Loss of Independence
Not until a year after Lexington did the Continental Congress muster the resolve to declare the 13 colonies free and independent states, no longer subject to Parliament or Crown.
Not for five years after July 4, 1776, did George Washington’s army truly attain America’s independence at Yorktown.
Even then, Washington and his aide Alexander Hamilton knew that the 13 states, while politically independent, were dependent upon Europe for the necessities of their national life. Without French ships and guns, French muskets and troops, the Americans could not have forced Gen. Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown.
Cornwallis would have sailed away, as Gen. Howe had from Boston.
Indeed, absent the 1778 alliance with France, our Revolution would have been a longer bloodier affair and might not have succeeded.
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, both Washington and Hamilton were determined to make America’s political independence permanent, and to begin to cut the umbilical cord to Europe.
In the Constitution that came out of that convention, the states were prohibited from imposing any tariffs on the products of other states, thus creating the greatest common market in history, the United States of America. Second, the U.S. government was empowered to raise revenue by imposing tariffs on foreign goods, but explicitly denied the power to impose taxes on the incomes of American citizens.
And as Hamilton set the nation onto a course that would ensure economic independence, Washington took the actions and made the decisions that would assure our political independence.
First, he declared neutrality in the European wars that followed the French Revolution of 1789. Second, he sought to sever the 1778 alliance with France, a feat achieved by his successor, John Adams.
Third, in his Farewell Address, the greatest state paper in U.S. history, Washington admonished his countrymen to steer clear of permanent alliances and to stay out of Europe’s wars. Rarely in the 19th century did the United States divert from the course set by Washington and Hamilton.
In 1812, however, James Madison, goaded by “war hawks” Henry Clay and John Calhoun, and ignoring the counsel of the Farewell Address, declared war on Britain and came near to seeing his nation torn apart.
Had it not been for the Duke of Wellington’s preoccupation with Napoleon and Andy Jackson’s rout of a British invasion army at New Orleans, America might have been split asunder. In 1814, New England was on the verge of seceding, and the British had in mind splitting off the vast Louisiana territory. As it was, Madison had to flee the Washington, when a British Army came up the Bladensburg Road to burn the Capitol and Madison’s White House.
After peace in 1815, however, Madison signed the Tariff Act of 1816 to prevent British merchants from dumping goods into the United States to kill America’s infant industries that had arisen during the war and to prevent British merchants from recapturing the U.S. markets they had lost.
For most of the 19th century, the nation followed the economic policy of Hamilton and the foreign policy of Washington—and was richly rewarded. By the first decade of the 20th century, America was the most independent and self-reliant republic in all of history.
And by staying out of two world wars of the 20th century until many of the bloodiest battles had been fought, America emerged in 1945 economically and politically independent of all other nations.
During the Cold War, however, Americans came to believe that a temporary alliance, NATO, was necessary to prevent Joseph Stalin’s empire from overrunning Europe and turning the balance of power against us. To help our wartime allies and former enemies Japan, Germany and Italy to their feet, we set aside Hamilton’s policy and threw open the American market to the goods of Free Europe and Free Asia.
These should have been temporary alliances and temporary measures. Instead, they were made permanent.
No longer free of foreign entanglements, as Thomas Jefferson urged, we now have commitments to defend 50 countries. The old Hamiltonian policy of “Prosper America First” has given way to worship of a Global Economy, at whose altars we sacrifice daily the vital interests of our own manufacturers and workers.
“Interdependence” is now the desired end of the new elite.
And so we have become again a dependent nation. We borrow from Europe and Japan to defend the oil of Europe and Japan in the Persian Gulf. We borrow from China to buy the goods of China. We are as dependent on foreign borrowing as we are on foreign oil.
And the questions arise: If the men of ‘76, who led those small and vulnerable states, were wiling to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and sacred honor for America’s independence, what is the matter with us?
Do we not value independence as they did? Or is it that we are simply not the men our fathers were?
Happy Independence Day.
Comments
Pat, please. Hamiltonian policies were but precursors to 1) the Fed and fiat money, 2) globalism, after the state-corporate system outgrew its borders.
I’m not a fan.
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Actually Jackson and New Orleans was a bloddy mistake after the war that could have been avoided if there had been faster communication. The Battle of Baltime that followed th burning of Washington saved the country. The British gave up on their demands after the failure to subdue Fort McHenry, the death of General Ross and defeat of the land force at the Battle of North Point saved Baltimore as well.
Jackson was an evil murdering bastard with a complete contept of Congress, the courts, and the Constitution. Bush and Republicans are pikers compared to him.
He was a role model for Lincoln who when the South Carolina threatened to seceed in his term said if you do I will march down and hang every one of you for treason. Lincoln was a wimp.
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Perfidious Albion had no intention of leaving the Mississippi Valley, and Jackson did a great deed there in New Orleans. Despite his many faults, Jackson saved the Midwest, and was also a sound money man. As for Hamilton, the chief patriotic service Aaron Burr performed for the country was to shoot that S.O.B. His policies led to the current state of debt slavery for America.
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Pat isn’t talking about all of Hamlilton’s policies - but whatever.
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Buchanan also supports Lincoln on the issue of tariffs, if I recall correctly. Or at
least he appeals rhetorically to Lincoln. Plus, whenever he dislikes a SCOTUS decision,
Pat quotes Jackson: “The Court has made its decision, let them enforce it” (I paraphrase).
Wasn’t that quotation made when the Court defended the Cherokee against an illegal
violation of a treaty? Rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric. Not all rhetoric is bad, though.
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We aren’t less men than the Founding Fathers were excpet in terms of property (power). If enough patriotic Americans possessed sufficient property (power), we could pledge it to fight gloabalism and Third World invasion. Indeed, the only reason our countries are being invaded by non-Westerners is that the possessing classes are amoral money-worshippers who hire the invaders. Good old Alexander Hamilton was a money-worshipper as well, since Aaron Burr’s Bank of the Manhattan Company cut into his monopoly of supplying credit in New York he felt obliged to duel him which cost him his life. The overwhelming number of Americans don’t possess property with which they make their living anymore so they are forced to dance the beggar’s waltz to the tune called by the globalist plutocratic elite. What does Independence Day mean here in Southern California where the majority of people are foreign-born or the children of foreign-born (non-European)?
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A great column.
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New Orleans did get Perfidious Albion to abide by the Treaty of Ghent and the battle did result in a neat Jimmie Driftwood song.
It irks that Hamilton and Jackson infest our currency. Ireland had the right idea going with the mistress of a minister on one of their bills.
Jimmie Driftwood also composed Saint Brendan’s Fair Isle
When I was a lad on the Emerald Isle I heard many stories both lovely and wild about the great dragons and monsters that be that swallow the ships as they sail on the sea. ‘Tho I was an artist with canvas and paints I sailed with Saint Brendan and his jolly saints. We told the good people, “Goodbye for a while,”
CHORUS
we sailed for Saint Brendan’s fair isle, fair isle, we sailed for Saint Brendan’s fair isle.
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Jackson not a role model for Lincoln, his enemy Henry Clay was. Although hardly without fault, he was really more of a statesman than he is commonly portrayed as. He outmaneuvered his rivals rather brilliantly and did not cause the antebellum republic’s decay, but came to power when it was already setting in and maintained order as best he could. His attributed “Judge Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it” quote is apocryphal and to the extent that it represents his view, it should be seen in light of the fact that he didn’t send federal troops to remove the Indians (Van Buren did after him) but merely didn’t interfere with the states doing so. Also, read “The British at the Gates” by British scholar Robin Reilly and it explains how the Admiralty had designs on New Orleans that would not have been prevented by the Treaty of Ghent. The Treaty did not mention the territory bought from Napoleon, which the British did not recognize. Jackson was a great man who rightly worried that his legacy of democracy would become the rule of rootless urban money, that America’s founding stock would become soft and be displaced, all of which is exactly what happened.
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To add to my earlier assertions:
1) Jackson’s threats to the secessionists should be seen in light of the fact that he vocally supported some of their economic grievances and their calls for tariff reform. Clay was not happy with this but didn’t want to see his enemy riding on a white horse, even though he agreed with him about secession. Jackson played his enemies off against one another in that situation while giving them what they wanted where he agreed. That is not at all like Lincoln’s bloody approach.
2) The War of 1812 itself was a more crippling blow to the antebellum republic than anything Jackson ever did.
But as for Hamilton, it is too ideological to blame his ideas for globalism when, as Buchanan states, it was America’s deviation from them that really set in the age of globalism. Hamiltonianism, whether one likes it or not, is a variation on the old Westphalian world order. For different reasons, some paleocons and neocons, and all paleolibertarians (for them it really is almost a religious doctrinre) suppose too much continuity from Hamiltonianism to today’s system. This fails to take into account the World Wars and Burnham’s Managerial Revolution.
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Mr. Buchanan,
as an Italian reader of your posts on this website, I think you should have stressed your attention on the fact that no one forced the US to join NATO. You founded it and you are the leading force in it.
As far as the Persian Gulf oil is concerned, we Europeans had signed deals with those countries to buy their oil. It’s you the Americans that moved in to change the situation and to influence the oil market.
Thank you.
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Were the average American not willingly yoked to the ass-hat of the American Media, perhaps we would not be so different from the Founder’s generation. As it stands now though...... we are, on average.... intellectually neutered and fixed firmly upon a bounteous teat of conventional wisdom in service to cheap thrills and the Glorious Corporation of Your Edited Choice.
As to Jackson, New Orleans granted him some important mojo and if nothing else, he put it to proper use against the Second Bank of the United States, precursor to the Oracular Somnambulator Greenspan’s FED, giving us a fine quote:
“The U.S. Bank wants to kill me, i shall kill it first. “
or words to that effect.
This alone is enough for me to overlook a few of the vainglorious old poop’s more bloodthirsty actions. After all, these Federal Banks are always established to make it more convenient and efficient for the Federal Government to conduct its business. As a republic, the very last thing we should ever do is make it more “convenient” or “efficient” for our Government to conduct it’s business. Doing so, we have circumvented the intentionally inefficient nature of our system of government and created the lapsed republic we now have, one of the more idiotic things to have been enthusiastically promoted in the history of mankind, Zimbabwe included.
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What’s changed? The elite now believes we’ve outgrown nationalism. We’re so much smarter
now. We’re all really one world, don’t you see? But ask the immigrantes indocumentados
if they believe in a One World. ¡Puta madre, no! They’re for a Reconquista for the Raza!
They don’t buy it and no one else does either, except for our elite and the Old Bolsheviks.
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Don’t you all see that it is time for a REVOLUTION?!!!
Three times in my life I have taken an oath to defend the Constitution. I believe now that it was a waste. What good is this country for white men? What good is it when, by affirmative action, my ability to get a good education, a scholarship, a good job, is curtailed by the fact that I have white skin? Why must I always be treated with contempt by my own government? You see, I am not a member of a “protected class of citizens.” That has actually been codified into U.S. law under Title 9 and Title 7 of the United States Code.
You realize that it will only become worse when Obama is elected President. And he will be, because the Republicans have nominated a super globalist elitist in McCain who doesn’t have the charisma to inspire anything or anyone. He speaks like a puppet of the globalists.
We are done. We are the Weimar Republic. You all should begin preparing for hyper-inflation. It is coming, and you can’t stop it.
This nation, in its present state, is beyond saving.
I miss the old Republic.
Tom
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The lesson here seems to be to beware of temporary measures. It’s all too easy for them to become permanant.
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Southern California in being conquered by Asians. Especially in Orange County in the city of Irvine, Asian colonists are settling in the area by the thousands. A real estate friend of mine tells me that Asians consider Irvine, California to be the “head of the dragon” for Asian settlement on the West Coast. That is, they consider Irvine to be a “beach head” or vanguard for Asian conquest of the region. We have been warned.
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That has actually been codified into U.S. law under Title 9 and Title 7 of the United States Code.
What are you talking about. Title 7 is about agriculture, and title 9 is about arbitration (consisting primarily of the Federal Arbitration Act).
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My apologies,
Part of the Americans with Disabilities Act is found under Title 9 and Title 42, dealing with the modifications that must be made to property to accomadate “protected classes of citizens”. It is otherwise known as Title 9 of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Title 7 (VII) is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This title set up the “prtotected classes” that can not be discriminated against. Perhaps I was unclear. Violations of these two Acts are normally called Title 7 or Title 9 violations. They cost millions to deal with, and have resulted in certain businesses leaving the United States for more accomodating conditions in other countries. More importantly, and to my point, young white male able-bodied christians are nowhere to be found in any legislation that provides protection to anyone in any law.
That is where the rub is.
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I’m with Tom. I too desire narrowly crafted laws that benefit my special-interest group. Leviathan will have my blessing when I get my special favors. Until then, I’ll oppose a republic off the rails.
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White Christian men, of all people, have the most to gain by rebelling against the system. And yet, it would appear we prefer to let off steam on websites, watch football on tv, and stuff ourselves with fast food.
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Firstly, I am opposed to all discriminatory legislation. I do not want to be included, I want the power of free association to reign.
Secondly, if one mans revolts, they call him a terrorist, put him on trial, and execute him (look at Timothy McVeigh. If 100 men revolt, they call you a cult, surround your homes, and burn you to death (look at the Branch Davidians). If 1000 men revolt, they call you an insurgency, call in the Army and Air Force, and bomb you to death.
In 1776, they did not have the internet to spread the word. They met in secret, at their Masonic Lodges and at local taverns and spoke of freedom. Their numbers were small, but it still took coordination. It will take millions to wake up in this country before true freedom can be had. Rather than meet in a tavern in Boston, we meet here. Instead of mocking us, why don’t you help prepare for the inevitable, when we elect a Marxist whose desire it is to destroy our freedom.
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Democracy is the villain.
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What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & 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 & 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 & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
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