Seeking the Soul of America.

                                                              
The Englishmen in the English colonies in America in the 18^th century liked being Englishmen and they liked England and they liked England’s monarchical form of government. These American Englishmen had good reason to like England and its—their—government as they were among the freest, most prosperous people on earth.

Why then did they revolt?  Partly because they were Englishmen and thus among the most ungovernable people on earth. Proximately they revolted because of a dispute with their government over taxes:

“Taxation without representation is tyranny!”

No. No, actually taxation without representation is not tyranny. Nothing close to tyranny, really. In fact that’s insulting to real tyrants.

The rallying cry of the colonists—their campaign slogan as we would say today—was, as campaign slogans often are, overheated to the point of being wrong. And dumb. But the Founding Fathers weren’t dumb were they?  Well, dumb is as dumb does but no, I don’t think the Founding Fathers were dumb. They got all lathered up as Englishmen are wont to do and James Otis’ campaign slogan struck a chord (really struck a chord) and George III was stubborn, as Englishmen are wont to be and…Nah, that really doesn’t explain it.

Americans have been belly-aching about taxes since, well obviously since before there was an America. America is currently in the middle of a tax rebellion. The opposition party, the Republicans, are threatening to shut down the government (again) over taxes. A new political party, or something, called the Tea Party (“Tea Party,” get it?) was formed a little while ago and elected some members to Congress and has a lot of influence. But you can’t blame (or credit) the Tea Party, or the Proposition 13 movement in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s I think it was, on ungovernable Englishmen for Englishmen—and their descendants—long ceased to be a majority or even a plurality in America. Nor can you blame or credit the original Tea Party--entirely--on Englishmen.

What was going on here?  

We are not going to spend much time on this since we are an American and another American, Henry Ford, said that history is “bunk,” which gives us the excuse not to spend much time on it and also because we want to spend more time on some things that resulted from the American Revolution, and to compare those things to China, even though we are not a Chinese.

There was this thing called the Enlightenment…well, let’s back up a little more. Renaissance (1300's-1600's). Key thing about Renaissance: Catholic Church said universe revolved around earth; Galileo looked, said no, earth revolved around sun; Catholic Church arrested Galileo; Galileo turned out to be right, Catholic Church wrong.  Boom. Done. Renaissance. 

Reformation (1517-1648). German Catholics protested (“Protestants”) against Catholic Church, said you were wrong about Galileo (Catholic Church confessed), therefore you’re not “infallible,” therefore we’re not taking orders anymore from Rome and we’re starting our own church(es). Key things about Reformation: Protestantism really struck chord with Englishmen; Englishmen became Protestants; America settled by Protestant Englishmen during Reformation.

By 1700 it had been decided to every Englishmen’s satisfaction that the Roman Catholic Church did not have a monopoly on religious truth. Every man could be a priest (“minister”) and every man could find his own religious truth. Religion had been “democratized.”

Enlightenment (1700’s). Misnomer (much dumb thought). Key point about Enlightenment: If the Pope was wrong then why should we believe you, King?  If we can find God ourselves, we can find out everything else for ourselves (wrong because we’re not smart enough but really struck chord in Englishmen). Secular thought “democratized.”

And so that’s what was going on here at the time of the American Revolution. These are the things that were in the heads of Englishmen in America that caused them to get so lathered up by James Otis’ campaign slogan. The American Revolution was an uncertain experiment by people with no experience in experimentation. Yet it changed the world, and in ways unforeseen and unintended by the Founding Fathers. It brought into being a society like no other mankind had ever seen. And by the middle of the 19^th century the American Revolution had resulted in the killing of God and the killing of Truth.

Sources: Primary, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood (1991). See also, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bernard Bailyn (1967), The Reformation of the Image, Joseph Koerner (2003).

Image: "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump," oil painting, Joseph Wright of Derby (1768, The Enlightenment)).