When Did Liberty Become Cheap?

When Did Liberty Become Cheap?

Robert Jason Bryant

Webester's 1828 dictionary defines liberty as "LIB' ERTY [L. libertas, from liber, free. ]1. Freedom from restraint, in a general sense, and applicable to the body, or to the will or mind. " Freedom from restraint, applicable to the body, will, or mind. These of course being within the constraints of the "Law of the Land." Also known as the Constitution of these individual sovereign states united. The United States of America, a Federal represenative republic and NOT a democracy. On the local level of county/city/township We The People operate in a quasi-democratic basis, meaning our voices are clearly heard on the local level; however, we still elect persons to office to represent our views, and they being constrained to protect, observe, and obey the state constitution of their office, as well as the Constitution of the United States of America. Within the constraints of the rule of law. To get the perspective of our Founding Fathers, we always hold and view the cornerstone of the federal and state constitutions, in the unchanging document named the Declaration of Independence.

In Thomas Jefferson's strategic discourse of Natural Law, Common Law, and Contract of Government, we see in the opening lines:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Plain elementary English composed letter of intent, this beautiful declaration of a free people, written by a thirty-three year old Virginian, a mind born and concieved in liberty. President Jefferson was a great student of the classics. He was excellent at his studies of agriculture, history, mathmatics, architecture, law, philosophy, religion, and perhaps the most brilliant of all our Founding Fathers. Was he perfect? No. Mr. Jefferson was human, he was a man who owned slaves [When slavery was the common practice, not just in the thirteen English colonies.], but he was consumed with the passion of liberty for the mind, will, soul, and body within the constraint of Natural Law, Common Law, and Social Contract. This meaning he was no anarchist, priest, preacher, or tyrant. He was a man of principle who believed that all men were created equal. To get twelve of the thirteen colonies to vote unanimous on a Declaration of Independence his text of admonishing slavery by the Crown of England was stricken from the original text of his rough draft. (It must be noted the colony of New York neither voted for or against independence.)

From this mindset of liberty, as viewed by the framers of our government, how much did liberty cost? At the time, the thirteen colonies were inhabited by three million citizens. Not all Patriots of liberty. Liberty cost a small percentage of Americans enormous toils, sweat, blood, fortunes, and yes their lives. What has it cost you? Keep that question in mind as you finish reading this, if you dare.

The vote for independence was the culmination of the freedom of the human mind, illumination of the heart by the Bible being translated into English at the cost of many an English Christian martyred for their faith. The English philosopher John Locke, of whom Mr. Jefferson was a well versed student, was an ardent Christian whose philosophy of Natural Law and Rights, Social Contract were influenced by his faith. Revolution was in the heart, mind, and soul before the Declaration of Independence, before the shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, and before the Boston Tea Party. Revolution was implanted into created man by the Creator. These being so intertwined into the hearts of the American Patriot, that they were Self Evident. Logic, reason, and Providence dictated that man stand against tyranny. To not do so was a crime.

In the generation post Constituional implemented government a French philosopher and sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States of America to observe the Great American Experiment. He toured the venues, cities, and states to record what he saw.

"“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Volume 2

To the observant and rational American, Tocqueville's quote was and is prophetic. Consider where We The People are in the current circumstances of America. We are a people who are being taxed for being alive. The Affordable Care Act is nothing more than a tax for being born in America. Liberty to speak against the government, or the ruling oligarchy has introduced retaliation by a federal taxation agency, the I.R.S. for being Conservative, Constitutional, and Christian. The Grand Ole Party or Republican establishment has joined forces with the Democratic Party to quench the liberty of a grass roots alternative party seeking to place the Constitution back into the center of the government, and a government of consent by We The People. What has liberty cost America?

Again, to quote a non-American observer of the first generation of Americans governed under the Constitution, look and see how these circumstances came to be.

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

Again from Tocqueville, we see simply it is from the moral restraint of Christianity and it's strong power in a moral society. The moral society is able to yield to consent of being governed. It i the sacrifice of moral restraint, absolute moral restraint of pure Christianity, Biblical Christianity that has kept liberty alive in America, simply put reader, liberty unrestrained has cost America liberty. All the while, We The People thought we were free.