Sermon On the MA Constitution by Samuel Cooper (1780)

This Sermon On the MA Constitution was delivered by the request of the Massachusetts newly constituted State government. The occasion was the election of the Government by the sovereign people of this state. Sam Adams wrote a significant portion of this Constitution as well as did John Adam with the full committee that drafted it.

The Rev. Doctor Samuel Cooper was chosen to deliver the inaugural sermon before both the citizenry and the elected. This call to preach at this occasion was most interesting since – ‘Cooper did not use his pulpit as a political tool, but stayed with well-preached sermons based on the Bible.’

Rev. Cooper was a Congregational minister in Boston, Massachusetts, affiliated with the Brattle Street Church. He served as pastor of the Brattle Street Church, 1747-1783. His church was an extremely popular one, for many of the wealthy merchants attended regularly. Members of his parish at the Brattle St. Church included some of the most influential people of the American Revolution: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, John Adams, and others.

The same year that he preached the Sermon On the MA Constitution, Dr. Cooper co-founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as “chaplain to the General Court” of Massachusetts (1758-1770 and 1777-1783). Around 1783 Harvard College offered Cooper the position of college president, but he declined.

Striking to the Heart, Mind and Soul

Delivering this Sermon On the MA Constitution by Samuel Cooper was a challenge in that as I brought the words to audio, every aspect of my person was shaken, encouraged and compelled to fight for Liberty. Rev. Cooper expounds on the very essence of government from who designed it from the inception of time, to the covenanting of the citizenry into a political body like none since the establishment of the ancient Republic of Israel.

A SERMON at this Link

Preached Before His Excellency John Hancock, Esq; Governour,

The Honourable The Senate, And House Of Representatives Of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, October 25, 1780.

Being The Day Of The Commencement Of The Constitution, And Inauguration Of The New Government.

By Samuel Cooper, D.D.

Commonwealth Of Massachusetts; Printed […] [By] J. Fleet, And J. Gill. [1780]

This sermon is very timely. It makes it clear that without a moral and virtuous people, as well as those that will govern, there can be ‘no’ happy society. I have made special note of these very striking statements:

‘I need not enlarge before such an audience upon the particular excellencies of this constitution: How effectually it makes the people the keepers of their own liberties, with whom they are certainly safest: How nicely it poises the powers of government, in order to render them as far as human foresight can, what God ever designed they should be, powers only to do good: How happily it guards on the one hand against anarchy and confusion, and on the other against tyranny and oppression:’

‘It considers indeed morality and the public worship of God as important to the happiness of society: And surely it would be an affront to the people of this state, as the convention speak in their previous address, “to labor to convince them that the honor and happiness of a people depend upon morality; and that the public worship of God has a tendency to inculcate the principles thereof, as well as to preserve a people from forsaking civilization, and falling into a state of savage barbarity”.’

‘The citizens of a free republic should reverence their constitution: They shou...

The Tale of Despotism

This tale of Despotism is the story I have been building up to over these last five years on this network. It has been the story that I, as with others, have been expressing page by page for over forty years. Now, we are fully into the chapter that has the villains fully in control of tying the girl to the railroad tracks.

On this program I’m connecting the dots of The Tale of Despotism to the Trail of Tyranny. Before the inauguration of this pretender, I discussed with some how we would see the fast tracking trail of destruction and the steam engine to socialism….. within a week! Well, here we are.

The Trail of Tyranny is leaving the bloodied and maimed along the way. Think of all the techno-oligarch’s kills. Think of the destruction of jobs, not only from the chicomflu but also the stack of executive orders that has laid waste to the energy, infrastructure, food, agriculture and other industries. All in one week.

Many are putting their hope in the mid-term elections. Well, we better get seriously busy in understanding the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate and Civil Disobedience In an Age of Tyranny. With the demoncrat lead House in Congress and now the Department of Homeland Security considering Constitutional Patriots as domestic terrorists, We the People need to understand our God given Rights in context of Foundational and Biblical wisdom. The general populace has much to learn.

Foremost, the action item from this program is becoming the active Citizen that God and Country requires of you.

Impeachment Again?

I will let you in on a secret from a Federalist. Yes, I am quoting a Federalist that I do not have a lot of regard for but in this instance he defines well the manner in which Impeachment is being bastardized in our present. I will give you the full context during the program but here is the teaser:

‘A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments, is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly or inimical(def: tending to harm), to the accused. In many cases, it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will inlist all their animosities, partialities, influence and interest on one side, or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger, that the decision will be regulated more by the comparitive strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.’

Which leads us to the discussion of the Senate. I will refer you to my favorite Anti-federalist in this regard…. None other than Malancton Smith. His speech on June 25, 1788 define why and how the Senate should represent the States. Sadly the 17th Amendment destroyed this and hence we have the oligarchy that is ‘POLITICAL’ in domination.

Last Consideration for this writing but not the program.

Brutus writes in a powerful rebuttal to Hamilton regarding the taxing authority in the new Constitution. Consider the ‘first’ of three points he details:

‘To comprehend the extent of this authority, it will be requisite to examine

1st. What is included in this power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.

2nd. What is implied in the authority,

Samuel Stillman, The Duty of Magistrates (1779)

[Tom N. NOTE: There are few, very few pastors that will preach like Samuel Stillman. There are fewer that will engage in the political arena like Rev. Stillman. There is few to none in Christian education, be they seminary or Christian college/university that even teach these Foundational sermons. Hence we have the political elite and political parties that are dysfunctional with no intent to return to the Foundational Principles. As we see, the new 2021 federal administration is ‘Cancelling’ our history and rewriting it according to ideologies contrary to those spoken and written in this sermon and other Foundational text.

Can you remotely imagine a sermon of this content, authority and direction being preached before a State or Federal court let alone a Supreme Court?] The reality is that Magistrates no longer understand their Duty to God nor to the People.]

Hear the full Introduction at this Link

EDITOR’S NOTE: This discourse was preached before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1779. It contains quotations from political philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). The election sermon’s author, Samuel Stillman (1737-1807) was an American Revolutionary minister, a trustee of Brown University from 1764-1807, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and (according to editor Frank Moore), “a member of the Senate Convention for the formation of the state constitution in 1779; as also for the adoption of the federal constitution in 1788; in the last body he delivered a very eloquent speech in its support, and was considered at the time as having contributed much toward its adoption, and confirmed many members in its favor who were previously wavering upon that question. To that constitution he ever after continued a firm, unshaken friend, and a warm approver of the administration of Washington and Adams.”

Sermon, together with a biographical sketch (slightly abridged, with incorporation of footnotes into the text) is from: Frank Moore, editor, The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution, with Biographical Sketches, 1766-1783 (n.p.) (1860), pp. 258-288.]

Read the full text of the sermon: The Duty of Magistrates

David and Daniel from Romania 

This interview with David and Daniel is revealing with warnings, they are challenging and they are full of hope in a refreshing way.

David and Daniel discuss their experiences living in communist Romania. Their desire is to reveal to Citizens in America what ‘fear’ does to a country and express what the foundation of true Liberty is. I don’t think that anyone who listens to this program regularly will be surprised at what they have to say.

They will be discussing what persecution is. What it means to stand on core beliefs and be willing to fight for them. They take us into the heat of the battle for Liberty. They walk through the exploits of their Father smuggling Bibles and their Mother developing Bible studies and Sunday schools across the country. David and Daniel honor their parents who aren’t pastors, elders or deacons but Christians who live the ‘extensibility of the Gospel.;

Hear America, the experiences of David and Daniel who are like the many that came away from communism and socialism. They came to these United States for the full and true expression of living Liberty yet, they see it slipping away into that chasm which they once lived.

Sam Adams Wisdom

I was drawn back to The Wisdom that Sam wrote and I spoke about two other times on this program. (see: ‘10-22-16 Candidus Revisited. The Heavy Yoke of Slavery, You Deserve It’ And more recently ‘6-13-20 1771 Candidus and Liberty Lost Today’) You can find the full Article ‘Candidus’ in the references of those programs.

In reflection of what David and Daniel have to share about keeping Liberty in these United States, I just want to have you reflect on this first paragraph of what Sam writes in the opening of his 1771 article. Because, over the last 40 years, myself and others more prominent told you these day would arrive if Foundational Truth and Principles were not fought for. More importantly, the Anti-federalists got it right in predicting this very time!

Candidus 1771

“Ambition saw that stooping Rome could bear A MASTER, nor had Virtue to be free.”

I Believe that no people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery, but when they deserv’d it. This may be called a severe censure upon by far the greatest part of the nations in the world who are involv’d in the misery of servitude: But however they may be thought by some to deserve commiseration, the censure is just. Zuinglius, one of the first reformers, in his friendly admonition to the republic of the Switzers, discourses much of his countrymens throwing off the yoke: He says, that they who lie under oppression deserve what they suffer, and a great more; and he bids them perish with their oppressors. The truth is, All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought. Is it possible that millions could be enslaved by a few, which is a notorious fact, if all possessed the independent spirit of Brutus, who to his immortal honor, expelled the proud Tyrant of Rome, and his “royal and rebellious race?” If therefore a people will not be free; if they have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity, and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy. Had not Caesar seen that Rome was ready to stoop, he would not have dared to make himself the master of that once brave people. He was indeed, as a great writer observes, a smooth and subtle tyrant, who led them gently into slavery; “and on his brow, ‘ore daring vice deluding virtue smil’d”. By pretending to be the peoples greatest friend,

Samuel Willard – The Character of a Good Ruler (1694)

My Thoughts

Before I make reference to the text of ‘The Character of a Good Ruler’ and take you to the bio information about Samuel Willard, I wanted to highly recommend that you shard this sermon with elected persons, judges and non-elected bureaucrats. This sermon is as pertinent in our present time as it was at the end of the 17th Century. As we see clearly in ALL administrations at all levels of governance particularly over the last one hundred years, these Characters of a Good Ruler have been and are wanting.

With that, for my part, the several takeaway’s are:

*

Government is from God for a civil society

*

Since the fall of Mankind, the human race has ‘filled his heart with perverse and rebellious principles, tending to the subversion of all order and the reducing of the world to a chaos.’

*

‘Government is to prevent and cure the disorders that are apt to break forth among the societies of men, and to promote the civil peace and prosperity of such a people, as well as to suppress impiety, and nourish religion. ‘

*

The civil magistrate ‘is to maintain justice towards men, and piety towards God.’

*

Those mentioned above must recognize that the God of the Bible is Sovereign over them therefore if they acknowledge this truth: ‘they have a principle of moral honesty in them, and swaying of them – that they love righteousness, and hate iniquity – that they be men of truth.’ Toward the end of the Sermon Willard restates:

*

‘that by whatsoever titles of excellent, honorable, or worshipful, you are known, you not only rule under such as are your superiors on earth, unto whom you are accountable for what you do, but under GOD also, who is your Great SOVEREIGN.’

*

Those mentioned above set the example such that if they give into vice, greed, ungodliness, unrighteousness that the laws they enact or enforce will be unjust, resulting in the misery of the people and society.

*

‘A people are not made for rulers, but rulers for a people.’

*

Those mentioned in the first paragraph and addressed in the sermon and challenged with: ‘Be you entreated, to measure all your administration by this rule: Do all justly and in the fear of God.’

This Sermon clearly addresses the Character of a good leader and bad. The challenge for the Citizenry is to: ‘Choose such men, and then you may expect to be so governed: If you desire that holiness and righteousness may be promoted and encouraged, this is the best stroke that you can give to it; if you have a mind that prophaneness and debauchery should take place, and bear all down, here is the readiest way for it.’

The last two paragraphs of the sermon summarize well that:

‘Evil doers, and the mal-administrations of good ones, are punishments which GOD does inflict on a people that have provoked Him to anger against them. God gave Saul to Israel in His wrath, and he left David to number the people because His anger was kindled against Israel.

But if we be a people fearing GOD and keeping of His Commandments, He will delight in us to bless us, and to do us good–and to give us rulers after His own prescription, Just Men, and Ruling in the Fear of God.’

The Sermon Intro and Link

THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD RULER.

[By Samuel Willard] [1694]

II. Samuel 23:3. “He that Ruleth over men, must be just, Ruling in the Fear of God.”

Whether the ordination of civil government be an article of the law of nature, and it should accordingly have been established upon the multiplication of mankind,

Unwrapping the John Lewis 1772 Sermon

The Program Podcast is where the real Unwrapping is occurring. This writing is background for the program.

The Unwrapping of ‘Stand alarm’d, O ye Americans!’ is directly related to what I noted in last weeks program – differentiating ‘Liberty and Freedom.’ Consider first a statement of Montesquieu:

‘Law in general is human reason insofar as it governs all the peoples of the earth; and the political and civil laws of each nation should be only the particular cases to which human reason is applied.

Laws should be so appropriate to the people for whom they are made that it is very unlikely that the laws of one nation can suit another.’

The reason I introduce these statements from Montesquieu’s ‘Spirit of the Law’ is to bring a broad understanding that laws affect ‘freedom’ where as ‘liberty’ is God given. So, how does Montesquieu describe the ‘spirit’ that is considered in laws? Here is is summary statement that he unwraps in the full treatise:

‘They should be related to the physical aspect of the country; to the climate, be it freezing, torrid, or temperate; to the properties of the terrain, its location and extent; to the way of life of the peoples, be they plowmen, hunters, or herdsmen; they should relate to the degree of liberty that the constitution can sustain, to the religion of the inhabitants, their inclinations, their wealth, their number, their commerce, their mores and their manners; finally, the laws are related to one another, to their origin, to the purpose of the legislator, and to the order of things on which they are established. They must be considered from all these points of view.’

I’m not sure that modern legislators even know this concept was ever written.

How does this tie into the HMS Gaspee incident that gave the impetus to Rev John Lewis to give an oration to the Earl of Dartmouth and the sermon? It is about ‘the degree of liberty’ that is affected by laws. The Oration and the Sermon both focus on God given Liberty.

Rev. Lewis points out how arbitrary regulations and law violate the Charter of Rhode Island which gives a self-governing political system. Additionally is addressed the violations of The Law of Nature and Natures God. He also directs attention to the last statement in his Biblical texts, “SO THEY WRAP IT UP.” He uses this four times in both the oration and the sermon. This is directed at the end of the sermon by delineating the arbitrary policies coming from the mother country with:

‘But I close with the last remark from the text. So they wrap it up. It will do; it will do, say they. The King, say they, has a right to appoint judges, courts of admiralty, impose revenues, lay taxes, send military forces, block up their harbours, command them — compel them by arms — pay their judges — get the key of their laws, rights and liberties into our hands, this will do! and so they wrap it up, as fine and smooth as can be:’

Jefferson on Freedom vs. Liberty

Before do the Unwrapping of ‘Stand alarm’d, O ye Americans!’ – I wanted to very quickly give a thought to Freedom vs. Liberty as noted by Thomas Jefferson. This is expeditious paragraph is from the essay ‘Freedom, Liberty, Rights and Their Limitations.’

‘One should distinguish between the terms “freedom” and “liberty.” Speaking generally, Freedom usually means to be free from something, whereas Liberty usually means to be free to do something, although both refer to the quality or state of being free. Jefferson’s use of the terms almost always reflected those meanings. Thus, he never spoke of freedom as a right, though liberty is listed in the Declaration as one of our inalienable rights.

Stand alarm’d, O ye Americans!

An ORATION upon the BEAUTIES of LIBERTY;

Or, The Essential RIGHTS of the AMERICANS

A call to ‘Stand alarm’d, O ye Americans!‘ Is a sermon that can be seen directly applicable to our 21st century political leaders and situation with one caveat – In 1772, America, the Citizenry and a good portion of the political class, heard and maybe even understood the truth within the First Great Awakening.

The principles in the sermon should have been preached from 1772 each and every year to this very day. The BEAUTIES of LIBERTY are not imaginary but established in the reality of who King Jesus is not king James or a governor, president, congress, judges or bureaucrats.

This sermon is directed to the political elite, the political class, the king, Parliament and yes, the Citizenry. I believe that every politician and bureaucrat needs to hear this sermon since they are culpable in the charges laid forth in this sermon. BTW, the fundamental complaint and charges are timeless when evil reigns.

Another interesting point for modern day Baptist is that Rev. Allen is a ‘Calvinist-Baptist theologian.’ In modern parlay that would mean he is a Reformed-Baptist. Now there are a lot of ‘woke’ Baptists out there as well as other ‘christians.’ Lewis might have had some troubled waters in his maturation as noted by Dr. Concannon but, he matured.

Lastly, although the sermon is a response to the HMS Gaspee incident, the percolation of tyrannies from 1765 through 1772 is best put in context to the preaching from 1730 through the time of this sermon…..and beyond.

I will be doing the present analysis of the Oration and Sermon on my Saturday January 16, 2021 program.

Also, as a suggestion for a solid perspective of recent events with solid direction, I highly recommend this blog post by Doug Wilson – The Gods of Civil Unrest and Jesus Mobs

The following background on Rev. John Lewis is by Dr. John Concannon, the webmaster, Gaspee Virtual Archives. This is directly taken from the Gaspee Virtual Archives were you can read the complete:

Notes on John Allen and his “Oration on the Beauties of Liberty”

by Dr. John Concannon, webmaster, Gaspee Virtual Archives

The Reverend John Allen was a rather strange individual, that happened to write some of the most influential discourses on American liberties in the period just prior to the Revolutionary War. He earned an early reputation in Great Britain as a Calvinist-Baptist theologian with his publishing in the Royal Spiritual Magazine in 1752. He is next found to have been a minister in Salisbury, England, and in 1764 he assumed the role as pastor of the Particular Baptist Church in London. The Particular Baptists, remain to this day, a specific sect within the Baptist lines that hold to a Calvinist theology of predestination. His side-line drapery business went bankrupt and he was confined in a debtor’s prison for a short time. He is next noted to have been dismissed from a post at a Broadstairs congregation “for bad behaviour.” [11] Returning to London in 1768, he taught school for a period before being arrested for forgery in 1769.

In 1770, Allen wrote the “Spirit of Liberty” [1b2], an influential defense of both the Baptist religion and of American sympathizer, John Wilkes, who had recently been deposed from Parliament [23].

Revolution – Are You Ready To Rumble? 

Revolution – Really? Are you ready to Rumble?

Simple answer – NOT!

I’m going to be very direct and short in this newsletter since there are more words being written on this past week than the keyboards can take the hammer of. I am also going to make two, maybe more, recommendations.

Direct and Short

This nation has been in Revolution since Marx was writing in England and Engles was raising money in the US. Go figure. But the real Revolution started in the garden of Eden (Period)!

Oh and if you want to know about Sam Adams being a revolutionary, Well, that is longer than the short part of this newsletter can handle and it is the meat of this weeks program – so listen to the program.

This is important, I spoke with a pastor about 10 years ago after a service. We discussed the need for a New Great Awakening, a Spiritual Revolution if you will – he commented that we weren’t ready because it would lead to chaos and we don’t have the leadership in the pulpits to handle it. So too now, There is almost no leadership in the pulpits to support a political uprising like that prior to and during the Founding Revolution. So unlike Jonas Clark, Pastor at Lexington, where his parish was ready to take a spiritual, moral and physical stand – the people in the modern pews have no solid grounding on Liberty and its transcendence from the pew to Lexington Green.

As a note, Check out the different investigative reporting in the References #2.

NOW – Point blank, jumping up and down about the Constitution being violated is rhetoric at best! Why you ask? Simply, the enemies of Foundational Constitutionalism know the functionality of it better then those seeking the Liberty under it. Case in point is seen and heard in all that is predominantly echoing around Washington DC and even throughout the political class in all 50 states. Hear how the socialist/Marxist operators in the seats of Congress and in state governments can weave the language of Constitutionalism into press spots better than Patriotic Foundational Constitutionalists.

Conservatives and Foundational Constitutionalists have never earnestly raised up leadership to fill the bureaucracies nor political positions. I have beaten that poor dead horse for years so go back into the archive on this topic or ask for clarification. You know how to contact me.

Promised to keep it short – so – For the rest, listen to the program on Saturday.

Suggestions

If you don’t give a rip about how I tackle Revolution from the program then

First Suggestion is that I will expect you to watch these two videos by Doug Wilson:

1. Illegitimate Times

2. State of the Church | Douglas Wilson

Oh, if you keep asking why this Doug dude? Well, out of all the pastors that I’ve listened to or even know, which that are some great ones like Dr. Mike Spaulding, Doug hits a really balanced Biblical Reformation note with me that I think should strike a chord with you. At least I’m hoping so.

And again…. Different from Doug but worth watching is Reference #2.

The second Suggestion is that you get what a full understanding of the phrase “God and Country” really means. Then commit to being ready to really support it with all that you have. No more pussy footing around.

In gaining that understanding, in wisdom and prudence, challenge your pastors and church leadership to get a grasp on the reality before them. That being Revolution, persecution or Reformation Repentance. Oh, that’s call ‘a Great Awakening.’

Yes, the o’biden administration is full of evil. All one has to do is look at the backgrounds of those being appointed to the cabinet.

A SERMON, CONTAINING, Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers, and all Free-born Subjects.

By Samuel Sherwood, A. M. Pastor of a Church of Christ in FAIRFIELD.

A sermon, containing Scriptural instructions to civil rulers, and all free-born subjects. In which the principles of sound policy and good government are established and vindicated; and some doctrines advanced and zealously propagated by New-England Tories, are considered and refuted.

Delivered on the public fast, August 31, 1774. :

With an address to the freemen of the colony.

In the pdf of the sermon to include: Also, An APPENDIX, Stating the heavy Grievances the Colonies labour under from several late Acts of the British Parliament, and shewing what we have just Reason to expect the Consequences of these Measures will be.

By the Rev. EBENEZER BALDWIN, of Danbury.

Following From ConSource Library

Editor’s Note: Samuel Sherwood (1730–1783). A 1749 graduate of Yale, Sherwood took his second degree there also and was later awarded an A. M. by the College of New Jersey at Princeton, where he tutored and where his uncle, Aaron Burr, Sr., was president. In 1757 he settled in Weston, Connecticut, as the first pastor of a church consisting of twelve members. There he remained for the rest of his relatively short life.

Only two of Sherwood’s sermons have survived, and they are accorded such importance that both are reprinted in the present volume. The first, entitled Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers, and all Free-born Subjects (1774), is one of the most famous of all Revolutionary War sermons. An “address to the Freemen of the Colony” of Connecticut, it takes as one of its title-page epigraphs Acts 22:28: “And the chief Captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom; and Paul said, but I was born free.” Ranging through biblical and classical sources, and appealing to the English constitution as well, Sherwood eloquently urges the necessity of just rule for free men. In a passage reminiscent of Patrick Henry’s famous speech, he writes: “No free state was ever yet enslaved and brought into bondage, where the people were incessantly vigilant and watchful; and instantly took the alarm at the first addition made to the power exercised over them.”

See and article about the Sermon at Place for Truth

Blood of Patriots and Tyrants

Many are quick to regurgitate Thomas Jefferson’s written statement,

‘the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.’

But few are willing to look to the context of a full paragraph in a letter to William Stephens Smith in November 1787. The context is that Jefferson is in France. The new Constitution has been sent to the States for ratification. Jefferson observes that ‘There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate (definition: be greater in number, influence, or importance).’

Remember that Jefferson had sent Madison a small library of book on government and that during the Convention of 1787 the two had some correspondence. In this Smith letter, Jefferson drives home the following which in not only prophetic but also leads to the concluding statement that is so often quoted. And because I know that you will not go read the link to the full letter, I am giving you the opportunity to digest it here –

‘Wonderful is the effect of impudent (showing no respect for others) and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.—You ask me if any thing transpires here on the subject of S. America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. But this country probably will join the extinguishers.—The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform…’

During the program/podcast, I will be taking folks through this letter and what Thomas Paine wrote on Constitutionalism.

Now, go back and reread the above with a focus on what I have bolded. Consider how these are present not past concerns.

Tom Zawistowski Proposal – to Avoid the Blood of Patriots

Let me preface the next paragraph with the reality that the general Citizenry in these United States are not inculcated...