen. Only when they became convinced that their prayers for relief would not be granted did they set out to declare their independence.
What were those rights? Many of them had their roots in the series of events generally known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689, the subject of my book “Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval that Inspired America’s Founding Fathers.” Once, this story, of the ouster of James II and the installation of William and Mary as king and queen, was familiar to every proverbial schoolboy.
Today, as I found out when I told friends and relatives about the book I was working on, it is almost unknown to educated Americans. Yet, this First Revolution turned out to be a giant step forward for representative government, guaranteed liberties, global capitalism, and an anti-tyrannical foreign policy. That was not necessarily the intention of the actors in this drama, but it was the result they produced. We are its fortunate beneficiaries. The story has a special resonance for New York. It was James II who, as Duke of York and Lord High Admiral, in 1664 ordered the British fleet to oust the Dutch from Nieuw Amsterdam, and when the city was captured it was renamed in his honor.
*snip*
William could have declared himself king. Instead he ordered elections for a new parliament and conspicuously avoided influencing them. That parliament, after debating whether James had abdicated or was still king, voted to make William king and Mary queen. It also passed a Declaration of Right and effectively required that Parliament must meet every year.
William’s prime motive was to bring England into his alliance against Louis XIV. In the centuries since then, Britain and, in time, America have waged war to prevent a tyrannical power from dominating Europe and the world. In order to finance that war, Parliament created the funded national debt and established the Bank of England. This financial system enabled Britain to defeat France, which had four times as many people, and provided the credit necessary for Britain’s Industrial Revolution. This First Revolution also had a lasting impact on the American colonies. James abolished the legislative assemblies in New England, New York, and New Jersey and might have abolished others had he stayed on the throne. William restored them.
As the historian, J. H. Elliott, has noted, one reason the Spanish colonies in the Americas had difficulty winning independence and establishing selfgovernment is that they had no legislative assemblies, no experience with self-government. The British colonies of North America, thanks to this successful revolution, had such assemblies and the colonists — the founders — had such experience. “Without 1688,” as Christopher Hitchens has written, “there would have been no 1776.”
We owe much to the founders. But we owe something as well to the men and women who made, what I call, Our First Revolution nearly a century before.
Mr. Barone is a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and co-author of “The Almanac of American Politics.”
Why is it that every one of these articles quotes Abraham Lincoln as if was some sort of hero.
He is not in the league of the founding fathers, if anything, much of what is wrong with this country today can be traced back to Lincoln, such as the idea that the “national will” should reign triumphant over the objections of those who oppose it. Lincoln violated so many principles that this country holds dear, and yet, people in all but about 10 states view him as some sort of hero, and paragon of America. I think the founding fathers turned over in their graves when they saw Lincoln’s actions in office.
“What students should learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.”
George Washington
May 12, 1779
“It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionist, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
Patrick Henry
May 1765
“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principals of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams
July 4th, 1821
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for rulers.”
John Jay First
Supreme Court Justice
October 12, 1816
“We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King but Jesus.”
John Adams & John Hancock
April 18, 1775
“These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”
Supreme Court
Church of the Holy Trinity vs
The United States of America
February 29, 1892
“In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Devine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered...do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance?”
Benjamin Franklin
Constitutional Convention
June 28, 1787
And if there could be any remaining doubt, James Madison, often referred to as the father of our Constitution stated:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments.
Of their efforts Abraham Lincoln declared:
“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…”
Gettysburg Address
Lincoln, along with the founders and our current President realized that liberty is a gift of God to mankind. Mankind is intended by our creator to be free. Thomas Jefferson embodied this understanding in our Declaration of Independence when he penned the immortal words, “We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Just a little trivia on this Fourth of July:
Did you know that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day? What is that day you ask: July 4, 1826. Fifty (50) years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
And don't be concerned about the resident atheists who might spout their discouraging words. When one's heart is that as described in Psalm 14:1, you should expect a negative reaction on any post that glorifies God. Or to use an analogy, cockroaches prefer the light to be turned off, and they don't like it when anyone tries to shine it forth.
I’ve been watching the History Channel most of the day - they’re running “The Revolution” - it’s actually been very, very interesting. Lots of details I had forgotten.