Equality in the Declaration of Independence referred to only the idea that all Englishmen were equal.
Jefferson himself wrote a treatise on Natural Aristocracy where he argued for a hypothetical political elite that derives its power from talent and virtue (or merit).
(1) No legislation without representation.
The colonists insisted that they could be governed only by the colonial legislatures. The British Parliament had other ideas. The colonialists insisted that the British Parliament had no authority over them since there charters were with the King and not Parliament. You will notice in the Declaration of Independence there is no mention of Parliament but only complaints against the King. This was because the colonies did not recognize the jurisdiction of the British Parliament over the colonies.
So, one key principle of the war for American Independence was the principle of self-government. This is was a key foundation in the American War for Independence. This same issue came up again in the War of Northern Aggression as the Southern States argued for the same principle for which their Colonial Fathers had argued.
2) Contrary to the modern Western view of the state that it must be considered one and indivisible, the colonists believed that a smaller unit may withdraw from a larger one. The American War for Independence then was about the ability to politically secede. The colonialist depending of the Reformed theory of Political Covenantalism believed they had that right since King George III as their partner to the political covenants and charters had violated his responsibilities. King George III had broken covenant and so secession was an option. Again, this issue came up in 1861 when Southerners insisted they had the same right of secession as their colonial forbears.
Today we are supposed to consider this so unthinkable that we put it in the mouths of our children when they say the “Pledge of allegiance to the Flag.” They recite “One Nation Under God, Indivisible.”
That line is hogwash. The Nation was never meant to be indivisible and that is just one of the reasons that I don’t stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
To support the idea that the Nation was never considered Indivisible by its founders we turn to
“I have endeavored to show, in the preceding part of this review, that the people of the several States, while in a colonial condition, were not “one people” in any political sense of the terms; that they did not become so by the Declaration of Independence, but that each State became a complete and perfect sovereignty within its own limits; that the revolutionary government, prior to the establishment of the confederation, was, emphatically, a government of the States as such, through Congress, as their common agent and representative, and that by the Articles of Confederation, each State expressly reserved its entire sovereignty and independence. In no one of the various conditions, through which we have hitherto traced them, do we perceive any feature of consolidation; but their character as distinct and sovereign States is always carefully and jealously preserved. We are, then, to contemplate them as sovereign States, when the first movements towards the formation of the present Constitution were made.”
Abel Parker Upshur
Our Federal Government; Its True Nature and Character – p.90
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The American war for Independence was in all actuality a war for Independence on the behalf of 13 separate sovereign Colonies. The Colonists at the time looked upon one another as foreigners. The Virginians did not think of those living in Massachusetts or Pennsylvania as fellow countrymen and vice-versus.
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When the Crown brought English troops to the Colonies the custom was to quarter troops in the houses of the Colonialists upon demand. There was no negotiating. If the Crown put a couple soldiers in your home you were responsible to provide room and board for that soldier. Also, that soldier was obviously untouchable and the result of their status meant that many a Colonialist head of household had his wife and/or daughters molested by the quartered English troops. This issue was so important that it was included in the reasons listed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence as to a reason why Independence was being declared and explains the third amendment in the Bill of Rights.
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On this Independence Day do try to keep in mind that these united States won Independence from Britain in 1776 only to have their Independence taken away in 1865. You must understand that the “United States” as a consolidated, monopolistic government is a fiction invented by Lincoln and the Radical Republicans and instituted as a matter of policy at gunpoint and at the expense of some 600,000 American lives during 1861—1865 and at the expense of enslaving white and black men together to the FEDS.
In this vein this is why as combined with the greater reason that they surrendered on the 4th of July, 1863 that the residents of Vicksburg, Mississippi did not celebrate Independence day for 80 years until 1944.
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“In all there were three periods of drastic communal upheaval and sudden changes of fortune in the extended Calvinistic Anglo-Saxon Revolution. There was the Cromwell uprising leading to the short-lived English Republic. This was followed by the conclusive disruption of the Stuart dynasty, leading to the enthronement of William and Mary, succeeded by the Hanoverians. Finally there was the American War of Independence.”
W. A. de Klerk
The Puritans in Africa; The Story of Afrikanerdom – p. 154
Americas separation from England was a separation inspired by the ideology of John Calvin. The theology of Calvin rippled through English-American history and was exhibited in political theology by the rise of Cromwell, the ascension of William & Mary and the overthrow of King George III. Though these events were separated by more than 100 years they were each driven by the same Calvinistic theology.
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The Declaration of Independence should be taken as little more than a press release to the Western world that America was its own entity. It was never intended to be a governing document and we would be better off without taking that way.
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The non-Christian can not know liberty. He will say he knows liberty but what he is calling liberty is just some form of licentiousness. The non-Christian can not know liberty because he is a man in bondage to his sin and as being in bondage to his sin all he will create in the name of liberty are social order institutions that reflect his bondage to sin.
Only the Christian who has been set free from the bondage of sin by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross can talk sanely about freedom, liberty, and independence. That is because they understand that their freedom, liberty, and independence means a freedom to obey Christ which they could never do before, a liberty to walk in righteousness which they could never do before, and a independence from the bondage which was characteristic of their life outside of Christ.
There is no social order Liberty that can long be maintained by a people who have abjured Christ and foresworn Christianity. No social order freedom to be had by a Church which disconnects the lifeline between freedom from sin and freedom from wicked governments and magistrates.
Social order liberty is the God-given inheritance bequeathed to a people set free from sin and gathered in resolve to incarnate that liberty in all their social order institutions.
A post-Christian world that blathers on about “liberty,” “freedom,” and “independence,” don’t know what they are talking about.
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“Unlike every other nation on Earth, we were founded based on an idea.”
This is a damnable lie. It is the lie that insists that America is a propositional nation. It is not true. America was not founded based on an idea. That nonsense didn’t rise till Lincoln sold it in his Gettysburg Address. America, like all nations, was based on descent from common ancestors (blood and soil). The fact that America was founded upon blood and soil is seen in the preamble to the US Constitution where the founders write that;
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
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On this Independence Day we have to realize that while there definitely were Christian influences operating there were also deep state influences operating. The whole “Norvus Seculam Ordo,” BS on our money is one sign of that as well as the whole pyramid and eye of Horus thing.
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FOn this Independence Day learn that it was the Reformed Clergy in America that inspired the Colonialists to take up arms against the Tyrannical Parliament in Britain. If we had today’s R2K clergy back in 1175 forward we would have put up with the King George refusing to interpose on the Parliaments tyrannical violating of the original Colonial Charters.
Reformed Clergy had steel in their spines in those days unlike the effeminate clergy claptrap today who kisses the arse of every estrogen-filled pajama boy civil magistrate who shows up with some kind of threat.
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“Very important for people to realize that while the founding fathers their achievement was not because they were male but they transcended their sex. They weren’t just chauvinists or racists. They created ideas out of the enlightenment that meant that you would have woman’s suffrage, that you would have civil rights because that was the logic of “all men are created equal.” They didn’t have to do that. There is nothing in the Constitution that mentions race or gender so that they were male is incidental.”
1.) The founding father’s transcended their sex? What does even mean?
2.) While they were chauvinists and racists they weren’t JUST chauvinists and racists. Well, that is a relief to know.
3.) I guran-damn-tee you that very very few, in any of those founding fathers would have supported women’s suffrage or civil rights.
4.) The majority of the founding fathers were not operating out of an Enlightenment worldview.
5.) The founding fathers did not believe that all men were created equal in the modern egalitarian sense. They believed all Englishmen were equal. That was the issue at hand. Whether Englishmen in the colonies were equal to Englishman in England. The fact that they did not believe that all men were created equal in the modern egalitarian sense is seen in the fact that in the Declaration of Independence they refer to the Indians as “savages.” An odd thing to say if you believe all men are created equal in the sense that Hanson is using it.
6.) I suppose that they were white is incidental as well. I mean, just as women could have as easily produced the same document (after all the men transcended their gender) so nonwhite men could likewise have produced that same document since race and gender are incidental.
What a maroon.
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“America’s original sin is rebellion.”
Rev. Brian Lee
United Reformed Church Ministerial Idiot
The only thing this quote tells me is that Rev. Lee has never studied American History. The Colonists did not rebel against the Crown but rather drew a line in the sand regarding the Crown’s violating their Charters (Political Covenants) with the Crown. If anyone was rebelling in the run-up to the American war for Independence it was the English Crown. The English Crown was rebelling against the Political Covenants that spelled out the responsibilities and privileges of both sides entering into political covenant via the Colonial charters. This is why, in the Declaration of Independence, the list of grievances is present. The Colonialists were saying to the Crown, “You have rebelled against our Political Covenants and because of your rebellion and breaking of the covenants we no longer, as before God, required to keep our commitments to the covenant documents.
Of course, Lee doesn’t know this, and just like all bottom feeders he sees America’s original sin as being rebellion and goes on to warn against our rebelling against the Masked, and social distanced mandates and pleads with Christians everywhere to kiss the arse of all wicked magistrates as they require us to break the 6th and 9th commandment. (And often the 8th).
It is interesting that Lee would do this, since as an R2K lover, he is of a crowd who is forever saying that, “Ministers need to stay in their lanes.” This means that Minister, per the R2K crowd, shouldn’t talk about history (among other things) since that is not their lane. But here is Brian Lee doing just that — recklessly careening into the lane of Historians and writing about something he doesn’t know Jack Squat about.
Lee may intend well (who doesn’t?) but his theology at this point is uninformed (see, I can be polite).
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“I have endeavored to show, in the preceding part of this review, that the people of the several States, while in a colonial condition, were not “one people” in any political sense of the terms; that they did not become so by the Declaration of Independence, but that each State became a complete and perfect sovereignty within its own limits; that the revolutionary government, prior to the establishment of the confederation, was, emphatically, a government of the States as such, through Congress, as their common agent and representative, and that by the Articles of Confederation, each State expressly reserved its entire sovereignty and independence. In no one of the various conditions, through which we have hitherto traced them, do we perceive any feature of consolidation; but their character as distinct and sovereign States is always carefully and jealously preserved. We are, then, to contemplate them as sovereign States, when the first movements towards the formation of the present Constitution were made.”
Abel Parker Upshur
Our Federal Government; Its True Nature and Character – p.90