This is the text of a speech I gave before sitting down to a Fourth-of-July feast with my family.
"Before the War for American Independence, the Western world was a dark place in which to live. Kings, in an unholy union with the Church, claimed God himself had granted them a divine right to the throne. Sovereignty resided in the king, who ruled over their subjects with absolute authority. Kings expropriated the property of their subjects for their own consumption, decreed how their subjects must live their private lives, forced their subjects to transact business with official state monopolies, impoverished their subjects in protectionist campaigns, and commanded their subjects to fight on foreign battlefields for the glory of the empire. Dissent from this divinely ordained order was not merely treasonous, but blasphemous, punishable by death in the mortal world and damnation in eternity.
"Hope dawned, however, during the Enlightenment. Classical liberals, free-thinking and liberty-loving men grounded in the classics, constructed their own political philosophy which challenged the divine right of kings. Classical liberals were united in their love of liberty, and called for liberation of the individual – who, in their minds, was the true sovereign – from the oppression of government. In particular, classical liberals believed that legitimate governments derived their authority not from God, but from the consent of the governed. In addition, the classical liberals pioneered the idea of natural rights (also known as “freeborn rights”), defined as God-given rights intrinsic to human nature, to man's existence as man, something no man could divest from his posterity and no government could grant. John Locke, a preeminent classical liberal, famously declared “life, liberty, and property” as the three fundamental natural rights.
"As classical liberalism ascended, rebellion was brewing in the American colonies of the British Empire. Although the colonies were granted some measure of self-government, they were still subject to the sovereignty of the Crown, the rule of which alternated between periods of benign neglect and pervasive imperialism. In the late 18th century, to defray debt incurred during the French and Indian War, the British Empire began levying punitive taxes on the colonists, forcing the colonists to transact business with government-chartered monopolies, prohibiting westward frontier expansion, and subverting colonial self-government. In short, the British Empire had conscripted the colonists into fighting an imperial war on American soil, and was demanding that Americans now pay for the privilege.
"Governments, in the opinion of the American colonists, were founded to uphold the natural rights of the people, and established upon the consent of the governed, but the colonists never consented to Parliament’s invasion of their rights, and were not even permitted representation in Parliament. If, as the classical liberals reasoned, government was not an end in itself, but merely a means to securing natural rights, then the colonists were entitled to determine for themselves how they should be governed. At the Second Continental Congress, convened in1776, the colonial delegates made the momentous decision that given their grievances, the colonies had the right to govern themselves as free and independent states.
"In 1776, when Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, war was already raging. Jefferson’s words, approved on July 4th but actually signed on August 2nd, embody the revolutionary spirit of classical liberalism which inspired American Independence:
'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.'
"In the ensuing War for American Independence, the colonists, unable to mount a traditional defense capable of rivaling the might of the British Empire on the battlefield, waged a war of militiamen and guerilla tactics. Farmers beat their ploughshares into swords to fight for their freedom. After years of American resistance against invasion, the English finally capitulated, and ratified a peace treaty between the British Empire and the newfound United States.
"When the American colonies won independence from the British Empire, they hoped to establish a union in which the people of the states were free to govern themselves but were confederated in peace, commerce, and friendship. As classical liberals, the Founding Fathers believed that the sole role of government was to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The republic of sovereign states that the Founders established was a grand experiment in liberty, limiting government’s power in areas in which it used to dominate. Americans would be free to practice their own religion, provide for their families, and live peacefully. Prospects were bright for the newly free and independent United States of America. Few foresaw the dark clouds were gathering on the horizon.
"Today, the federal government reigns supreme, confiscating and wasting trillions of dollars of our money, dictating what we can and cannot do with our property, monopolizing control of the money supply, invading the sanctity of our private lives, desecrating our historical heritage, and condemning brave young Americans to tragic deaths on imperial adventures. The federal government waged a bloody war against the states to establish its supremacy, warping a republic based on the consent of the governed into a tyranny based on force of arms. Nearly all of the activities of the federal government are unconstitutional, yet our glorified overlords in office continue to commit legalized plunder against the country, swelling the federal beast to leviathan proportions. Who betrayed the American Revolution?
"Jefferson and his political progeny, the few who saw the coming storm, were skeptical about the ability of constitutions to constrain governments. They rightly understood that to trust a government with judging the extent of its own powers is to substitute the rule of man for the rule of law. On its own, a constitution is a meaningless piece of paper, easily torn to shreds by rapacious politicians. The meaning of a constitution may be found in the original intent of its words, but its strength lies in the vigilance of the people. Liberty lives and dies in the heart of the people. Indeed, only the people can truly defend liberty from the usurpations of the government. A constitution cannot enforce or fight for itself, but the people can enforce and fight for a constitution. If a constitution fails to limit a government, then the fault lies with the people for failing to defend their liberty.
"Jefferson counseled that in order for the people of the states to protect their sovereignty and uphold the Constitution, they must resist federal encroachments of their rights, regardless of the rulings of federal judges or threats of federal forces. States’ rights, as he framed the issue, are the peaceful alternative between the violent extremes of submission and revolution. Jefferson once warned that the “greatest calamity” which could befall the United States was “submission to a government of unlimited powers.” Jefferson later declared that we should “sever ourselves from that union we so much value, rather than give up the rights of self-government which we have reserved, and in which alone we see liberty.” Just as our forefathers did not let allegiance to the Crown or love of the Union keep them from defending their freedom, our only loyalty must be to liberty, not to any political party, government, or constitution.
"If the American story has taught us anything, it is that the revolution did not end when Cornwallis surrendered his sword. The enemy was never even Parliament or the Crown. The Founding Fathers may have won independence from the British Empire, but new enemies soon reared their ugly heads on American shores. We know their banners well, for they herald the invasion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our ancestors, in the past, have taken up arms against these foes in defense of family, faith, and freedom. Now that their fight has ended, the duty passes to us.
"What will become of our heritage? What will become of our family’s legacy? Will we surrender it to the forces of power to become merely a forgotten page in history, a glorious memory gone with the wind? Or will we honor the memory of those brave men and women – our own ancestors, whose blood still courses through our veins – some of whom rode forth gallantly to fight for their freedom, some of whom worked tirelessly to provide for those whom they loved, some of whom suffered as their homes were burned and loved ones lost, none of whom were perfect, and all of whom did their best in what they thought was right so that we may be here today. Will we honor the memory of these noble people by doing our duty in the everlasting defense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"
