“If this be treason… make the most of it.”
But it wasn’t treason, for obedience is not true patriotism; Patrick Henry’s opposition displays a pure devotion to mankind, with a willingness to sacrifice person and peace in order to build a country up from the ground, founded in liberty, with long-lasting freedoms we enjoy today.
Big, Bold Steps
It’s only fitting this Fourth of July to honor one of this nation’s founders. Before Patrick Henry gave the speech that made him famous, before he was served as Virginia’s first Governor, before he was offered the position of Secretary of State in George Washington’s cabinet, which he subsequently declined due to Washington’s federalist policies, he was a prominent Virginian who took big, bold steps to throw off the soft tyranny imposed on the colonies from an overseas hegemony. In 1765, only nine days after being elected to the Virginia delegacy, Henry introduced the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, “In language so extreme that some Virginians said it smacked of treason.”
Patrick Henry went on to fight in the Revolutionary War, and in August 1775, Henry became colonel of the 1st Virginia Regiment, leading a militia that fought in the Gunpowder Incident at the outset of the War. It’s worthwhile noting that while Patrick Henry forged ahead with big, bold steps, he was not a proponent of progressive federalism, but rather, the leading voice of opposition to policies he saw as “tending toward monarchy.” He threw a proverbial monkey wrench into the Constitutional Convention by essentially filibustering the first three words of the document, “We the People,” as he saw this as too collectivist. And to think that today’s opposition to government proliferation is considered “extreme.”
I am only left to imagine what the founders would think of today’s new American experiment. What would Patrick Henry say of today’s swollen federal government? “When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.”
The Speech
So, on March 23, 1775, at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Patrick Henry gave his now famous “Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death speech; it was apparently so powerful that those in attendance began yelling, “To arms!” while taking to the streets.
“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace – but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
Our nation was conceived from such a spirit. For his combination of ideology and oratory, Patrick Henry gained contemporary comparisons to the Roman statesman Cato, from which my D.C. think tank of choice takes its name. Cato believed that such sacrifice, a willingness to die for a cause, was the ultimate guarantor of personal freedom, in accordance with the “radical ethical” view of Stoic philosophy for which he was known. The tragedy entitled “Cato” was a favorite among the colonists, and contained the line of inspiration: “It is not now time to talk of aught/But chains or conquest, liberty or death.”
The Contrast
Today, the United States is led by a man of equally great oratory skills. Indeed, while trying to “sell his public option” and move towards nationalized health care, President Obama stated the following in a town hall meeting with screened questions just a couple of days ago in Annandale, Virginia, on July 1, 2009:
“America — one of the great things about this country is we’ve got a system that’s sometimes kind of hard to change. Congress gets kind of bogged down, and part of that is because of the way the Constitution is designed — it’s served us well because it keeps us very stable. We don’t have coups and all kinds of governments collapsing all the time. But the disadvantage sometimes is, is that it’s hard for us to make big, bold steps. But the great thing about the system is that, every once in a while, when we finally hit a point where things just aren’t working at all, we are able to generate the political will to finally get things done.”
Strange; our current President considers the statutory founding of the Constitution to be an impediment to his political ambition, whereas Patrick Henry saw it as an establishment of a government with too much power. Placing these diametrically opposed ideologies on a scale with our founding document as a measuring point puts things into context and serves as a wake-up call of sorts. Those who founded this country realized that the strength of this nation is not built on the powers of the federal government, but by the degree of freedom afforded to its people; our greatness is not derived from our rules and regulations, but by the vast spectrum of American individuality.
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. In a free society, invention is the mother of success. With freedom, people are incentivized to invent all sorts of things. It was here that the Wright Brothers took flight in their airplane, Henry Ford developed an automobile for everyone on his modernized assembly lines, and Al Gore invented the Internet (I suppose while clandestinely working at the Pentagon?). My point is this: the entrepreneurial spirit is the American spirit. We have produced more since we declared our independence 233 years ago than any other country in the world ever has. This is due to capitalist incentives and the deregulation of business initiatives; while it takes an average of three months to start a small business in Germany due to regulatory guidelines, it takes about three minutes to register as a business here in the United States.
Capitalist countries generate things, while socialist countries try to reverse-engineer them. After all, it’s hard to be productive, much less inventive, under the barrel of a gun. What would Patrick Henry say? “Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.”
After watching the descending “health and vigor of commerce” in the past year, I realize ultimately this is not the fault of our imperfect business models, developed by imperfect people, but due to the lack of perfect freedom amongst imperfect people. When taxes are raised on corporations, or levied against companies that supply the lifeblood of our commerce infrastructure, all businesses and firms that rely on these transactions will suffer. Some, due to the lack of perfect freedom, will go out of business.
The Sleep
Where is America? Where is that Patrick Henry spirit of opposition? Even I would contest it means more than a well-placed bumper sticker on the back of your American-made, carbon-emitting, Virginia state licensed, (awesome) Japanese pick-up…
It appears America is relaxed, comfortable, and slowly going to sleep. On the morning before the passage of the Waxman-Markey (Climate Change) Bill on the 26 of June, at 3:09 am, 300 pages of amendments were already added to a 1000+ page bill, for which, discussion was not allowed. Under the shroud of media coverage over the death of Michael Jackson, an entertainer, our single-party government was able to push a bill through the House of Representatives that nobody read. As it will punish all business, this bill is opposed by such radicals as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who said in a recent statement, “Congress should stop, take a breath, and consider sensible policy alternatives that increase our energy security, promotes a strong economy, and contributes to a global reduction in emissions.”
Blinded by comfort, Americans are oblivious to these policy moves, these big, bold steps that will inevitably cripple their very way of life. What would Patrick Henry say? “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”
The special interests that are driving our country into a ditch with bills like this will never be exposed if the American people do not demand so. At the end of the 18th Century, when this country was going through a rebirth of its own, freedom was paramount. Back then, everyone cared. To reach a tipping point of that magnitude could require sacrifices unseen in this nation in many, many years. If the citizens of this land had to reassert itself and declare its independence from a hegemony once again… would you be ready?
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” – Patrick Henry