“I have not yet begun to fight!” John Paul Jones captures the Serapis

This thrilling quote is another most Americans know, and say, but don’t know the origins of. Here is the short but epic story of the defiant line and the man who uttered it, John Paul Jones.

Jones (born John Paul) was a Scot who was apprenticed to a ship’s captain and became a sailor. His elder brother William emigrated to America while John served on a few British ships, including slave ships. He was disgusted by the cruelty of slavery, and stopped serving on those ships, working on merchant vessels and rising to the rank of captain.

While slavery may have revolted John, he seems to have had no second thoughts about meting out violent punishment to his own sailors if he felt they deserved it. He brutally whipped one sailor, who died about a month later, and killed another with a sword. John claimed it was self-defense, but he did not wait to see if a court back home in Britain would agree, and fled to America.

He went to Fredricksburg, Virginia, where his brother William had lived and recently died. He decided to stay, and it was at this time that John Paul added Jones to his name, for reasons that are unclear but may have had to do with disguising his identity. When the Revolutionary War began shortly after, Jones traveled to Philadelphia to offer his services to the fledgling U.S. Navy. He led several raids south to the Bahamas, to raid British military supplies, and north to Canada, where he was to try to liberate U.S. prisoners of war. He failed to do this, but did capture the British ship Mellish, which was carrying supplies for British General Burgoyne (whose surrender at Saratoga in 1777 was so critical to the U.S. war effort).

While he was successful, Jones clashed with American authorities in Boston, who sent him to France to do whatever might be done there to help the war effort. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were in Paris at the time persuading France to ally with the United States and enter the war on the American side, and Jones became friendly with Franklin, When France did enter the war, Jones sailed his ship, Ranger, into British waters to see what damage he could do. He fired on ships at the port of Whitehaven, then crossed to Scotland to try to take the Earl of Selkirk hostage at his estate on St. Mary’s Isle. The Earl was not at home, and after restraining his men from looting and burning the great house, Jones slipped away. Jones and his crew then captured the Drake and brought it to port in Brest.

The capture of the Drake was an important symbolic victory for the U.S., and as a reward he was given command of the Bonhomme Richard, a French ship given to the U.S. for the war effort. It was on this ship, on September 23, 1779, that Jones encountered the Serapis, a new British frigate on her maiden voyage, acting as part of a convoy protecting British shipping from piracy. The Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough, on sighting a French ship flying the American flag, turned to protect their convoy. The Serapis was closest, and Jones launched his attack.

The ships began firing on each other, but knowing that the British ship had more and larger cannon than his own, Jones made the bold decision to move closer to the Serapis and try to lash the two ships together, so that the Serapis could not fire its cannon without damaging itself. As his men struggled to maneuver the Bonhomme Richard, another ship sailing with Jones, the Alliance, tried to fire on the Serapis but hit the Bonhomme Richard, which began to sink. At this point, Jones was asked if he would surrender by a British sailor on the Serapis, close enough now to the Bonhomme Richard for the question to be shouted across, and it was then that Jones uttered his famous retort “I have not yet begun to fight!”

Jones finally succeeded in lashing the two ships together, and his men could pick off British sailors with their guns. The British attempted to board the Bonhomme Richard, and although they were turned back, the American flag was shot away. A British sailor on the Serapis called over to ask if the American crew had deliberately lowered their flag in surrender, an act called striking the flag. Jones called out another salty response that is not as famous as his first: “I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike!” Finally, a grenade thrown onto the Serapis exploded a cache of gunpowder on the lower deck, and at last the British captain surrendered. Jones and his men left their sinking ship to board the Serapis and sail it to Texel, a port in Holland. The Bonhomme Richard could not be saved, though its crew tried to repair it enough to get it to port, and they were forced to watch it sink.

For his bravery, Jones was made a Chevalier by France, and in 1787 the Continental Congress struck a gold medal in his honor. Like most American naval officers, he was discharged after the war and left with nothing to do but return to private life, which he did not want to do. He served in the Russian navy of Catherine the Great and died in Paris in 1792. He remains were returned to the U.S. in 1905.

Jones is a mix of the valiant and the troubling. On the up side, he was brave and he rejected slavery, and his victories helped the American cause in the war. On the down side, he could be savagely violent, and if war had not come along one wonders what attacks he might have perpetrated against his crew on an American merchant ship. Perhaps he is best remembered today for his service to the United States at a time when it desperately needed bold action.

State of the Union trumped by state of Vatican?

One just heard a discussion on the radio of the decision of the current pope to step down in which the host of the morning program—alright, it’s NPR’s Morning Edition—asked if this news upstages President Obama’s pending State of the Union Address, due to be delivered tomorrow. The veteran political affairs reporter confidently said oh yes, this [the pope stepping down] is much more important than the State of the Union.

One could see how, perhaps, the news from the Vatican could steal the spotlight for this morning of Monday, February 11. But it’s harder to see how it could still be uppermost in the minds of the American people tomorrow evening, February 12, when their president outlines his domestic and foreign policy plans for 2013 and likely his second term. But why don’t you tell us?

PS: the end of the letter from John Winthrop’s annoying colonial correspondent

Part the last of our look at the May 1637 anonymous letter to Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop deals with the craven postscript, in which the writer explains why he is writing anonymously. All spellings modernized.

” I have not subscribed hereunto, not knowing whether my letter may not miscarry. The bearer perhaps can tell you of me.”

—Afraid the letter might be seized or, in good English Puritan fashion, read and then circulated thoroughly to everyone in the community and beyond, the writer chooses to remain anonymous, but sends the letter by a messenger who will reveal his identity. This seems dangerous for the messenger; what if royal officials did seize the letter? Right there on the last page it says the messenger knows who wrote it. It would not be unusual for the messenger to be arrested, jailed, and even tortured to reveal the name if the government felt the letter was threatening.

This small section is in the final paragraph of the letter, but the writer feels it necessary to add a postscript underlining the need for Winthrop to keep his name secret…. and underlining all the reasons why Winthrop, if he were a lesser saint, would not have done so.

“Sir, I humbly entreat you to conceal it, that any with us has thus written to you. There is another thing I have noted since I wrote the enclosed letter, that many in your plantations discover much pride, as appears by the letters we receive from them, wherein some of them write over to us for lace [and] cut-work coifs, and other, for deep [fabric] dyes, and some of your own men tell us that many with you go finely clad, though they are free from the fantasticalness of our land.”

—If we hadn’t just spent four posts parsing this writer’s deep comfort with self-righteous haranguing, we would be taken aback by his abrupt shift, from pleading humbly for Winthrop to shield him from attack to attacking Winthrop. Colonists have dared write home for lace and dye and pieces of apparel (a coif is a close-fitting cap that women wore under their hoods or hats to protect their hair). None of these things would have been available in America. They were items of earthly vanity Puritans were supposed to have sworn off. These requests are more proof exploding the myth that the Puritans in America wore black all the time and hated ornament. The writer says that while the colonists are asking for some finer things, at least they are not chasing the extremes of 17th-century fashion (“fantasticalness”) current in England. We might forgive the writer for reproaching the colonists for wearing finery, as it really was something the English Puritans did not do, but then again, the American Puritans no longer had a reason to give it up. In England, they wanted to stand out against the unreformed population, and plain clothing was a visible and striking sign of their faith. In America, there were no unreformed Anglicans to stand out against—all were Puritans, so it did not matter what they wore. Plain clothes were a religious protest. In America, there was no other religion to protest against, and plain clothes were no longer necessary.

“There is likewise another thing which I have not mentioned in the letter enclosed, which I suppose you are not altogether ignorant of, that your Patent is called in and condemned, and the Patentees have renounced, and they are outlawed that have not, till they come in and make their peace. …what the effects of [this] will be we are ignorant, but doubt and fear, only we look up to God.”

—Oh, by the way—your colony is about to be overthrown by the crown and all your liberty taken away. This is a very alarming thing to relay to Winthrop, that the royal patent allowing the MBC to exist and to make its own laws has been condemned by the government, and that the men in England funding the Massachusetts Bay Company (“the Patentees”) are being forced to renounce the patent or be arrested for treason. Winthrop had been threatened with this many times before, as the anti-Puritan Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, went to Charles I many times to try to get the patent revoked. Charles actually did agree to revoke it in 1637, but, in an unexpected bit of true justice, this was declared invalid because the government had heard testimony against the MBC but had not given MBC officials a chance to come to London and speak in their own defense.

So what the letter writer is hearing is technically true, but he has clearly never learned the value of breaking bad news gently.

“How earnestly can I pray that you may [all] mind holiness, and the things that are above, and grow up in faith, love, humility, and self-denial… for if once pride, covetousness, opposition and contention etc. destroy the power of holiness among you, or your being cast into a new frame of discipline take you up for the most part, diverting your minds… there will soon grow a strangeness between you and God, who will then surely bring afflictions upon you…”

—One can’t help wondering if one of those afflictions God might send is correspondents like this one. And one might also wonder whether the correspondent takes his own advice about not letting pride, jealousy, opposition and contention destroy to power of holiness that should be binding England and American Puritans together.

“…the Almighty God vouchsafe that both your doctrine and discipline work mightily and effectually upon your hearts and lives, to meeken and sanctify them throughout. if you please to write anything back to me, the bearer hereof can tell you how it may be sent and delivered to me. The Lord be with your spirit. Amen.”

—Again the poor messenger is set up to be killed.

We don’t know if Winthrop wrote back. As usual, his reply does not exist, for while he carefully kept and preserved the letters he received, the people he wrote to were not so careful. But it’s most likely he did. He would have taken the lecturing and hectoring of this writer with great humility, as he always did. But while the governor would have thanked the letter writer for his care, and assured him that the colonists strove to put all earthly conflict and vanity behind them, there are no laws or decrees on the books of the MBC censoring letters home, forbidding women to wear coifs, banning books, or restricting Puritans’ freedom of religious speech, all of which the letter writer urged Winthrop to do. Winthrop knew, though it likely pained him, that American and English Puritans were already growing apart, and that the work to be done in the Old World was very different from the task at hand in the New World, and that no matter how much they longed to remain one community, that would likely be impossible.

One wonders why the letter writer was so afraid to reveal his identity to anyone but Winthrop. At first one thinks maybe he was afraid the English authorities would harass him, but after a little thought it seems there’s nothing in the letter to get the writer into trouble in England. After all, he is denouncing the colonists and deploring the abuse of the Anglican church and its bishops. It seems maybe the writer was actually afraid that his identity would be made known to the colonists, who would not take his criticisms well. If they found out the identity of the man who wanted to curb their liberties, religious and otherwise, and who denounced them so roundly to all, the colonists might well have written to England to complain about him, and then this Saint would have been in hot water.

This letter is interesting to close-read because it reveals so much about the rapid evolution of Puritanism during the fractious decade of the 1630s, both in America and in England. It is a window into the minds of those who stayed behind from the promised land of America, the dangers they faced at home, and their feelings about their brethren far away. It also illuminates the thinking of those who sacrificed everything to leave England and keep the faith in the unknown land of America, the things they missed about home, and the power of their elation over their success in forming a new and pure church doctrine—the whole point of their journey. It is a shame the two sides had to divide so widely and so soon.

England’s sin, New England’s problem–John Winthrop’s letter from an anonymous “friend”

Yes, it’s taking four posts to go through the long May 1637 letter from an anonymous correspondent in England to Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop. This was a long letter. We’ve seen how this correspondent has lambasted Winthrop and his colony for its overconfidence, strayings into sin, and dangerous letter writing home to England. Now the writer turns to problems in England and what New England can do about them. All spellings are modernized.

“…whereas the hand of God hath laid upon us above these two years, by a grievous kind of pox, general through the kingdom, killing many of the aged as well as others of the younger sort, and likewise whereas the pestilence hath reigned for above [a] year, and killed between 12 and 20 thousand in London and the suburbs, and even laid waste Newcastle in the north, and is like yet further to continue; by means of which there hath been a great stoppage in trading, and much misery throughout all the kingdom, for the Lord is highly displeased with us, and there is some fear of scarcity (Oh, our sins are exceeding great!)…”

—You’ll note this begins with “whereas”: the writer is laying out reasons behind a request he is about to make of Winthrop. Because God has sent plague to England, other nations have stopped trading with England to avoid contagion, and so there are food shortages. The editors of the volume of the Winthrop Papers which includes this letter say in a footnote that 10,400 people actually died of this plague in 1636, “after an unusual mortality from smallpox and other malignant diseases for two or three years previous.” So this pestilence would have begun about 1633, shortly after Winthrop’s group left England, and was just another punishment from God that the American Puritans were able to avoid. It is all part of God’s judgment against England, to this writer, and Winthrop would likely have agreed.

“[would you in New England] be pleased to procure a general public fast throughout your plantations for us, for we stand in great need of it; afford us, for the Lord’s sake, the help and pity of brethren, and how do you know what favor this may win you, both with God and men?”

—We’ve talked previously about the hostility between American and English Puritans that arose very quickly after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The letter writer has been criticizing Winthrop and his colonists throughout this letter, accusing them of abandoning their English brethren and leaving them to suffer God’s destruction of England without a care. So this passage is particularly devious. The writer asks Winthrop to hold a fast to pray for the Puritans in England who are suffering plague and shortages, begging him to show “the help and pity of brethren” just after claiming that the English Puritans are so disgusted with the American Puritans that some of them don’t even pray for Winthrop and his group any more. And then another mafia-style encouragement, saying who knows what might be in it for you, Massachusetts? Maybe God blesses you, and maybe your erstwhile English brethren deign to accept you again.

This must have been disgruntling to Winthrop, but he went ahead and held the fast in the name of many problems in Europe and America, including “the calamities upon our native country… plague raging exceedingly, and famine… threatening them”.

“And how would such a pious course answer for you to very many (and some of them your brethren) who think you are gone from us in affection and brotherly kindness, as well as in place. And let me speak freely to you, that if so just a motion as this should find no place with you, I fear that God will be angry with you.”

—Again, the writer is one of those people who makes sure to tell you all the negative gossip about you, and all the people who don’t like you, all the while morphing from a friend who wants you to know to one of those angry haters. After saying God is punishing England for its sins with this plague, the writer does a 180 and says if Winthrop and his people don’t respond to the request for a fast and prayer, God will punish them. One might be forgiven, in Winthrop’s place, for thinking that maybe the letter writer should be more concerned about whether God is angry with him and spend less time threatening Winthrop. How “just a motion” does it really seem to have someone threaten you if you won’t help them?

“And O that some powerful sermon that would endure the reading in old England, preached with you upon such a day, might come to our hands here, how joyfully we would read it, and… how readily we should object it to all such as either condemn or suspect you of uncharitableness and unnatural affections?”

—Since the English Puritans are censored and their ministers removed from the pulpit, New England’s ministers should preach a “powerful sermon”, perhaps condemning the English government, and have it published in London. This suicidal gesture, sure to bring royal persecution to Massachusetts, would be made simply to try to win back the love of English Puritans who, as the writer points out for the 100th time, condemn and suspect the New England brethren.

“And now perhaps you may think (at least I know many among you would, for I am well acquainted with the spirits of many with you in this thing) that all these things savor of fear, unbelief, and over-much discretion.”

—At last the letter writer acknowledged that perhaps he is an exceedingly annoying person. Even in acknowledging this he is insulting: he says “you may think” and then, realizing Winthrop will take “you” to mean himself, adds “at least I know many among you would”. That is, he knows Winthrop is fine, but all the people with him are fallen, conceited people who will somehow take offense to this letter.

“But I would answer them, that what I thus write, it is for their sakes, and well may I show love, but why fear for their sakes…”

—It’s tough love here from England, cruel to be kind, and for New England’s own good that the letter writer vents his craven fear for his own safety and irritation on those lucky enough to have sacrificed everything to go to Massachusetts while he sits comfortably at home.

“…whether I shall ever come over unto you, I know not, for I desire to do the work of God and to glorify him here or there, living and dying, and I have found the Lord’s special presence with me now of late… and I can but enjoy his presence in any part of the world.”

—The last blow here repeats what many of Winthrop’s, and probably other colonists’, correspondents so often said: yes, we’ll be coming over soon, but not this year. This year’s not good for me; let’s try next year. This would go on for a decade before the pretext that the correspondents in England would ever leave there for the hardship of New England was dropped. But the letter writer here goes further, getting in another dig at what he sees as the conceitedness of the colonists who, able to worship freely, believed they were serving God more completely than any other Christians. The letter writer says he won’t be coming over, maybe ever, but, unlike Winthrop, he wants to do God’s work in England, where it is actually needed most, and unlike Winthrop, he can enjoy God’s presence anywhere, he doesn’t have to be secluded from the world in the wilderness to be close to God.

We’ll wrap this letter up next time with the writer’s craven demands for anonymity and secrecy; how would he have felt if he had known his letter would go down in history in all its carping and self-serving glory?

Next time: the end!

Lecture from England: John Winthrop’s annoying “friend”

Welcome to part 3 of our look at the anonymous May 1637 letter to John Winthrop from a “friend” in England. We left off with the friend really enjoying his lengthy description of how much everyone in England hates the New England Puritans led by Winthrop; now we move on to his recommendations to remedy the situation. All spellings and usages are modernized:

“Now give me leave to propose some few things, of which some perhaps, if not all, may do you good. 1. You may please in some public meeting to disclaim all such letters tending to the purpose first mentioned, and [also] to establish an order against any that shall ever be known to …send over such letters to us, and against any that shall speak among you to such or the like purpose…”

—So Governor Winthrop should hold a public meeting to officially condemn people who write letters home to England that a) mention anything about the colony’s religious discipline or b) the threats against it from England (these are the “purpose[s] first mentioned”). Winthrop should also make a law against sending that kind of letter [“establish an order”], and even against public speech in Massachusetts itself on the topic of the colony’s religious settlement or political situation. That’s not too draconian, apparently, for the saint in England. But if people who form a colony devoted to free practice of their religion are threatened on pain of law if they discuss their religion, what is the point of that colony? Again, one gets the feeling that the anonymous letter writer is more concerned about his own safety than the success of the Puritan project in America: if Massachusetts Bay colonists can’t write dangerous letters to England, then the letter writer in England is safe, because he will never receive such a letter.

“…so if any question be made… of these things against you, by any in our state, …your order and penalty [on letter writers] may secure you.”

—Here the letter writer covers his tracks to say that Winthrop’s censorship law will keep him safe if a dangerous letter does reach England; he can always say he tried to stamp such letters out. This friend’s complete misjudgment of John Winthrop’s character is glaring here. Winthrop was completely devoted to the mission of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and would never let the colony suffer England’s wrath while protecting himself. He would also never dictate a law censoring expressions of religious fervor by his colonists. These expressions, in letters home, were tools of witness to God’s grace and protection of the colony.

“2. You may please to have further cautions given in every plantation, touching writing over to us about your discipline, [and about being] censorious of us here in their letters to us, not calling any of us, as I understand some have done, dogs and swine, especially those of the [more profane] sort among us, nor questioning our ministry and calling to it, as another with you did in a letter written over to a godly minister and friend of both the parties and mine; for your disclaiming of these and the like odious things shall much advantage you, to the preservation of brotherly affections and peace with your friends in old England.”

—We mentioned last time how the root of the problem here is that almost as soon as Winthrop’s group of Puritans left England, a divide grew up between them and their English fellows. Even before he left England, John Winthrop wrote a long treatise insisting that he and his group were not abandoning the others, would not forget them, and would do everything in their power to make a godly colony in America that every Puritan in England would be welcome in. Puritans believed that God was just about to strike England down for its refusal to follow the true religion, and many sincerely believed that those Puritans left behind in England would have to live through the apocalypse there. While the group was united in its drive to set up an American colony where the true religion could be safe, and carry on after England was destroyed, those who could not afford to emigrate, or could not leave their families, or had any other misgivings or mitigating circumstances that kept them in doomed England did feel abandoned by their luckier colleagues. Resentment and jealousy and fear turned to hostility once American Puritans started sending letters home to England about how well they were doing. All was well in America, while England continued its journey toward doomsday, and the Americans didn’t even seem to care anymore that their correspondents were living out the last days. Cold responses to American letters, and more open criticism of the religious settlement developed in Massachusetts, led colonists to lash out at their former allies, saying English Puritans were tainted by their sinful surroundings and not quite pure anymore.

So the friend here is saying Winthrop should outlaw letters home that make these insults, and gives interestingly frank examples of Massachusetts colonists calling English Puritans dogs and swine, and “questioning our ministry and calling to it”—that is, claiming that the Puritan church in England was no longer doing God’s work and was not a real ministry anymore. These were heavy accusations indeed, and one can see how they would hurt and anger people who received those kinds of letters. Then again, we must wonder what kind of letters from England might have been received by colonists that led them to strike out in this way.

Again, the letter writer knows about these accusations because the English Puritans lose no time in distributing the letters widely, sharing them with everyone they know. The letter writer heard about one letter from a friend of a friend who got the letter. Yet somehow it is Winthrop’s fault that these letters are traveling all over England, and Winthrop is the one who must enforce censorship.

“3. That any of you be advised how they do answer the letters of their friends sent over from us to you; for we hear of a letter that Mr. Cotton should write (how true the report is, I know not yet) in answer to a letter written to him by one Mr. Bernard in Somersetshire, a man though upright in the main, yet of very great weakness; wherein, as we hear, Mr. Cotton should write that we are [not really a true church], which if it be so (as you may soon understand) will do not a little hurt among us…”

—Again, the rumor mill is working overtime in England, and the letter writer feels free to complain about a letter that Boston minister John Cotton may or may not have written; indeed, the writer even says he has no idea if this letter really exists but he’s going to go ahead and complain about it anyway. The mafia-type threat in the parentheses (“as you may soon understand”) gives Winthrop to know that English Puritans basically believe that if they experience any internal dissension (“hurt among us”), they will blame the MBC for it.Rather than blame themselves for blabbing about letters that may or may not exist and may or may not insult them.

“4. That your ministers… be persuaded to please to write over their kind letters to their friends with us, especially to the chiefest of the ministers with us…”

—Winthrop here should also instruct his ministers to write nice letters praising the English ministers, and to make sure they write the nicest things to the highest-ranking Puritan ministers. The sincerity of such forced correspondence would have to be suspect, but not to the letter writer.

“…be wary how [you] receive some such books as have of late been written in our land, which have more stirred the state than ever I knew it…”

—The letter writer then goes into a lengthy description of such books that takes up two pages. Two books in particular have provoked the fury of the English government: one that condemns people who don’t observe the Sabbath; and one that says the unreformed Anglican Church is in league with the devil. The letter writer has a wonderful description of this second book, saying the author “speaks of the bishops that which the Arch-angel would not speak to the Devil”.

The English Puritans had to be careful not to condemn the Anglican church or, by implication, the King who was the head of it. They had to maintain that they wanted to improve the church, not destroy it, and they had to make the case that the church was holy enough to be capable of this improvement. But in their drive to be careful and cautious and not bring down more state persecution on themselves, the English Puritans came to undermine the purpose of their colony in America, which was to be a beacon of God’s light and the true religion. Of course American Puritans were sending to England for these books that made strong arguments for things they believed in; they had crossed an ocean to have the freedom to worship as they saw fit and to make a clear and unflinching stand against untrue religion. They did not believe the unreformed Anglican Church was holy. They did not believe bishops did God’s work, and they had no bishops in New England. Intoxicated by their relative freedom, American Puritans eagerly supported strong condemnations of the religious status quo in England, which they saw as hastening God’s judgment on that kingdom. The hesitating, over-cautious attitude of their colleagues in England baffled and then angered some Americans. If English Puritans really hated fallen England, they should make the sacrifices necessary to leave England for America. If they didn’t do this, American Puritans began to suspect that English Puritans were more okay with the status quo than they let on.

Thousands of English Puritans did leave England during the 1630s, in what we call the Great Migration. But most of them went to the West Indies rather than New England. Part of the reason for this is the animosity built up between England and Massachusetts in the early days of that colony.

Next time: signs of apocalypse in England and a plea to New England

“A Wonderful disaffection in very many towards you” – the letter from John Winthrop’s anonymous “friend”

Part 2 of our look at Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop’s anonymous letter from a friend in England gets deeper into the “loving” complaints this correspondent makes against the colony and, by implication, Winthrop’s leadership. All spellings modernized:

“…there came over not long since a letter from you to a friend with us which, I fear, through indiscretion, the eyes and ears of many have been made privy to, to this effect, that whereas it is reported there will be a Governor and a Bishop sent over unto you, he hopes [that] God will give you grace to stand for his truth; which words will carry a strange construction with our state… and redound to the prejudice of you all.”

—We left off with the writer telling Winthrop to watch the letters coming from the MBC to England, which were often full of “weak & dangerous passages”. Here the writer says that someone in the colony wrote to England that the people in Massachusetts have heard the threats that the king is going to take over the colony and send a royal governor and bishops. This would mean the people’s elected governor, Winthrop, and their independent religious establishment would both be destroyed. The person writing from MBC says that if that happens, he hopes that God will give the people of the colony the strength to “stand for his truth”—that is, to resist. This is wrong in the eyes of Winthrop’s correspondent; no one in the MBC should be writing about how they would launch a rebellion against the crown. It’s true that this would anger the king and his government (“carry a strange construction with our state”), but on the other hand, what else should the people of the MBC say they would do if the whole basis of their colony, of their holy mission from God, was attacked? One would think that English Puritans would support a holy rebellion. And if the whole problem is that the MBC letter was widely circulated and copied, whose fault is that? The fault here seems to lie with the people in England who took a private letter and made it public, not with the colonist who confided his thoughts to friend or family.

“Another among you writes… that you are like to have wars the next year with old England!”

—It’s not surprising that people in the MBC believed they would be at war with England when they heard several reports from people in the know that England was going to wage war with them by taking over their colony. We don’t know how the colonist writing the letter in question meant this statement—he may have been grieving and terrified at the prospect. But the statement here is represented as boasting, and the MBC takes the blame for once again stirring up trouble by talking rebellion.

“Others have written as freely and unadvisedly about your discipline, [and] the opinions and tenets you hold, whether all of them as they relate, or not, we know not; which hath caused a wonderful disaffection in very many towards you, [which] if it be not maturely healed, [will cause] a great rent in affection between you and them, that though we are like to see sad times, yet there are, till they be otherwise informed, who are resolved to undergo much misery here, rather than ever remove hence.”

—Many colonists are writing home describing the church discipline they have set up in the MBC—that is, the laws governing religious practice. The whole point of going to America was to establish a state where purified Anglicanism could be practiced freely, and that practice could be clearly thought out and described and a pure church law could be written. But many English Puritans did not like the church doctrines being developed in America. The divide between American and English Puritans developed almost instantly, and only grew as the decades passed. English Puritans, persecuted by their government and trying to keep the faith alive, were more cautious and less willing to make bold statements than American Puritans. English Puritans never developed a church doctrine; for them, there were always other things to do, and they used their persecuted state to paper over the fact that they could never come to any agreement on how their church should be structured. The MBC Puritans were a smaller group, they had sacrificed everything to start a new, godly state, they were in agreement about their purpose, and they lost no time in coming to agreements about how they would worship and codifying that worship in a church doctrine called the New England Way.

This drive and achievement grated on English Puritans, who felt shown up by their erstwhile brethren. Jealous of the American group’s unity and courage, English Puritans turned their achievement into an accusation and used it to give those who were reluctant to suffer privations and cold in New England a good excuse not to emigrate. As the letter writer says, the alarming religious doctrines expressed in the MBC have caused such distaste amongst English Puritans that they find themselves kind of hating the American brethren (“disaffection”), and they would rather stay in England and be persecuted than go to America to join them (“though we are like to see sad times here, [some] are resolved to undergo much misery here rather than ever remove hence”). Winthrop was no stranger to friends and family members claiming every winter that they would be with him in America come the spring, then writing every spring to say they weren’t coming. “Just wait til next year” was the common cry of those who, while rejecting all that sinful England represented, were not so disdainful of living in a civilized nation with a big modern city and all the comforts of home. Those foot-dragging saints now had an excuse for failing to jump ship from doomed England, and they would use it often.

“And one of not mean rank, and of long approved holiness, hearing of your renouncing us to be a church… contrary to your declaration at your first going over, professed secretly to one that told it to me, that he could scarce tell how to pray for you.”

—This is particularly cold. The writer is saying that a high-ranking Puritan saint has heard rumors that the Puritans in America have separated from the English church—that they have rejected Anglicanism. This would have made the American Puritans no longer Puritans but Separatists, like the hated Pilgrims in Plymouth. Now that saint in England doesn’t even believe that he can pray for the people of the MBC, because they are no longer Christians but tools of Satan (as was everyone who was not a Puritan). These are very cruel attacks to relay to Winthrop. First, if a high-ranking Puritan, perhaps someone in the government, turns his back on the colony, the danger of its being taken over by the crown grows exponentially. Second, for someone of John Winthrop’s great devoutness to hear that people he considers to be friends and religious leaders no longer think they can mention his name to God without offending God would have been a terrible blow. It would have really made Winthrop doubt himself. Third, how does the letter writer know of this high-ranking person’s hatred? The high-ranking person told someone about it and that person gossiped it to the letter writer. Again, mean-spirited gossip and skulduggery are flourishing amongst the godly in England, and the Puritans in New England are blamed for it. Last, the letter writer has absolutely no proof that the Puritans in America have rejected Puritanism or separated; it’s just a piece of malevolent gossip. But he gives it full credit and passes it on to Winthrop as chastisement.

“…my intention is to show what a rent and alienation there is like to be, [not] a little fearing the consequences that will come hereby, both to you and us, from others… that, if possible, as much as in you lies, you may endeavor a prevention of them.”

—Here the weaselly nature of the writer really comes clear: he is only telling Winthrop all these things because he doesn’t want the MBC to be hurt… or for himself to be in danger. The consequences that will come “both to you and us” seem to appear to this writer as mostly dangers to “us”—that is, the Puritans in England. And he puts the onus completely on Winthrop to stop this danger from coming, as if it were a) all New England’s fault, or b) Winthrop’s duty to fix things in England, or c) within Winthrop’s power to censor all letters leaving Massachusetts for England. What about the English Puritans’ responsibility to a) stop spreading gossip, b) keep private letters private, c) stand up for themselves to their government, or, failing that, d) emigrate to New England and be free of England’s persecution?

“[The] whole kingdom begins… to be full of prejudice against you, and you are spoken of disgracefully and with bitterness, in the greatest meetings of the kingdom. The pulpits sound of you, and the judges begin to mention you in their charges [A circuit judge in London said] that they should take notice of such as inclined towards New England, for they were the causes of error and faction in Church and State.”

—What we notice here is that the letter writer seems at this point to take a malicious pleasure in telling Winthrop about the hatred his group in America inspires in England. The tone is most decidedly not mournful or outraged here, but is more Iago-like, as the letter writer fills Winthrop’s head with threats and problems then disappears, once the letter is read, into the safety of England to leave Winthrop to try to figure out what is true and what is not and what he should do. The letter writer is tacitly blaming the MBC for heightened persecution of English Puritans by saying that the colonists’ religious doctrine and supposed heresy against Anglicanism has led the government (in the shape of this circuit court judge) to put the clampdown on Puritans trying to emigrate to America. But this seems to be just another excuse for English Puritans not making the journey to America. Of course English Puritans were persecuted by people in the government; that’s the whole reason there was an MBC. To blame the colonists for making this worse is just an indictment of the timidity of Puritans remaining at home.

We’ll see as we continue that this tension between American and English Puritans is the underlying, mostly unspoken theme of this letter and many others at the time. It’s a sad but not unusual truth that despite the best efforts of those who left England for America, those who stayed behind felt abandoned and disdained, and this suspicion that American Puritans were glad to be rid of England and their English brethren, that they had run out on their English brethren, leaving them to face the apocalypse that was coming when God destroyed England, would poison relations between New England and Old England swiftly and surely over the coming decades.

Next time: censorship, censorship, censorship

Most annoying colonial correspondent: John Winthrop’s anonymous “friend”, May 1637

As governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and arguably its leading citizen from the colony’s founding in 1630 to his death in 1649, John Winthrop, Sr., received and wrote a great deal of correspondence. People great and common wrote him asking for help, favors, advice, and news. Many letters to him have been preserved over the centuries, thanks in large part to the work of the Massachusetts Historical Society. One in particular excites our notice: an anonymous letter written in May 1637 from England.

Winthrop, like most MBC colonists, had a steady correspondence with friends, family, and colleagues who remained in England. As Puritans, Winthrop and his correspondents practiced mutual watch, which meant they alerted each other constantly to potential pitfalls along the way to seeking God’s righteousness, pointing out errors they felt their friends were committing and gladly receiving correction, as they would have called it, for their own mistakes. Puritans remaining in England were particularly watchful of the state of the fledgling Puritan colony in America. So much was riding on its success; if the MBC could thrive and remain on a path of righteousness, then a) all the English Puritans could leave England, where they were seriously endangered, and flee confidently to Massachusetts; b) true religion would not perish from the earth when God destroyed England; and c) England and its church might actually be reformed if they could clearly see that God was blessing the Puritans in America while battering the Anglicans in England.

1637 was a crucial year in this anxious watching and waiting to see if God would really bless New England. There were many doubters even amongst the English Puritans. Many early emigrants to America had permanently returned to England, bearing tales of hardship, starvation, cruelly cold weather, and, most importantly and worryingly, religious and political apostasy. (It is somehow poignant to note how shocked English people were by the winter weather in New England; English colonists had not yet encountered American cold [having only been in Virginia] and some believed that the extreme temperatures, so unlike anything they had ever experienced in England, were a sign that New England was not the promised land, and that God did not bless their venture there, and was trying to drive them out.) Returnees and even MBC colonists writing letters told enough about the political innovations of the colony to make English Puritans worry that the colonists were practicing treason (making all adult males freemen, for example, and allowing them to vote for their governor and legislature, and having all freemen swear a loyalty oath to the colony rather than the king). English Puritans, while persecuted by King Charles I, did not want their colony in America to launch a rebellion against him because that would only lead Charles to make the MBC into a royal colony under his direct control, which would have meant an end to the Puritanism practiced there.

English Puritans were perhaps even more alarmed at word of religious “innovations” being introduced in Massachusetts. They worried that the complete freedom colonists had to worship as they saw fit in America, and their release from the state persecution that had knit English Puritans tightly together as a resistance unit, was leading to pointless and divisive arguments about how to worship, which was leading to new ideas and unsound theology.

These fears were confirmed for many by news of the Antinomian Controversy, which began to reach England in 1637. This religious civil war, led by John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson in Boston, was thoroughly and luridly described in letters from New England and publications from Boston and in London, and seemed to show English Puritans that the MBC was going off the rails, reaping the harvest of its chaotic religious arguments. The Antinomians were condemned, but so too were some of the conclusions their opponents came to in Boston, and John Winthrop’s description of the errors Wheelwright and Hutchinson had been condemned for only convinced many English Puritans that New England had quickly become a place where any lunatic could raise a devoted following.

This bad press came at a time when anti-Puritan Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud was working hard to have the MBC’s charter, or patent, revoked; this document gave the colonists permission to settle in America and to form their own government. Many English Puritans saw the MBC as irresponsibly sabotaging its own chances of survival, and they took the opportunity to write to their brethren in America to complain.

One such letter, and a perfect example of the genre, is an anonymous letter sent to Governor Winthrop in May 1637. He must have received it in late June or July. It is an astounding piece of work, doing three things at once: warning Winthrop of the dangers to his colony in London; praying for the colony’s survival; and taking every opportunity to slag off the MBC and everyone in it as lousy, degenerate, lazy jerks whom everyone in England hates. But with love. It is a tribute to John Winthrop’s complete lack of ego that he saved this letter,and likely responded to it very patiently. (We have many more letters that Winthrop received than letters he wrote; as governor, he felt it a duty to posterity to save his correspondence, but the people he wrote to were not as careful.) Let’s go over this remarkably long and haranguing missive, if not in full, then in large part (spellings modernized):

“Myself and many others are daily petitioners to God, for his grace to abound to you in New England, that you may increase in faith, wisdom, humility, love, zeal, patience, brotherly kindness, etc., enjoying such a competency of outward prosperity as may make you to live in the service of the Lord the more comfortably. And we are exceedingly glad to hear of your welfare, and especially your growth in holiness.”

—Already this first paragraph might irritate us as modern people, but it is in line with the usual Puritan watch and “exhortation”; Winthrop would have been grateful that so many in England were praying for his spiritual success and that of the colony, and he would not have seen this opening paragraph as implying that he and the colonists were not all they should be. It’s interesting here to see the writer say that he hopes the colony’s economy will improve (“competency of outward prosperity”) so that the people can “live in the service of the Lord more comfortably”—it’s unusual for a Puritan to admit that it’s a lot easier to devote yourself to prayer when you’re not poor and starving.

“I have been much moved of late… to write my slender advice to some prudent man among you, and one gracious with the plantations, and thereby able to give counsel to them, and to prevail with them in things conducing to God’s glory and your own prosperities.”

—He is writing to Winthrop because Winthrop is that prudent man whom everyone in New England loves (“gracious with the plantations”); now the burden is on Winthrop to listen to what the writer has to say because he is the only man in New England who has the clout and the respect to give its people advice. Winthrop, thus deliberately singled out, becomes at once someone to pass along the criticisms in this letter and the victim of those criticisms, since, as the colony’s leader, the implication is that he should have been stopping the bad behavior there on his own without having to be told to do so.

“First, I have read and heard of sundry letters written from some with you unto others with us, (and I fear there have been very many such sent over to us into diverse parts of our land,) wherein there are many weak, and some dangerous passages, which if they should come to the eyes or ears of any one of the many thousands of your adversaries, it would afford them matter enough to attempt your undoing, what in them did lie.”

—People in the MBC are writing home to England, not just to London but to many different locations in England, so the things they say are widely known, and most of those letters say stupid things that could bring down royal control on your colony (which would be its “undoing”). Who would be angered by these letters? Why, any of the “many thousands” of the colony’s enemies. This first reference—and there will be many, many more—to people in England hating people in New England might not have raised John Winthrop’s suspicions; he might have thought that the writer was referring to anti-Puritan Anglicans. As the letter goes on, however, Winthrop must have wondered two things: if these “adversaries” didn’t include those who called themselves the colonists their “dear brethren”; and whether their criticisms weren’t directed at him in particular and not just those ignorant colonists who wrote careless letters.

Next time: what the dangerous letters from New England say

Ron Paul, secession, and twisting history

Yesterday on the radio show Talk of the Nation (click that to see the transcript we’re working from) Republican Representative Ron Paul was a guest, along with independent Senator Joe Lieberman, talking about what lies ahead after their respective retirements from Congress next year. The host of the show brought up comments Paul made about secession after President Obama’s re-election in November. Some Texans have been talking about their state seceding from the union as a result of this election, and Paul joined in to confirm the right of any state to secede, comparing it, as people defending secession so often have, to the Revolutionary War. Paul made the comments the show was referring to on Fox News’ Cavuto program on December 1 (the lead-in for which was a host saying “Well, President Obama’s in, now more states want out”—surely an exaggeration, given that the number of people signing secession petitions in all of the states involved but Texas range in the low ten-thousands out of populations of millions). Paul began by saying he did not support secession, but averred that secession is allowed in the U.S. He couldn’t say it’s constitutional, of course, because secession is not provided for there, but called upon those ever-flexible Founders to say that secession is a non-extreme idea that they would have supported.

The states which have residents signing petitions are strangely familiar as a group: Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South and North Carolina (and Arizona, the odd man out here).

On Talk of the Nation, Paul offered this bizarre scenario when asked about his statements: “What if today, Greece, seceded from the European Union? The European Union got together, invaded Greece and killed about 50,000 people? We would frown on that.” One can only extrapolate that Paul is comparing the U.S. Civil War to this EU scenario, and criticizing the U.S. decision to fight the Civil War against the Confederacy (though one can’t figure out where the 50,000 number comes from).

Paul went on to say: “I think the freedom to leave is the description of whether or not you’re free. The Soviet system was so bad you could not leave. If you left, you got shot. So you have to have the right to leave. In secession, leaving—coming together is voluntary, so once you can’t leave, you lose your right of independence and self-determination becomes a very bad situation.”

This is a constant argument that Americans touting the right of secession use and, except for the Soviet reference, of course, the argument proslavery southerners made before the Civil War. The idea is that the United States are united by choice, not force, and therefore are free to leave the union whenever they want. This is simply untrue. Joining was voluntary; continued participation in the union is not. There is no protocol in the Constitution for states to leave the union, because if any state could leave at any time, it would be impossible to maintain a functioning nation. The only attempt by states to leave the union was answered by war. Being required to continue within the union is not equivalent to being imprisoned in a police state. The difference between the Soviet Union and the United States is that citizens of the states are able to participate in politics and create the change they desire.

Referring to the Revolution is also invalid, because the situation of colonies within an empire is not the same as states within the U.S. Colonies are goverened as satellites, without full rights as citizens. Colonies that break away from an empire know they must fight a war to do so, because they have no representation within the government of the empire, and are controlled for profit alone, a profit the empire will not want to lose. The states of the U.S. are not in that situation, as the American colonies once were, and so secession since the War is not the same as fighting for independence from an imperial government.

So far in the radio interview, Paul had only toed the usual misinformed line on secession that aligns it with the Founders and 1776, just as proslavery secessionists did in the late antebellum period. But then he veered into even more myth, claiming that during the War of 1812, New England tried to secede: “If you study history carefully, I think you’ll recognize that it was well accepted and recognized north – the New England states, you know, were much more into secession than South was, you know, early on in the 19th century.”

Unfortunately, host Neal Conant affirmed this myth. The facts, however, are that during the War of 1812, which, like the Revolution, hit New England harder than other regions of the country, some New England Federalists threatened to call a convention to discuss secession. Like all Americans who call for secession, they claimed that they were “defending the true principles of the Constitution and of the nation itself” (Disunion! The Coming of the American Civil War, by Elizabeth Varon, 37). This Federalist fringe was immediately attacked by Democratic Republicans north and south, and by the time of the Hartford Convention in December 1814, any support New England secessionists had had withered away to almost nothing, and attendees of the Convention did not even discuss secession. Southerners, however, would hold the Convention over New England’s head for decades, at first chastising the region for its treason, and, in the 1850s, using the incident as proof that secession was legal (Ibid., 38-9 – for more on the changing nature of secession talk between 1787 and 1861, see Disunion: the battle over slavery before the Civil War).

So secession was never “well accepted and recognized” in the north, nor is it true that “New England states, you know, were much more into secession than South was”. New England was shamed and humiliated for decades afterward by its brief and very partial interest in threatening to secede, and most of that shame and humiliation was heaped on by the south—until the south wanted to defend secession as patriotic, at which point it praised New England for its early bandwagoning.

Paul went on to add to his misinterpretation of history by saying, “they recognized that it wasn’t like – it wasn’t evil, that they weren’t evil people because they wanted to separate themselves”. But of course New Englanders were made to feel evil because of the actions of a small fringe group, and New England in general did not want to separate itself.

Paul then wrapped up by dragging out the tired horse of states’ rights, saying “just having the right to secede or nullify would restrain, you know, the advancement of the central state. Now, if you lean towards saying, well, no, we need a stronger, more centralized control, then, of course, you don’t want that. But those of us who are strict constitutionalists and libertarians and all, we want government, local and at home, and not at the central level because we don’t believe in the central economic planning, whether it’s social planning or economic planning.”

The idea here is that if all the states were individual, not bound in a federal union, each would just have its state government, and we would not be subject to the horrors of big federal government. How “strict constitutionalists” could hold this position,which is clearly not part of the U.S. constitution, is unclear. But the idea that state governments are all good and pure, and would never trample the rights of state citizens like the federal government, and that the states are locked in an eternal battle with the evil empire in Washington, is not only an old one but one that is patently false. If the complaint against the federal government is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and so states must strip the federal government of its power, what happens when states have all the power? Then each absolute state government will become absolutely as corrupted as the federal government is believed to be, because each will be the only government for its citizens. If the idea is that a state government is more responsive to its constituents because it is closer to them, and answers only to the people of its own state, that would surely be undone if the state government became the only government, with absolute power, and no outside, federal power to monitor its fairness.

The moral of the interview is: follow whatever political course you like—that’s the premise of the United States. But get the details right, and don’t ignore, or remain ignorant of, historical facts that interfere with your preferred world view. …and if you’re going to advocate “studying history carefully”, make sure you lead by example.

Give me liberty or give me death! – an appreciation

Here we pay homage to Patrick Henry and his speech of March 23, 1775 to the Second Virginia Convention. The speech ends with the well-known line “Give me liberty or give me death!”. but the whole speech is well worth looking at, and makes the ending even more incredibly stirring than it already is.

Henry founded the Virginia Committee of Correspondence, was a delegate to the First Continental Congress, and was a member of the Convention which began meeting on March 20 in St. John’s Church (as it is known today) rather than the Virginia capital at Williamsburg because it had been prevented from meeting by British officials (just as Massachusetts’ Assembly had been outlawed and forbidden to meet in Boston). This was exactly 30 days before hostilities in Massachusetts between British soldiers and patriot milita led to the first battles of the Revolutionary War (see The Revolution did not begin at Lexington and Concord), so the possibility of armed conflict between a colonial militia and the redcoats was not out of the question, even in Virginia, where tensions were not running quite as high as in New England.

Patrick Henry presented a formal proposal to form a militia to Convention President Peyton Randolph. We do not have a contemporary transcription of his speech; no one wrote it down at the time, but Henry’s first biographer William Wirt pieced it together from the recollections of men who heard it, and remembered especially its stirring conclusion, and from notes in Henry’s papers. Here it is as we have it, until the day that some new finding tells us that this version is all wrong. Frankly, we think that if this isn’t the speech Henry actually gave, it should have been, and whoever wrote it if not Henry was a master of the rhetoric of liberty we wish we could celebrate by name:

“MR. PRESIDENT: No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely, and without reserve.”

—Clearly some men have spoken out against forming a militia; Henry will now oppose them as forcefully as possible.

“This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.”

—If only our members of Congress today could harken back to this guiding idea(l) that “in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate”; it seems today that the more important the issue, the less real debate is allowed, and only grandstanding and accusations of non-patriotism are allowed.

“Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

—For Henry the situation is very clear: they as Americans are in a “great and arduous struggle for liberty”, even before any battles are fought or any war is declared against Britain. As protectors of liberty, all Americans are called to “know the whole truth” and prepare for the worst—a war with Britain.

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves, and the House? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these war-like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort.”

—Here, when speaking of “our petition”, Henry is referring to The Declaration and Resolves drafted by the First Continental Congress in October 1774 demanding the repeal of the Coercive Acts (known to us today as the Intolerable Acts). Britain would not respond formally to the petition, and instead sent more and more troops to the colonies.

“I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.”

—When he talks about “the last ten years” Henry is referring to the protests which began with the Sugar Act in 1764. Americans had been protesting punitive British taxes and restrictions of American liberties, both violently and nonviolently, since that date—to no avail, as the influx of troops and the rejection of The Resolves and Declaration proved.

“Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!”

—Here is where Henry really picks up steam and gets the blood of a patriot singing. Will Americans “abandon the noble struggle” which they have “pledged never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained”? Or will they—will we—fight for our liberty, for our freedom? We must fight, according to Henry, even if our only ally in that fight is God himself.

“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?”

—Again, this was no idle threat or imagining, as the Quartering Act mandated that Americans offer food and lodging to British soldiers, and by this time, about half the population of Boston, Massachusetts was made up of British soldiers who were part of the troop surge to the colonies.

“Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.”

—One can almost picture those three million people cloaked in the aura of “the holy cause of liberty”, “invincible by any force”; it is a righteous army indeed that Henry conjures up for the Convention. And, as the Bible puts it, if God be on our side, who can be against us?

“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.”

—By “election” Henry means “choice”. The clanking of the chains of slavery now heard in Boston, cannot be long delayed in reaching Virginia. Henry would be proved right that the war was inevitable by the fighting outside Boston a month later.

“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!”

Nothing we can say here adds anything to this mighty conclusion. The men of the Second Virginia Convention remembered rising from their seats in what we might call an adrenaline rush by the time Henry got out the last words, and this time, unlike when he spoke out against the Stamp Act in 1765 in the Virginia House of Burgesses, no one cried out “Treason! Treason!” (That speech was the source of Henry’s other famous ultimatum, in his reply to the shouts—“If this be treason, make the most of it.”)

Patrick Henry’s eloquence ruled the day, but was even more powerful when vindicated by events a month later in Massachusetts. He became a colonel in the 1st Virginia Regiment in August 1775, and served as Virginia’s governor from 1776-1779. He was a member of the Virginia Assembly from 1780-84, and died in 1799.

We are justified in our frustration and disgust at Henry’s slaveholding; it is our cross to bear that many of the men who spoke of and fought for liberty enslaved black Americans. We can only take comfort in the fact that 62 years after his death, Henry’s words sound remarkably like the language of abolitionists, and could well have been used to inspire the men who fought the Civil War to end slavery.

Americans who want stuff, or, election 2012

Part 2 of our short posts on the 2012 election and the changing demographics and mixing and merging voter identifications coming into play sees us taking a quick and close look at Bill O’Reilly’s election night complaint about how “traditional America” is changing, not just to talk about 2012, but to put “tradition” in perspective.

What O’Reilly said on air was:

“It’s a changing country. The demographics are changing. It’s not a traditional America any more.”

—It’s hard to think of a time in American/U.S. history when you could not say this. This is the story of America from 1607 on. “Traditional” America is always the America of about 50 years previous to whatever year it currently is—just long enough ago that people who were young then are still around to miss and mourn it, but people in their prime were small children who can’t really remember it or who missed it completely, being born a decade later. This magical formula allows older people to claim that the time they grew up in was normative and permanent and how things were 100 years before them, but is now being destroyed. Americans made this claim in 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000… and will continue to do so for as long as we live in this country, it seems.

“And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it.”

—Doesn’t every presidential candidate run on giving the people what they want? Whether it’s lower taxes, social programs, avoiding war, or raising incomes, people running for president generally tell Americans they are going to give them what they want. By using the word “things”, O’Reilly is deprecating Americans for wanting material goods—one assumes he means cars and iPads and other consumer items, and is therefore shaming us for no longer wanting ideals, like people did 50 years ago, like freedom and power and equality.

“And, whereby twenty years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney, the white establishment is now the minority.”

—There’s the key: 20 years ago, whites wouldn’t have voted for a man who was offering “things.” They would have voted lofty ideals. But now, whites are in the minority, and the non-white vote is dominant, and that’s why the vote has turned crass and materialistic. “Establishment” here means white, “traditional”, moral, and, of course, imaginary. 100 years ago the votes being disparaged were those that today are considered white: Italians, Slovaks, Czechs, Russians, Hungarians, Catholics (from anywhere), Greeks. 100 years ago the Establishment did not consider these people to be white, and warned the nation continually that they were sullying the vote and democracy and the nation itself. So again, this is not a new tactic in 2012, to blame immigrants who are considered non-white for ruining the nation by voting.

“And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff.”

—This seems to make sense. But the implication here is that the economic system is not really stacked against these voters, and they are whining, lazy, “47-percenters” (even though they are now the majority) who want more than they deserve. Note that when white people want something it is valid to give it to them, but when non-white voters want something it is not valid to give it to them.

“You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama, overwhelming black vote for President Obama.”

—Natch. A black man could only ever want to help non-white people. The implication is that he is a sham president, someone who broke the windows of the Establishment store and is now handing out its contents to fellow looters.

“And women will probably break President Obama’s way.”

—Here the race line is crossed to damn women of all colors. This too is fairly standard, as the only prejudice stronger than racism is sexism. Women will “break” for the president; this language subtly damns women as unintelligent beings who will follow the stampede of other sub-par voters to the non-Establishment president.

“People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?”

—Of course it is the black president. The white candidate for president would never give non-Establishment people things because… well, it’s hard to say. Because they don’t deserve them, they shouldn’t want them, Establishment candidates focus on ideals not things, the list goes on, and is manipulated according to audience.

So we see that O’Reilly’s rant is not really about 2012, but the constant complaint of those who see the time they grew up in receding fast, and don’t like what they see replacing it. This has gone on for as long as non-native people have lived in this country, and likely went on long before that time as well. Our job as Americans is to accept change, resist racism and sexism, and most importantly to refuse to draw a line between “things” and “ideals” when it comes to politics, since the Establishment ideal is often to give things only to certain people and not to others.