REFLECTIONS ON THE ORIGINS AND MEANING OF AMERICA’S INDEPENDENCE
DAY
Why
no on should be surprised when America
behaves as an international bully
John Chuckman
If you relish myths and enjoy superstition,
then the flatulent speeches of America’s
Independence Day, July 4, were just the thing for you. No religion on earth has
more to offer along these lines than America celebrating itself.
Some, believing the speeches but curious,
ask how did a nation founded on supposedly the highest principles by
high-minded men manage to become an ugly imperial power pushing aside international
law and the interests of others? The answer is simple: the principles and
high-mindedness are the same stuff as the loaves and the fishes.
The incomparable Doctor Johnson had it
right when he called patriotism the last refuge of scoundrels and scoffed at
what he called the "drivers of negroes" yelping about liberty.
Few Americans even understand that
Johnson's first reference was to their sacred Founding Fathers (aka Patriots).
I have seen a well known American columnist who attributed the pronouncement to
Ben Franklin, a man who was otherwise admirable but nevertheless dabbled a few
times in slave trading himself.
Johnson especially had in mind history’s
supreme hypocrite, Jefferson, with his second reference. Again, few Americans
know that Jefferson kept his better than two
hundred slaves to his dying day. I know a well educated American who sincerely
believed Jefferson had freed his slaves. Such
is the power of the myths of the American Civic Religion.
Jefferson was incapable of supporting himself, living the life of a prince
and being a ridiculous spendthrift who died bankrupt and still owing money to
others, the man of honor being a trifle less than honorable in paying back the
money he often borrowed. When a new silk frock or set of shoes with silver
buckles was to be had, Jefferson never
hesitated to buy them rather than pay his debts.
The date we now celebrate, July 4, is based
on the Continental Congress's approval of the Declaration of Independence, but
in fact the date is incorrect, the document was approved on July 2.
Jefferson wrote the first draft of the declaration, but it was edited by the
redoubtable Benjamin Franklin, and later was heavily amended by the Continental
Congress. Jefferson suffered great humiliation
of his pride and anger at the editing and changes.
Despite the document's stirring opening
words, if you actually read the whole thing, you will be highly disappointed.
The bulk of it has a whining tone in piling
on complaint after complaint against the Crown. Some would say the whining set
a standard for the next quarter millennium of American society.
In Jefferson’s draft it went on and on
about Britain's
slave trade. The 'slave trade' business was particularly hypocritical, trying
to sound elevated while in fact reflecting something else altogether. At the
time there was a surplus of human flesh in Virginia, and prices were soft.
The cause of the Revolution is also
interesting and never emphasized in American texts. Britain's imposition of the Quebec
Act created a firestorm of anti-Catholicism in the colonies. They were afraid
of being ruled from a Catholic colony.
The speech and writing of American
colonists of the time was filled with exactly the kind of ugly language one
associates with extremist Ulstermen in recent years.
This combined with the sense of safety
engendered from Britain's victory in the French and Indian War (the Seven Years
War)and the unwillingness to pay taxes to help pay for that victory caused the
colonial revolt.
Few Americans know it, but it was the
practice for many, many decades to burn the Pope in effigy on Guy Fawkes Day
along the Eastern Seaboard. Anti-Catholicism was quite virulent for a very long
time.
The first phase of the revolt in and around
Boston was actually something of a popular
revolution, responding to Britain's
blockading the harbor and quartering troops in Boston.
The colonial aristocrats were having none
of that, and they appointed Washington
commander over the heads of the Boston Militias who volunteered and actually
elected their officers.
Washington, who had always wanted to be a
British regular commander but never received the commission, imposed his will
ferociously. He started flogging and hanging.
In his letters home, the men who actually
started the revolution are described as filth and scum. He was a very arrogant
aristocrat.
The American Revolution has been described
by a European as home-grown aristocrats replacing foreign-born ones. It is an
apt description.
Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and many other
of the Fathers had no faith in democracy. About one percent of early Virginia could vote. The
president was not elected by people but by elites in the Electoral College. The
Senate, which even today is the power in the legislature, was appointed well
into the 20th century.
The Supreme Court originally never dared
interpret the Bill of Rights as determining what states should do. It sat on
paper like an advertising brochure with no force. At one time, Jefferson seriously raised the specter of secession, half
a century before the Civil War, over even the possibility of the Bill of Rights
being interpreted by a national court and enforced.
The Founding Fathers saw popular voting as
endangering property ownership. Democracy was viewed by most the same way Washington viewed the “scum” who started the Revolution
around Boston.
It took about two hundred years of gradual changes for America to become anything that
seriously could be called democratic. Even now, what sensible person would call
it anything but a rough work still in progress.
It is interesting to reflect on the fact
that early America
was ruled by a portion of the population no larger than what is represented
today by the Chinese Communist Party as a portion of that country’s population.
Yet today we see little sign of patience or
understanding in American arrogance about how quickly other states should
become democratic. And we see in Abu Ghraib, in Guantanamo,
and in the CIA’s International Torture Gulag that the principles and attitudes
of the Bill of Rights still haven’t completely been embraced by America.
Contrary to all the posturing amongst the
Patriots – who few were a minority at the time - about tyranny, the historical
facts indicate that Britain
on the whole actually had offered good government to its North American
Colonies.
Everyone who visited the Colonies from Europe noted the exceptional health of residents.
They also noticed what seemed an
extraordinary degree of freedom enjoyed by colonists. It was said to be amongst
the freest place in the known world, likely owing in good part to its distance
from the Mother Country. A favorite way to wealth was smuggling, especially
with the Caribbean. John Hancock made his
fortune that way.
Ben Franklin once wrote a little memo,
having noted the health of Americans and their birth rates, predicting the
future overtaking of Britain
by America,
an idea not at all common at the time.
Indeed, it was only the relative health and
freedom which made the idea of separation at all realistic. Britain was, of course, at the time viewed much
the way, with the same awe of power, people view America today. These well-known
facts of essentially good government in the Colonies made the Declaration of
Independence list of grievances sound exaggerated and melodramatic to outsiders
even at the time.
The combination of the Quebec Act,
anti-Catholicism, dislike of taxes, plus the desire to move West and plunder
more Indian lands were the absolute causes of the Revolution.
Britain
tried to recognize the rights of the aboriginals and had forbidden any movement
west by the Colonies.
But people in the colonies were land-mad,
all hoping to make a fortune staking out claims they would sell to later
settlers. The map of Massachusetts,
for example, showed the colony stretching like a band across the continent to
the Pacific. Britain
did not agree.
George Washington made a lot of money doing
this very thing, more than any other enterprise of his except for marrying
Martha Custis, the richest widow in the colonies.
The tax issue is interesting.
The French and Indian War (the Seven Years
War) heavily benefited the Colonists by removing the threat of France
in the West. Once the war was over, many colonists took the attitude that Britain
could not take the benefits back, and they refused to pay the taxes largely
imposed to pay the war's considerable cost.
And Americans have hated taxes since.
By the way, in the end, without the huge
assistance of France,
the Colonies would not have won the war. France
played an important role in the two decisive victories, Saratoga
and Yorktown. At Saratoga they had smuggled in the weapons the
Americans used. At Yorktown, the final battle,
the French were completely responsible for the victory and for even committing
to the battle. Washington had wanted instead
to attack New York – which would have been a
disaster – but the French generals then assisting recognized a unique
opportunity at Yorktown.
After the war, the United States never paid the huge
French loans back. Some gratitude. Also the United States renounced the
legitimate debts many citizens owed to British factors (merchant/shippers) for
no good reason at all except not wanting to pay.
It was all a much less glorious beginning
than you would ever know from the drum-beating, baton-twirling, sequined
costumes, and noise today. And if you really want to understand why America has
become the very thing it claimed it was fighting in 1776, then you only need a
little solid history.
