There was a time, during the formative days of the United States, when stubborn, extremely hazardous declarations of political support for the nearly-lost American Revolution would cost men and women employment, community standing, and the lives of their adult children, or their own.
Forming collective autonomy of government from a dissident, breakaway clump of British provinces was a daunting challenge. From Maine to Georgia, each colony had also to contend with native hostility and disunity of purpose among the leaders. Success was never a slam-dunk.
Wealthy planters like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had property concerns – in Washington’s, nearly 8,000 acres taxable to the Crown – but they were also knowledgeable in critical thinking, philosophy, agrarian science, and 18th century politics. Yes, Virginia, a good education does matter.
In the southern provinces, scholars and free laborers alike were alarmed at absolutist thinking of Britain’s then-monarch, King George III of Hanover, England, Scotland and British holdings in west Asia. Sturdy farm and park horses carried messages over hundreds of miles to establish vital consensus among the colonists. A million slaves watched the skies for God, waiting for a liberty delayed for many years; but their Moses and Elijahs would come also.
By now, protests to Parliament were not enough; collective action was required, for which there was no extant precedent and enormous risk. Royalists in Georgia and the Carolinas expressed alarm. A Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, angering those who stood by the King and lords of Britain, who had issued their land grants. Occam’s razor was called for, hard choices were made between independence or retention of colonial status.
Each family, business holder and farmer had to decide: pricey English tea was dumped in Boston harbor, an outrage to the stolid “Farmer George” who sat upon a cushioned throne and prayed that rebellion would cease.
Grasping at diminishing health, the King was served badly by his own government ministers, and colonial rebellion grew. King Louis XIV of France, sympathetic out of dislike for the English, dithered but sent his capable navy and its strategist Admiral to assist the rebellion and offer General Washington, the revolutionary commander, a lesson in battlefield expediency. Europe had many past war experiences to draw upon, including the victories of Charles Martel and Roman conquest of ancient Gaul.
Americans now faced a long, bloody test of what they were made of. Having braved the wilderness, they were confronted a well-armed cohort of Hessians, Britons and their allies, paid with money from a British war chest. Americans were fighting an integral war to defend freedom and their independence. British soldiers drew from motives including money, army advancement and their own patriotism.
After several harsh years of military feint, defeat, escape and regrouping, Washington by the grace of God at last began to have success. Envious rival commanders were weeded out and the French fleet appeared. Washington, incensed at having been defeated at New York, declared he would fight there again. French Commander Admiral le Marquis de Grasse-Tilly, familiar with Occam’s Razor, and unwilling to prolong the war, sent an icy note to the American General “M’sieur, etc…. I am sailing for Yorktown!”
The result is instructive history: It is too soon to withdraw from the Ukrainians, as devoted to freedom as we. Is there a moral duty to support them by any means? Yes; but Congress, jockeying for greater power over a passive, less educated electorate, does not act from morality but expedient self-interest.
We now face Washington’s dilemma: march to New York, giving the enemy more time to refit and regroup? Or seize with both hands the opportunity to send a clear, strong and global message that freedom is NOT negotiable, once a people desire it.
Ask your Congressman, Senator and Representative what they are now doing, and you may get a jolting surprise. This is precisely what this year’s vote will show.
Linda Berry is a Northsider.
