Putting Down the Mob, Defending Law and Order

Liberty Letters, Samuel Adams, 1766

This Town has always been very careful during the late Times of Calamity to preserve as much as possible Good order among its Inhabitants, of which they gave an Early Proof when a dangerous Mob arose and some Outrages were committed by Persons as yet unknown. A good deal of Mischief was done as all the World have been told, however after all the Exaggerations the whole Damage is short of 4000 pounds — but it will appear the less surprising that so much was done when it is considered that the Mob was sudden and unexpected and appeared so furious as to occasion a general Consternation, and besides it being in the night, it was not easy to distinguish between them and the innocent People.

Yet the Inhabitants were far from being inactive in their Endeavors to suppress immediately — they made diverse Attempts and took every step that could be thought of amidst the Confusion. A number went to the Governor’s House to take his Excellency’s Orders but he was not in town — from whence one would conclude that he was no more apprehensive of such a tumult from any Appearances than others were.

If there had been any reason to have expected it, we presume his Excellency’s Care for the Peace and Order of the Government would have procured the first Intelligence and that he would have thought it his duty to have been present or at least that he would have taken the necessary Precautions and given Orders to have prevented it — but the Inhabitants were left to do the best they could, and there is no doubt but much more mischief would have been done if they had not made use of Art and Persuasion when they fortunately wanted the Countenance of his Excellency’s Authority.

On Improving the Federal Union, Thomas Jefferson, 1786

Liberty Letters Quote of the Day, Thomas Jefferson, 16 December 1786

Five months before the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison, offers some advice on improving the struggling Union:

“I find by the public papers that your Commercial Convention failed in point of representation. If it should produce a full meeting in May, and a broader reformation, it will still be well. To make us one nation as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in Domestic ones, gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general and particular governments. But to enable the Federal head to exercise the powers given it, to best advantage, it should be organized, as the particular ones are, into Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. The first and last are already separated. The second should also be. When last with Congress, I often proposed to members to do this by making of the Committee of the states, an Executive committee during the recess of Congress, and during its sessions to appoint a Committee to receive and dispatch all executive business, so that Congress itself should meddle only with what should be legislative. But I question if any Congress (much less all successively) can have self-denial enough to go through with this distribution. The distribution should be imposed on them then. I find Congress have reversed their division of the Western states, and proposed to make them fewer and larger. This is reversing the natural order of things. A tractable people may be governed in large bodies; but in proportion as they depart from this character, the extent of their government must be less. We see into what small divisions the Indians are obliged to reduce their societies. This measure, with the disposition to shut up the Mississippi give me serious apprehensions of the severance of the Eastern and Western parts of our confederacy. It might have been made the interests of the Western states to remain united with us, by managing their interests honestly and for their own good. But the moment we sacrifice their interests to our own, they will see it better to govern themselves. The moment they resolve to do this, the point is settled. A forced connection is neither our interest nor within our power.

Union: A Main Prop of Our Liberty—George Washington

Liberty Letters Quote of the Day, George Washington

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

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Source: Farewell Address, 1796.

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Madison: Limits On Treaty Making Power

Liberty Letters Quote of the Day, James Madison

I do not conceive that power is given to the President and Senate to dismember the empire, or to alienate any great, essential right. I do not think the whole legislative authority have this power.

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Source: Jonathan Elliot, ed. and comp., The Debates in the Several State Conventions, on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 2d ed. rev., 5 vols [Philadelphia, 1901], 3:514.

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That Great and Terrible Lie

By Steve Farrell

Liberty and license are not synonymous. Parents know better.

Too many of them have had the unfortunate dilemma of dealing with the “I am free to do as I please” child who routinely, or upon occasion, exercises that egocentric proclamation to reckless extremes. These parents stand as witnesses that a widely accepted notion that “freedom and moral responsibility are not connected” is at best a delusion instilled by mis-education, not experience, and is at worst a diabolical lie.

The pain they feel, the shipwrecked lives they labor to pick up and reassemble, the incessant pleadings to stubborn, short-sighted children, and the endless nights spent sobbing upon their knees, all testify to them that unrestrained freedom is not freedom at all, but quite often a terrible, miserable slavery.

Every act has a consequence. Experience, that cruel schoolmaster, teaches us that. But it’s not as if the idea is lacking in proponents.

The Bible in Education: Providing Needful Balance

By Steve Farrell

Have you ever wondered why it was that for a couple of hundred years before the Founding of the United States, and for nearly two hundred years after the Founding of the United States the Bible was permitted, even encouraged to be taught in America’s schools?

I think we all know the answer: parents and educators understood what the American Founders understood, that a true education was not just about developing smarts, talents, and skills that enable graduates to make a living—as important as that was and is—but about developing the moral wherewithal to apply these same smarts, talents, and skills in ways that bless rather than curse themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation.

And surely it was because most parents loved their kids, right? And surely most of the locals wanted safe communities, right? And, as to the role of schools in preparing young people for the duties of citizenship, surely among those who had already obtained an education, both parents and teachers, or among those who had any involvement in civic affairs, was this common knowledge: some very smart and talented men have become brilliant and gifted tyrants. And who is would be dumb enough to, by design or default, breed an entire generation of smart and talented bullies to rule over us, right ?

One of the useful things about the Bible was that—along with a few other good books such as could be found in the classics of Western Civilization—it provided that balance to a man or woman’s learning that made that learning complete and wonderful.

An Early American Primer on ‘Force’ and Faith

By Steve Farrell

As the editor of a daily e-zine which focuses on a defense of the religious and moral foundations of the American republic, I am daily confronted by the same hostile complaint, often in the most colorful of terms: “Stop shoving your religion down my throat!”

In this hypersensitive, self-centered age, anyone responsible enough and smart enough to voice concern over the amoral, even immoral path our country is taking, our schools are endorsing, and all too many of our children are embracing hears the same mean-spirited protest … and the volume keeps turning up.

It should concern us: I mean the increasingly angry tone, the incessant lawsuits, the vigorous and open defense of the amoral and immoral, and the reckless lack of stewardship regarding the rising generation, that they might be grounded enough in the basics of moral law to know the difference between right and wrong, so that they might be a generation that feels it their duty and good pleasure to step up the plate as true men and true women and act accordingly, to the blessing of themselves, their families, their associates, their countrymen, and the cause of self-government.

But point of fact and alarm, a growing coalition of millions, even tens of millions don’t see it that way.

Christianity and Religious Freedom: On a Candlestick or Under a Bushell?

By Steve Farrell

Nowadays, in order to justify each and every sin under the sun, each and every assault upon the moral fiber of our family,community, and nation, one approach fits all: opponents of everything good and right, sensible and salutary need only push the claim that their privacy has been violated.

But how can that be? Just what is it that is so private about privacy that it cannot tolerate the gentle voice of persuasion of someone else who is exercising, in print or by voice, the convictions of his heart and soul? Or at least, what is so very private about the kind of privacy that privacy advocates advocate?

Privacy advocates contend that traditional Christians and Jews have no right to express and defend their religious and moral convictions in the classroom, in the work place or at the seat of government, because faith is sacred, and if sacred, then it must be private. Public discussion, public debate, public teaching, public endorsement, therefore, are public no-no’s, being public infringements upon the inalienable rights of those with contrary religious views.

But how well thought out is this position, really?