Introduction
And, of course, notwithstanding the meme, my central point is going to be that far from being treasonous, the events celebrated by the Fourth of July were precisely the opposite of treason. In this respect, the Robin Hood background is helpful, as it is actually in the same category. As the story goes, Robin Hood was loyal to the rightful king Richard, and Prince John was not. The treason was sitting—as often it does—in the seats of power.
Athalia was the treacherous queen of Judah, and when her lawless authority was challenged (2 Kings 11:14), she was the one who was quick to cry “Treason!” It is often the way.
So we are coming up (again) on the Fourth of July, and because many Christians are confused about the propriety of celebrating “rebellion” (Romans 13!), and because our current power monkeys are behaving in a fashion far worse than King George III ever did, and especially because this means we are dealing with a subject that is far from academic, it is needful to go over this material again.
A Bit of History
The American colonists carried on their resistance as a constitutional resistance to encroachments made on their liberties—liberties that were guaranteed by the English constitution. Put another way, the conservatives who were fighting to preserve the guarantees of the English constitution were the Americans, and the revolutionaries who were attempting to upend the English constitution were the members of the majority in the English parliament.
This is how it happened, and please remember that I am painting with a broad brush. But broad brush or no, this is how it happened.
As the colonies were being established in the prior century, the 17th century, they were given various charters by the king. Under these charters, the king was their executive (who could be represented in the colony by a royal governor). These charters allowed the colonies to have their own legislatures, which they did. So the colonies shared the same king that England had, but they had their own legislatures—in accordance with the law. England had the same king that Virginia did, but England had Parliament for a legislature and Virginia had the House of Burgesses for a legislature. All comfy cozy.
The actual revolution, when it came, happened in England, and it came in waves. The power struggle between Charles I and Parliament in the mid-17th century resulted in the English Civil War, and that ended with Charles I being beheaded in 1649 (for treason) under Cromwell. That was the first wave. After Cromwell’s death (he was not the king, but rather served as the Lord Protector), his son Richard could not hold that Puritan project together, and so England brought Charles II back to the throne in the Restoration. A bunch of Puritans were then ejected from their pulpits, and things looked pretty grim for a bit. But after Charles II died, he was succeeded by his brother, James II, who was a dedicated Roman Catholic, and to ice the cake, pretty incompetent as a politician. There was, shall we say, a certain measure of ineptitudinousness. After England had had quite enough of him, thank you, he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. When he was deposed, William and Mary were brought in. Still with me? England remained Protestant, but in the Anglican fashion.
Now entirely aside from the rights and wrongs of each dispute—e.g. was Cromwell right or wrong?—step back and take note of the political churn in England during the course of just 39 years. Within that space of time, the English Parliament chopped off one king’s head, and ran another king’s rear end clean out of the country. Quite aside from all other issues, it does not seem seemly for Parliament to then turn around and start lecturing the colonies on the importance of respecting the established authorities. Some of these 17th century doings had been noticed across the pond.
Even Trickier
But it was even trickier than that. Here is what developed. After 1688, the balance of power in England had obviously shifted from the monarch to Parliament. Because of this, Parliament naturally assumed that this meant that they were now in charge of a number of things that the king used to be in charge of. And in England, that was true enough, but the Americans still had their charters from the king, which charters were still the law, and which said they could have their own legislatures. I trust you can see how the stage was set for more conflict.
Now when Parliament levied a tax on the colonies, take a hard look at what the issue was. The issue was not the amount of the tax, or whether the money raised by the taxes was going to be paying for legitimate expenses (e.g. the costs associated with the French and Indian War). The issue was whether or not it was even legal for Parliament to levy a tax in the colonies. For those of you still tracking, it was not legal. It was an unlawful tax, not an exorbitant tax.
One More Thing
To sum up the American argument, it was to say to Parliament, “Parliament, you are not our king. We have a king. You are not our legislature. We have our own legislatures, which we have had by right from the beginning.”
But there is a problem. According to this understanding, the American beef was with Parliament, but in the Declaration of Independence, all the complaints are directed at the king, and not against Parliament. To understand this, you have to understand something about a culture that had been shaped by feudalism. I am not maintaining that the feudal system was still operating the same way it had done in the centuries before, but I am saying that feudal assumptions were still in play.
With feudal assumptions running in the background, the king was the colonists’ lord, and they were his vassals. This meant that he owed them protection, and they owed him allegiance. That is the exchange. That is how it worked. Because of the historical developments described earlier, the king was in no position to protect the colonists from the encroachments of Parliament. He was in no position to keep his word, as expressed in the charters. The Declaration did not address Parliament because their argument was that they had nothing to do with Parliament. They did have something to do with the king, and their complaint was that the king was breaking his word, and was allowing Parliament to usurp an authority that they did not have according to the law.
Edmund Burke, who was the father of modern conservatism, and who was a member of Parliament during this time, took the side of the colonists. They were in the right. And when the French Revolution broke out, well before the Terror, Burke opposed that project because he could see where the radical assumptions were going to take them. The American Revolution and the French Revolution were nothing at all alike. The American War for Independence was a conservative resistance to the erosion of the rule of law, and the French Revolution was an abandonment of the rule of law.
And because the erosion of the rule of law continues apace, we need many more Christians to understand what the issues really were at the Founding. It is not an arcane and irrelevant issue.
To Illustrate in Modern Terms . . .
For something comparable, try to imagine yourself as a cattle rancher in Wyoming, and one day receiving in the mail a tax bill from the legislature of South Carolina. The issue would not be whether the amount of the tax was reasonable in the abstract, or whether you could easily afford it. The issue would be whether you owed it or not. The issue would be that there should be no taxation without representation.
Because you would have no representation in the legislature of South Carolina, they have no constitutional right to tax you as though you did have representation there. And if you kicked, as you would have the responsibility to do, this was not because you were trying to gain the vote in the elections of South Carolina. You already have one legislature that doesn’t listen to you very well. Why would you want another one?
Now in nations that have established constitutions and a tradition of the rule of law, these established constitutions and written laws are an essential functional aspect of the “existing authorities.” So when a flesh-and-blood someone who occupies a position of authority within that system goes beyond the authority granted him by that system, then he is the criminal. He is the one disobeying. He is the one in violation of Romans 13.
When John Adams said that our Constitution presupposes a moral and religious people, and that it is wholly unfit for any other, this is part of why that is so. A truly moral and religious people would understand basic civics. They would know what their duties and responsibilities were as citizens under God. But for many Christians today, the height of their involvement is voting for the same liar every couple of years—because we prefer the liar we know to the liar we don’t know. We have to do better than that.
For Further Study
If you didn’t learn basic American civics, then take up the subject now. A crash course may be needed. I would recommend this book by Mark Hall, and this one by Gary DeMar, and then this one, just out, by Gary Steward. A lot actually rides on this.