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8/12/2019 1995 Issue 4 - The Causes of the War of Independence
Part 2, The Constitutional and Legal Issues - Counsel of C
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The Causes of the
War of Independence
II
The Constitutional and
Legal Issues
One of the gr
eat
differences
between
tIl
e French Revolution and
the American War for
Independenc
e was
the
concern for
legality
and
respect
for
law
which
pervaded this
counlTy
and
was so
glaringly
ab
sent
in France.
In
France
,
subversiv
e
groups
worked to
produce
chaos
and anarchy to effect
a breakdown of law and order (see
Fire in
the Minds of Men,
by
James
Billington for a fine
exposition of the theology behind
the French Revolution). Law
was
purposely undermined. The
Biblical
found
a
tions
of society were
overthrown
and
society
was
restructured upon a totally new
basis -
the radical ide
al
of
human
rights and equality (which
are
pseudonyms for Statist absolutism).
True
hum
an
rights
were
completely ignored in
France.
Friedrich qentz, a qerman
historian
, wrote an e
ssay which
app eared in the qerman Historical
Journal in
18
00
and was translated
and
republished in
this
counlTy by
John Quincy Ada
ms.
The
title of
his ess
ay
was Th e
French
and
American Rev
olu
t
ions Compared.
In this work qentz
shows
the
very
different principles upon which the
War with
Brit
a
in
and the
Fr
e
nch
Revolution operated
:
From the
bre
a
king
out of this
[the French] revolution the question
as
to the lawfulness
of
what
the
popular
lead
ers did,
was
never (an
extraordin
ary,
yet
an
indubitable
facll)
stated
...Thus
much is
certain,
that
the l
ea
ders of the revolution,
under the shelter of this
talisman
[the
radical
doctrine of the rights of
man ] spared themselves and others
the trouble
of
enquiring
into
the
lawfulness of
their proceedings; for
in their system , all
was
right, which
th
ey
resolved upon in the name of
the people, or in the name of
mankind [Whenever you hear a
man who profe
sses
to do the will
of th e people you must understand
that he
is
usually
merely projecting
his
own
will upon the people. -
jsw]
The French
revolution,
therefore
,
be
gan by a violation
of
rights, every s
tep of its progress
was
a violation of rights, and its progress
was never ea
sy
,
until
it
had
succeeded to establish absolute
wrong,
as
the supreme and
acknowledged ma xim of a state
completely dissolved, and yet
existing only in bloody ruins. (The
French and American Revolutions
Compared,
pp. 48
,
49
,
52)
By contrast qentz notes:
Never,
in
the whole
course
of
the American revolution, were the
rights
of
man, appealed
to, for
the
destruction
of the rights
of
a
citizen;
never
was the sovereignty of the
people used
as
a
pr
etext to
undermine the respect,
due to
the
laws, or the foundations of
social
security
; no ex
ampl
e was ever seen
of
an
individual, or a whole dass of
individuals, or even
th
e
representatives
of this, or that
single
state
, who
recurred to
the
declaration
of
rights,
to
escape
from
positive
obligation,
or to
renounce
obedience to the common
sovereign
;
fin
a
lly
, never did it enter
the head
of
any
legislator, or
statesman in America to combat the
lawfulness
of
foreign constitutions,
and to set
up
the American
revolution,
as
a new epocha in the
general relations of civil society.
(Ibid.,
pp. 71
,
72)
There was some sentiment
for
Fr
ench
revolutiona
ry
views in
America , but the va st majority were
appalled by
the
thought of them.
Much
has
been made by modem
historians (following radical early
19th century historians) about the
influence of
Thomas Paine through
his pamphlet Common
Sense.
April, 1995 THE COUNSEL
of
Cbalcedon l 9
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This work
is commonly referred to
as the most important work in
stirring the people
of
this counlly
to
fight. The reality was
far
otherwise.
Mr. Paine, Mr.
Paine
was a
native
of England, but he
had
resided
in
America
some
time
before
the
American Revolution
took place.
He warmly
advocated the cause of
the Colonies, and wrote in the
spirit
of the times with much applause
His Crisis, his Common
Sense,
and
some
other writings were
well
adapted
to
animate
the people,
and
exhorting him to
repent, Mr.
Paine
out-lived the storms of
revolution
both in America and in
France,
and
he may yet add
one
instance
more
of
the
versatility of
human
events,
by out-living
his own
false
opinions
and foolish attempts to break down
the
barriers of
religion, and we
wish he may by
his own
pen,
endeavor to
antidote
some
part
of
A number
of things
must
be
noted, the first of which
is
that
Paine's pamphlet
did
not
appear
until 1776
long after the idea
and
action of the
secession from Britain
had begun. qentz
notes:
Common
Sense is
commonly
referred
to
as
the most important
work in stirring
the
people o
this
country to
fight The
reality
was
far otherwise
When
Paine's
work
appeared, in the year
1776, the American
revolution had long since
assumed
its
whole
form
and consistence, and the
principles, which will
forever
characterize
it
stood
firm. In
no
public
resolve, in no
public
debate, in no
state paper
of
congress,
is
the most
the poisons he
has
spread. (History of the
Rise, Progress
and
Termination
of the
American Revolution,
vol.
1,
pp.
379-380)
Mrs. Warren was
not the only one
to
publish
such an opinion
of
om Paine.
John
Quincy Adams
gave
this
judgment
of
Paine's
work:
distant expression
to be
found,
which
discovers
either a
formal, or a tacit approbation of a
systematical revolutionary policy.
And
what a contrast between
the
wild, extravagant,
rhapsodical
declamation of a
Paine,
and the
mild, moderate, and
considerate
t o n e - i n t h e s p e e c h e ~ a n t H e t t e r s
of
a
Washington;
(Ibid.,
p.
74)
The second point that needs to
be made
is
that Common
Sense
was not universally
appreciated.
There were no
less
than
six tracts
printed to refute
t as
historian
Bernard
Bailyn
has
noted,
Thomas
Paine's Common Sense was
answered not
merely
by two
exhaustive refutations by Taries but
also by at least
four
pamphlets
written by patriots who shared his
desire for independence but not his
constitutional and
religiOUS
views or
his assumptions about human
nature.
(Ideological
Origins
of the
American Revolution, p.
5)
Mercy Otis Warren, who wrote
one
of
the
first histories of the
Revolution, had this to say about
to
invigorate their
resolutions
in
opposition to
the
measures of
the
British
administration His
celebrity
might
have
been
longer
maintained, and his name have
been handed down with
applause,
had
he
not
afterwards
have
left the
l i n e _ o f p o l i t i c s ~ a n d _ p r e s u m e d
to
-
touch on theological subjects of
which he was
grossly
ignorant,
as
well
as
totally
indifferent to every
religiOUS observance
as
an
individual, and
in some instances
his
morals were
censured.
Mrs. Warren
goes
on to observe
that when
Paine
went to France,
he
learned at
the feet of the
skeptics
there
and then, attempted
to
undermine the sublime doctrines of
the
gospel,
and annihilate the
Christian system. Here
he
betrayed
his weakness and want
of
principle,
in blasphemous scurrilities and
impious raillery,
that
at
once
sunk
his
character,
and disgusted every
rational and
sober mind.
Mrs. Warren
closes
her
reference to Thomas
Paine by
20
THE COUNSEL
of
Chalcedon April, 1995
His [Thomas
Paine's]
Common Sense, is
a
pamphlet
just
as contemptible,
almost
throughout
just
as
remote
from sound human sense,
as
all the
others by which, in later times, he
has made himself
a name
. . If
such a
work could
have produced
t h e A i n e r i c a n r e v o l U t i o n ~ i t w o u l d
have been
best
for reasonable men
to
concern themselves no longer
with that event.
But
it was
certainly
at all times, by the wiser
and better men, considered,
endured, and
perhaps
encouraged
only
as
an instrument to gain
over
weaker
minds to the common
cause.
(qentz,
op. cit., pp.
72,73)
Samuel
Adams would later
write a
leiter
to
Paine
(dated
November
30,
1802) castigating
him
for his
defense of infidelity,
Do you think
that
your pen, or
the
pen of any
other
man, can
unchristianize the
mass
of our
citizens,
T have you
hopes
of
converting a few to assist
you
in
so
bad
a cause The people of New
England, if you
will allow
me to
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8/12/2019 1995 Issue 4 - The Causes of the War of Independence
Part 2, The Constitutional and Legal Issues - Counsel of C
3/3
use
a Scripture phrase, are fast
returning
to
their first love . (Adams,
op. cit.,
pp.
1104-1105
The
leaders
and the vast
majority
of
the
people were
as
steadfastly opposed to the
deliberate
disruption
of
law and order as they
were to ungodly and
unjust
laws.
Laws
and rulers were to
be
submitted
to
unless they opposed
qod and His laws. The Covenant
concept
governed their thinking.
Lega
lity
in opposition was
extremely important. If anything,
the American war with
England
was concerned
to establish
law
and
lawful authority
rather than
undermine it. Historian Irving
Kristol makes
this observalion:
It
was a
mild and relalively
bloodless revolution. A war was
fought, to be sure,
and soldiers died
in that war. But the rules of
civilized warfare, as
then
established, were for the most part
quile
scrupulously
observed
by both
sides:
Ihere was none
of
the
butchel) which we have
come to
accept as a natural concomitant
of
revolutional) warfare. More
important, there was practically
none
of
the
off
-
battlefield
savagery
which we now
assume
10
be
inevitable in revolutions. There
were no revolulional) tribunals
dispensing
revolutional)
justice';
there was no reign
of
terror; there
were
no
bloodthirsty proclamations
by
the
Continental Congress.
Tories
were dispossessed
of their
property, to be sure,
and many were
rudely hustled off into
exile;
but so
far
as
I have been
able
to detennine,
not a
single Tory
was
executed
for
harboring counter-revolutionary
opinions
As
T
ocqueville
later
remarked, with
only
a
little
exaggeration, the Revolution
contracted no aIliance
with the
turbulent
passions of
anarchy,
but
its course was marked, on
the
contral) , by a love of order and
law. (The American as a
Successful
Revolution , quoted by John W.
Robbins, The Political Philosophy
of
the
Founding
Fathers, The
Journal
of
Christian Reconstruction,
vol. III, Summer, 1976, no. 1, p.63)
John Q. Adams had qentz s
work
republished
in
this country
for
two reasons:
First, because
it contains
the
clearest account
of
the
rise
and
progress of the revolution which
established their independence that
has
ever
appeared
within
so
small a
compass, and secondly, because it
rescues that revolution from the
disgraceful imputation
of
having
proceeded
from the
same principles
as
that of
France
The
essential
difference
between
these
two
great
events, in
their
rise, their progress,
and their termination, is
here
shown in various lights,
one of
which alone
is
sufficient
for an
honest man. A
modem
philosopher
may
contend that the
sheriff.
who
executes
a criminal,
and the highwayman, who murders
a traveller, act upon the same
principles ;
the
plain sense of
mankind
will still see
the
same
difference
between
them,
that
is
here
proved between the American
and the French Revolutions -
The
difference between right and
wrong.
(qentz, op.
cit., pp.
3,4,
emphasis
added)
Interestingly, while all
of us
have
heard of Thomas Paine s
work, vel) few have ever heard
of
a
work which
truly
was
influential
in
shaping the opinions and thinking
of
a vast number
of
Americans,
Vindicae Contra Tyrannos (or A
Defense of liberty Against
Tyrants). Why have we not been
told
about
this work I will give
you a hinl:
II
was written by a
Calvinisl from a distinctively
Biblical perspective.
More about
Ihis in
Ihe
next installment.
Bibl ically Correct B.C.),
Not Politically Correct P,C,)
Christ
College
Christ College
teaches
Reformed/Calvinist
theology,
God's
Law,
limited civil gov-
ernment,
.free market
eco-
nomics,
literal
6-day young
earth creation,
America's
Christian roots,
and a lot
of
other things
that drive the
mo ern storm troopers of
"p
olitical correctness crazy.
We are offering many new as
well
as
existing
programs
:
Growing, already established
residential
program
in
Greenville, Sc. Emphasis on
Theology
/B
ible and Christian
Worldview,
NEW
Correspondence
program (Fall 1995 start-up)
NEW "Great Boo
program (Possible start-up
Fall
1996)
NEW Partnership with
the
new Patrick Henry Institute for
the Study of Law , Government,
and Christianity.
M
and
non-traditional law
study planned,
For more info on new programs:
Christ College or
the Patrick Henry Instit
ute
p,o, 11135,
l y n c h b u r g . V A ~ 4 5 0 6
Contact:
Kevin
L. ClaLJson,
MA/j.D.,
,
r e s i d e n ~
For
mor
Info on existing programs:
Christ College, P.O. Box
9084,
.
Greenville, sc. 29604.
Contact:
Jeny
Crick.
Th,D.
Executive
Vice president
Neltlwr Christ College nor t Patrick
Henry
Institute
dlscrimmarc:s
on
the
tNnls of race ,
ctJlot ,
ethnk or
tlonal origin.
April, 1995 THE COUNSEL
of
Chalcedon
21
