Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga,
on October 17, 1777. Painting by John Trumbull, 1821
"Ruin in a Nation"
by Joel Bowman
“It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold,
the evil or the blessing will reach you all.”
~ Thomas Paine, from "The American Crisis"
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "How much ruin is there in a nation, dear reader? What about a whole civilization? When we left you earlier this week, we were reckoning over the state of The West. Much maligned and plenty under attack, we dared wonder what about this curious experiment is worth defending? What might be the true cost of surrender? And what of those wily barbarians, already inside the gates?
Some dear readers took umbrage with our glib characterization of the situation. (And thank goodness! We were beginning to think we were losing our edge...) But before we get to all that, let us step back a little, away from the mainstream headlines and the anti-social media feeds, to gain a wider perspective...and to finally ask, what’s at stake?
Turning Point, USA: When British armed forces surrendered to the American revolutionaries after the Battle of Saratoga, in 1777, Sir John Sinclair is said to have commented to the moral philosopher, Adam Smith, “If we go on at this rate, the nation must be ruined.” Smith, knowing a thing or two about the wealth of nations, replied calmly, “Be assured, young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”
For many historians, the British force’s misadventures in the Champlain Valley represented a kind of inflection point in the war. Indeed, it was the pivotal event which led France (and to a lesser extent, Spain) to recognize the independence of the colonies and, critically, to enter the war as a decisive military ally of the then-struggling Americans. No less an historian than Edmund Morgan underscored the importance of that particular defeat for the British forces. “[It] was a great turning point of the war,” he noted, “because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory.”
And yet, the British defeat at Saratoga notwithstanding, Smith was, in some sense, proven right. It would be six long years before the Americans won their independence from British imperial rule. Six years that saw the deaths of tens of thousands of men on both sides of the conflict. Certainly, the Old Empire had a lot of ruin in her still…
Fight for Freedom: When we think about the quest for independence and the wars fought over it, in the United States up north to Argentina down here in the south, we summon to mind an impulse rooted in a desire for basic freedom. It is the basic thrust of Patrick Henry’s notion, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
In the American revolutionaries who fought at Saratoga – and the dozens of other battles before the war ended, in 1783 – we see a people yearning to throw off the yoke of oppression, a people who wanted self-direction, to live and let live by their own rule, not that of a far off king.
Although the proximate cause of the American Revolutionary War is often attributed to “taxation without representation,” particularly as it was embodied in the infamous Stamp Act, the rebellion reflected something much deeper than mere nickel and diming at the post office. Rather, it was the sentiments behind language such as was found in the Declaratory Act that really set the colonists against their monarchical overlords...“…the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain.”
Indeed, the Declaration of Independence itself was not an anti-tax document as much as it was an anti-authoritarian document. It was drafted in protest against a “long train of abuses and usurpations” that had resulted in “the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” The colonists saw taxation as one component part of a much larger machine, an entire system that trespassed overtly on their “unalienable” right to self-rule.
The Declaration was in fact a resolute withdrawal of the “consent of the governed” and a determination of a people to engage “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” on their own terms and under their own conditions. It was at once an admirable stand against tyranny and an honorable experiment in self-governance, the first of its kind in history. At stake, then as now, was nothing short of freedom itself. And yet, even in the noblest of political experiments there lies the seed of ruin…
Liberty nor Safety: Eight years, four months and fifteen days after it began, King George III ended the American Revolutionary War when he signed his name to the Treaty of Paris. In doing so, his government recognized the United States sovereignty over a territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the great Mississippi River to the west. It was the first time a former colony had triumphed over its European master and won for its people their freedom.
Of course, that original territory would expand greatly over the ensuing years, partly through purchase, as was the case with Louisiana (from France, 1803) and Alaska (from Russia, 1867), and partly through armed conflict, bloody battles and eventual subjugation of local populations, a tale as old as time.
Whether by blood or by bill, come 1848, the population of the United States of America found itself spread from “sea to shining sea.” And the individuals who called that country home, from the Great Plains to the Great Lakes, the Rockies to the Prairies, the wetlands to the badlands, were as varied as the landscapes around them.
They came from all corners of the world to seek a better, freer life. To escape persecution – religious, political, social or other – at home…and to realize the dream of freedom and liberty for which those brave men and women once sacrificed. These were people claiming their own independence…in the land built on a declaration thereof.
But just as the size of the territory grew, and its people began to multiply and thrive, so too did the seed of ruin buried deep in a nation’s heart. Left unguarded, the very ideals for which the revolutionaries fought began to lose prominence in the public’s mind…and in their place lesser, baser notions took root. Benjamin Franklin warned against as much when he remarked…“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
And yet, over the next two and a half centuries, men quietly learned to trade their liberty for security, honest work for political expedience, rugged individualism for collective guilt, and heroic struggles for victimhood hierarchies. Where do we go from here? As always, stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."
