Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God

The power of government is ordained of God, but so is the right of the man, and the "power" of the one is limited to the conservation of the other in the primal constitution of society

Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God

As we celebrate this 4th of July, take a moment to consider and reflect upon some forgotten founding history incorporated into our Declaration of Independence. Genuine American history, having been replaced and obscured by “Social Studies”, is no longer taught in our schools and has long since been lost to our memory, but fortunately that history is preserved in our archives available to anyone with an interest in searching it out.

Our Founding Fathers did not “invent” the freedom we all take for granted, they merely asserted re-affirmed centuries old principles preserved in our cultural heritage.

This country began as former English colonies, where English common-law and its attending system of free governance was transplanted here from the mother country. England was the only country to survive the Roman conquest and escape the despotic Roman “civil law” dominating the European continent, the tyranny from which our European forefathers fled. These abbreviated primal English charters generated our fundamental founding “Organic Law”:

I

1. The Charter of Liberties of 1100 - bound the King to laws regarding the treatment of church officials and nobles. A landmark document in English legal history, a forerunner of Magna-Carta;

2. The Magna-Carta of 1215 - presented to King John at the point of a sword, proclaimed rights of the people; demanded the King be bound by the law; denied him authority to enforce his laws, that no “freeman” could be punished except by the law of the land (“trial by jury” of the accused’s peers). Inspired the United States Constitution;


3. The Petition of Right of 1628 - response to King Charles’ abolishment of Parliament for refusing to accede to his tax increase demands and attempting to govern without it. Abolished Charles’ “forced loans” in lieu of taxes denied by Parliament and arbitrary imprisonment of those unable to pay; and forced billeting of soldiers. Restated the validity of Magna-Carta’s legal requirement of habeas corpus for unlawful imprisonment without cause. Restricted the use of martial law. Influenced the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments to the Constitution of the United States;

4. The Grand Remonstrance of 1641 – set forth 204 objections opposing Charles’ foreign, financial, legal, and religious policies. Demanded a purge of venal officials and the expulsion of all Bishops from Parliament; for Parliament having a right of veto over Crown appointments; for an end to sale of land confiscated from Irish rebels. Opposed Charles’ sole control of all gunpowder kept in the Tower of London, his setting its sale price so high that the poor were unable to buy it, or have without licence, thereby leaving parts of the kingdom destitute of necessary defence;

5. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 – overthrew King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland), protected right of succession from foreign influence;

6. The Bill of Rights of 1689 - limited powers of the Crown; set rights of Parliament; rules for freedom of speech; required regular elections, and the right to petition the monarch without fear of retribution. Inspired the Bill of Rights in the United States.

In these are the historic origins of our country’s Organic Law. Their precedents formed the foundation of this Republic and are permanently preserved in our Founding Documents and in the Constitutions. The same despotic tyranny that plagued England 1,000 years ago is again posing a threat to liberty, the grievances listed in The Declaration are more appropriate today then when it was written. Notice that The Declaration begins with affirming the self-evident truth that our “unalienable rights are endowed by our Creator” and concludes with “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World” for “a firm reliance upon the protection of Divine Providence” followed by the signatures of our Founding Fathers.

II

The Declaration of Independence, like all legal documents, is composed of legal “words” and “terms of art”, which carry specific technical meanings not always conformable with commonly used street vernacular. In his elaborate Constitutional Commentaries, Professor of Constitutional Law, John Randolph Tucker clearly exposes and explains the fundamental principles embodied in that document.

As stated in all legal treatises, Professor Tucker begins with reference to the foundation of all authority, the “patria-potestas” (father-parent authority). Ordained by Nature’s God in the primal parents, this absolute authority vested in the parent was ordained for the benefit and protection of the child, who, without could not survive.

The human race began with a single man and woman pair, bound in social relations by quasi consent in a union ordained by God and the impulse of natural instincts. Every man (except this primal pair) entered society by a birth not of his own volition, but by the will of his parents under the order of nature. At birth he is without will, weak, and the most helpless offspring in the animal kingdom.

The human being is not born into manhood, but in feeble infancy, not born free, but subject to a power he cannot resist or abridge, and which if freed from, would promptly perish. Nature ushers him into life under this condition and assigns him to this subjection as essential to his life and well-being. To him, this despotism is a blessing; freedom would be a curse.

Pillowed on the love of a mother’s heart and protected by a father’s thrift and courage, the infant is is born into this world subject to their authority and dependent on their care. Under parental control, he is secured from parental tyranny by the instinct of parental love. Safe in infancy and under the nurture which God provides, he matures into adult manhood where he is able to fend for himself.

The germ of manhood enters by birth into the family (the germ of all society) in subjection to the father, the patria-potestas (the germ of all government), by Divine ordination. This entrance upon life is conclusive evidence of the self-evident truth that the parental government was designated for the good of the child, for his nurture under the best conditions to his maturity. He is placed under a power upon which the Divinely implanted instinct puts the most potent limitation, that it shall be exercised in justice and love for the highest interest of its subject. It is not autocratic but Divinely derived; it is not absolute but vested in trust for the protection and development of the infant.

While we find in the family the evidence of the fundamental truth that “the powers that be are ordained of God”, we find the qualification of this ordination: “for he is the minister of God to thee for good”. The first shows that power in government is not autocratic but lies in grant; the second that it is vested not for the benefit of the ruler, but for the good of the subject.

The “patria-potestas” does not establish a “master-servant” relationship between the parent and child, but one of a “trustee-beneficiary”, the “parent-trustee” duty bound to protect the interests of the “child-beneficiary” while it is under parental care. Since the “patria-potestas” is an absolute despotic authority, it is coupled with a duty to protect, its application is only valid when it does not harm that which it was ordained to protect.

“Nations” are extensions of a primal family, which expands into a clan, on into a tribe, and further on into the “nations” that have filled the earth. The “patria-potestas” transfers from the family “father-chief” to the “clan-chief”, to the “tribal-chief”, and ultimately to the national chief, the “father of the country” (the king, or in our case, the President). While government has the power to do harm, it has no right to do so. Power divorced from duty to protect is the exact definition of tyranny; power integrated with duty to protect is liberty.

The English king was corrupting and abusing his “father-parent authority” over his exploited “subject-children” to further his own self-serving aims and to unjustly enrich himself. This abuse rendered his authority unlawful and invalid, and any familial patriarchal allegiance owed him null and void. These principles were expressly held out to a candid world to justify the Declaration of Independence and the colonists’ rebellion against an invalid authority of a de-facto tyrant king.

In reference to the Declaration’s stated presumption that our rights are derived from our Creator, are founded in nature, pre-exist government, and are unalienable, Professor Tucker writes:

III

“Prior to the Christian era, all polity was concentrated in the construction of the state, with little or no regard to the rights of the man. Its ancient purpose was expansion of the state’s political power, not the security of the man, whose rights were subordinated to the power and glory of the state. The man, being a minuscule component making up the structure of the state, existed merely as an insignificant worker ant conscripted to toil to produce and supply the state’s material needs. His inherent purpose being to glorify the state and contribute to its unjust enrichment; his political status in society was dependent upon his membership and position in the political structure of the state.

Christianity separated the man from the political-social mass out of a duty to God. Our life and liberty do not belong to us, they are the “property” of our Creator, who bestows them upon us to be our “possession”, carrying a duty and obligation on our part to defend and protect them while they are in our custody. Each individual is a creature of God, gifted with faculties exclusively his own to which a personal and exclusive duty is attached to the Giver of them in their use. He holds his endowments by exclusive title in-trust for God. Man’s title to his liberty issues from his Creator.

It is the sole exclusive and personal right of each man to the endowments he receives from his Maker. Each man’s title to these is absolute, being between himself and God, which he holds as trustee for his Creator. Every man for himself in absolute self-use against all intrusive control by any other. How can any man, or body of men, interfere with the exclusive right of another to do his personal duty to meet his sole and exclusive responsibility to the Divine Being? How can anyone lawfully control another in discharging his duty to God?

Man’s defense of his personal liberty is a religious duty to God. It is not a mere right he may waive, but an imperative duty he must perform. To surrender his gift of liberty is religious treason; to defend it, religious duty. Society and government were made for man; man was not made for them. The body-politic was made for man’s good; he was not made for its benefit. The body-politic was not framed by man under any human compact but grew under the ordaining providence of God. Its existence was by Divine order, not by human consent.

The ordination of the powers that be must not be held to give Divine sanction to the claim of unlimited authority by those “powers”, nor to save from condemnation the tyranny of despotic governments which have destroyed the liberty of the individual man which those “powers” were ordained to protect and secure. No authority is rightful which does not conserve the personal liberty of the man and promote his individual good.

The power of government is ordained of God, but so is the right of the man, and the “power” of the one is limited to the conservation of the other in the primal constitution of society. He cannot yield this power, charged with the supreme duty, without peril to himself and treason to God. He cannot permit the Divinely constituted public guardian of this essential liberty to destroy it. As the ward of the Divine Being he must use every means to prevent government from turning its power, entrusted for his shield, into a sword for his ruin.

In these presents, we find the model for free institutions, in all ages, and for all mankind.”

Here we have seen the fundamental principles that gave rise to the Battle Cry of the American Revolution: “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God”, and which form the foundation of our American political theory.

(Note: Our Creator derived unalienable “natural” rights must not be confused with their counterpart post Civil War statutory“civil rights” which Congress confers upon its minority “subjects” through Civil Rights Acts and the 14th Amendment, another topic for another discussion.)

Have an enjoyable 4th.


By Guest Column Frank Polacek

Frank Polacek

Pro Deo et Constitutione – Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Joseph F Barber- http://josephfreedomoranarchy.blogspot.com/