Historical Perspective

Part of "checking the mirrors" in life requires studying history to gain perspective on present circumstances. While my own writing has been scarce lately, I'd like to take the opportunity to share a recent column by Patrick J. Buchanan that I feel is both appropriate and relevant to this blog. If you didn't catch it July 4th, here it is:

The Loss of Independence:By Patrick J. Buchanan, July 4, 2008
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27360

"Not until a year after Lexington did the Continental Congress muster the resolveto declare the 13 colonies free and independent states, no longer subject toParliament or Crown.
Not for five years after July 4, 1776, did George Washington's army truly attainAmerica's independence at Yorktown.

Even then, Washington and his aide Alexander Hamilton knew that the 13 states,while politically independent, were dependent upon Europe for the necessities oftheir national life. Without French ships and guns, French muskets and troops,the Americans could not have forced Gen. Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.

Cornwallis would have sailed away, as Gen. Howe had from Boston.

Indeed, absent the 1778 alliance with France, our Revolution would have been alonger bloodier affair and might not have succeeded.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, both Washington and Hamilton weredetermined to make America's political independence permanent, and to begin tocut the umbilical cord to Europe.

In the Constitution that came out of that convention, the states were prohibitedfrom imposing any tariffs on the products of other states, thus creating thegreatest common market in history, the United States of America. Second, theU.S. government was empowered to raise revenue by imposing tariffs on foreigngoods, but explicitly denied the power to impose taxes on the incomes ofAmerican citizens.

And as Hamilton set the nation onto a course that would ensure economicindependence, Washington took the actions and made the decisions that wouldassure our political independence.

First, he declared neutrality in the European wars that followed the FrenchRevolution of 1789. Second, he sought to sever the 1778 alliance with France, afeat achieved by his successor, John Adams.

Third, in his Farewell Address, the greatest state paper in U.S. history,Washington admonished his countrymen to steer clear of permanent alliances andto stay out of Europe's wars. Rarely in the 19th century did the United Statesdivert from the course set by Washington and Hamilton.
In 1812, however, James Madison, goaded by "war hawks" Henry Clay and JohnCalhoun, and ignoring the counsel of the Farewell Address, declared war onBritain and came near to seeing his nation torn apart.

Had it not been for the Duke of Wellington's preoccupation with Napoleon andAndy Jackson's rout of a British invasion army at New Orleans, America mighthave been split asunder. In 1814, New England was on the verge of seceding, andthe British had in mind splitting off the vast Louisiana territory. As it was,Madison had to flee the Washington, when a British Army came up the BladensburgRoad to burn the Capitol and Madison's White House.

After peace in 1815, however, Madison signed the Tariff Act of 1816 to preventBritish merchants from dumping goods into the United States to kill America'sinfant industries that had arisen during the war and to prevent Britishmerchants from recapturing the U.S. markets they had lost.

For most of the 19th century, the nation followed the economic policy ofHamilton and the foreign policy of Washington -- and was richly rewarded. By thefirst decade of the 20th century, America was the most independent andself-reliant republic in all of history.

And by staying out of two world wars of the 20th century until many of thebloodiest battles had been fought, America emerged in 1945 economically andpolitically independent of all other nations.

During the Cold War, however, Americans came to believe that a temporaryalliance, NATO, was necessary to prevent Joseph Stalin's empire from overrunningEurope and turning the balance of power against us. To help our wartime alliesand former enemies Japan, Germany and Italy to their feet, we set asideHamilton's policy and threw open the American market to the goods of Free Europeand Free Asia.

These should have been temporary alliances and temporary measures. Instead, theywere made permanent.

No longer free of foreign entanglements, as Thomas Jefferson urged, we now havecommitments to defend 50 countries. The old Hamiltonian policy of "ProsperAmerica First" has given way to worship of a Global Economy, at whose altars wesacrifice daily the vital interests of our own manufacturers and workers.

"Interdependence" is now the desired end of the new elite.

And so we have become again a dependent nation. We borrow from Europe and Japanto defend the oil of Europe and Japan in the Persian Gulf. We borrow from Chinato buy the goods of China. We are as dependent on foreign borrowing as we are onforeign oil.

And the questions arise: If the men of '76, who led those small and vulnerablestates, were willing to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and sacred honor forAmerica's independence, what is the matter with us?

Do we not value independence as they did? Or is it that we are simply not themen our fathers were?"

Couldn't have said it better myself - MWG