Why Our Founders Decided to Fight in 1776

What do we celebrate on this 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence? I tried to answer that in my most recent book, No Second Amendment, No First. Here’s a short, slightly edited excerpt that sums things up.

All the various strands in Christian theory and Anglo-American practice came together and formed something new in colonial America: a political regime based on ordered liberty.

Although the American colonies had been founded with the British crown’s permission, for a century or more they essentially governed themselves. In that time, colonists shouldered the main burden of self-defense (and often of conquest) against native Americans as well as rival European settlers.

The situation changed in 1763. That’s the year the British finally defeated the French in their battle for North America. The British conquest of every French colony removed the great external threat that had justified the presence of British troops in the American colonies. When the French and Indian War ended, the British government attempted to impose centralized rule and British taxes on the colonies. Parliament needed money, and it was eager to flex its muscles. But colonies accustomed to self-governance chafed at Britain’s attempt to impose its authority, especially given that Americans had no representation in Parliament.

Which Side Are You On?

The American Revolution was a conflict between partisans of liberty and those of top-down authority. This sort of conflict recurs throughout the history of political philosophy. Constitutional attorney Mark W. Smith writes about this in his book First They Came for the Gun Owners, noting:

We often (rightly) remember the names and stories of those who fought for freedom. But why did they have to fight? Because many, many people fought against it. Think of the crucial moments when powerful, well-educated, wealthy, and influential people fought on the wrong side–fought against the expansion of freedom, the empowerment of citizens, and the lifting of unjust laws.

Smith includes some examples we have discussed. For example, in 1215, plenty of English barons supported King John and his autocratic rule. We would never have had Magna Carta were it not for the brave barons who stood up to the king, forcing him, as Smith writes, “to offer a written guarantee, binding on his successors, that limited the powers of the monarch.”

Or how about the Pilgrims who drew up the Mayflower Compact? Smith writes, “In 1620, the Anglican bishops of England had broad support in persecuting the Puritans at home, imprisoning them for heresy and seizing their churches.” But the separatist Puritan Pilgrims had the courage to flee. They were willing to brave an ocean crossing and survival in an unknown land to form what they called a “Civil Body Politic” committed to enacting “just and equal Laws.”

Similarly, Smith points out that in 1628, “thousands of men of power and wealth supported King Charles I’s attempts to become an absolute monarch, effectively repealing the rights their ancestors had won with the Magna Carta.” But “enough brave members of Parliament stood up to the autocratic Charles to force him to sign the Petition of Right, which restricted his power in important respects and extended key rights from the Magna Carta to ordinary subjects.”

The Fight for Freedom in Every Generation

The party of liberty and the party of authority faced off again in 1688-89. Although the English Bill of Rights resulted from an event often called the Glorious Revolution, it’s worth remembering that many Britons opposed this “glorious” event. As Smith says, “many English lords and their followers bitterly resented the overthrow of absolutist-minded King James II.” Of course, it produced a crucial model for both our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

But that precedent did not make the success of the American Revolution inevitable. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were not being hyperbolic when pledging “our lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” They took an extraordinary risk in separating from the world’s most powerful empire. The risk came not just from British redcoats but also from fellow colonists, many of whom supported King George III and Parliament.

The Tyrant Party Never Dies. It Just Changes Its Skin

Even after the Americans defeated the British to secure independence, the party of authority did not disappear from these shores. Smith writes:

In 1787, some Americans wanted a much more powerful presidency, even a monarchy. Some privately offered George Washington a throne–but thankfully, the prospect horrified him. More dangerous still: disgruntled, unpaid soldiers of the Continental Army set out to march on the Congress in Philadelphia and impose their own military dictatorship. Again, it took George Washington to talk them out of this plan–which would have set the United States on the same path that South American republics mostly took, with disastrous results for freedom. Instead, representatives of U.S. states created a federal system of government that carefully balanced the powers of each of the three branches of government.

When the loose alliance of states produced by the Articles of Confederation failed, various factions of our Founders looked for a stronger central government. They far exceeded the authority their own states had given them when they drew up a new Constitution with a robust executive branch. Anti-Federalists feared that by strengthening the central government, the newly born United States might slide out of the free tradition and into the authoritarian mold of so many failed republics before it. That is why they insisted on the inclusion of a Bill of Rights as their price for supporting the Constitution’s ratification.

Elites and Their Enablers

Nor did the party of authority vanish with the success of the American founding. The French Revolution slipped almost immediately from promises of liberty to totalitarianism, with mass conscription, aggressive wars, bloody purges, and religious persecution. The course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries could be described as the resurgence of the authoritarian tradition.

America wasn’t immune, and still isn’t. Smith writes:

Every generation has had its share of people who didn’t trust their fellow citizens with freedom. Elitists who squinted scornfully at the “commoners.” Nativists who didn’t trust German or Irish immigrants, because of their language or their religion. Onetime slave owners who wanted to make sure that black Americans couldn’t defend their basic rights with firearms.

In the twentieth century, the Progressive movement, led by Woodrow Wilson, took aim at the U.S. Constitution itself in an effort to expand their power to impose social change on recalcitrant free Americans.

And of course, today we contend with enemies of free speech, free religious exercise . . . and the right to bear arms.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.

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