Americanism Redux

June 15, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1775

We’re peopling today. That means hanging out, checking in, and stopping by.

People—they’re doing what they do, of importance to them and to others.

Today.

250 years ago.

Let’s say hello.

* * * * * * *

(what’s a re-org?)

Hello, Moses.

He’s Moses Sleeper, 22 years old, a marcher to the outskirts of Boston with others in the militia unit of Captain Ben Perkins. Today, Moses is doing what he’s been doing the past several days—camping in tents with the unit, talking with his friends he marched with, getting food and other supplies every so often, some light training, and most of all, watching the comings-and-goings in Boston harbor. Today he sees British Navy ships landing Redcoats, horses, and barrels and crates of military supplies.

Moses knows the latest big news coming out of Redcoat-controlled Boston. The commanding general of British forces there, Thomas Gage, has announced that martial law will go into effect, that Samuel Adams and John Hancock are “rebels and traitors”, that the same label applies to all people who support them, and finally that anyone who opposes these rebels and traitors will receive the full protection of the British Army and its martial law. Put another way, you stand up to them and we’ll step up for you. Moses learns of Gage’s announcement and the new state of life in greater Boston.

Two things, however, are unknown to Moses.

First, a secret report has arrived at the Massachusetts Committee of Safety that the British Redcoats are planning to seize the hills outside Boston to secure their hold on the town.

Second, there’s been a re-org. Good God Almighty, a re-org.

* * * * * * *

(Give me a couple of days to think about it)

Hello, George.

George Washington is mulling the implications of yesterday’s re-organization decision at the Second Continental Congress. The Second Continental Congress has agreed to take authority and control—on behalf of the Union—over the thousands of armed men (like Moses) camping in a vast semi-circle surrounding Boston. More to the point, George is also wondering about the offer they’ve made to him personally—they want him to accept the newly created position of General of the new Army. They’ve given him a couple of days to think about it. Give it the weekend, George, and get back to us with your decision.

The decision to take charge of the army and to extend a leadership offer to a commander comes with a clear prerequisite: civilian control of the military is an unshakeable principle, value, and belief of the Second Continental Congress. No negotiating on this. None.

So, what do you do if you’re him? You have a couple of days to reflect, pray, meditate, and/or…..?

* * * * * * *

(on the committee)

Hello, William.

William Hooper is one of the members of the Second Continental Congress who voted to embrace Moses and the men outside Boston, thus creating the Continental Army. He also voted for Washington to become its commanding General. In addition, though, Hooper is part of a three-man Continental Congress committee to draft a report on the need for a Union-wide day of religious reflection.

Hooper and the committee call for all Christians, regardless of sect, to set aside the upcoming July 20 for prayer and worship on behalf of preserving the young Union and the protection of the “rights and privileges” of the colonies. Don’t work, don’t recreate, don’t do anything that distracts from your spiritual devotions on that day five weeks from now.

* * * * * * *

(as portrayed by William Daniel)

Hello, John.

John Adams is a colleague of Hooper’s in both the Continental Congress and the three-man committee. He’s optimistic about the spiritual side of the current moment. “The Clergy, this way,” he writes from Philadelphia to a friend, “are but now beginning to engage in Politics, and they engage with a fervor that will produce wonderful Effects.”

* * * * * * *

(a British naval officer faring better than James One or James Two)

Hello, James and James.

James (number one) Wallace has a headache. He’s a British naval officer on a ship, the Rose, sailing the waters of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay. His duty is to find, catch, and punish people violating the Coercive Acts. He sees a sharp increase in the number of such violator-vessels. The pro-colonial government of Rhode Island has just outfitted two ships meant to harass, damage, and defeat British imperial forces and British imperial supporters. Wallace can’t react to all the pest-like vessels out in the bay. Every day is another round of swatting at air, slapping at sounds, and cursing the darkness. Do it enough and you end up like Wallace—with a headache.

James (number two) Moore has two bullets in his chest. He’s slowly bleeding to death on a wooden bunk in Mathias, Massachusetts (now Maine). He’s been shot over the course of two lengthy naval battles on the waters off Mathias. Moore is the ranking officer, a midshipman, who was trying to command a small vessel in a running clash with protesters’ equally small ships. The source of the clash was a dispute at Machias over a British Loyalist merchant and shipper seeking to exchange food for a load of lumber and its reshipment back to Redcoat-held Boston. As the minutes tick by, Moore slips further and further away from this world.

* * * * * * *

(the town Janet can’t leave fast enough)

Hello, Janet.

Janet Schaw, a native of Scotland, is visiting her brother in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is still absorbing a sickening sight in the town from a few days ago. Janet watched as a large group of people—colonial rights’ supporters—yelled and screamed at a terrified British servant. They threatened to torture him with hot tar and feathers. He begged for his life and they relented: stand on this table and tell us how sorry you are for your crime. Shaking, the man sputtered out his deep sorrow.

His crime? He laughed out loud at a group of “backcountry” colonial rights’ supporters who were practicing firing their muskets in militia training.

Janet also saw a small group of people surrounded by still another group of protesters. The small group were being forced to sign loyalty papers in support of colonial rights. When Janet asked the protesters’ leader upon what authority he was directing this action, he smiled and pointed to the armed “backcountry” men. There’s the authority, said he.

Janet fears for her life as the visit nears its end.

* * * * * * *

(she pulls out an ace)

Hello, Mary.

Mary Hewson is in a squabble with her mother. Mary wants to breastfeed her baby for a year. Her mother is dead-set against it. In the back-and-forth of their argument over the matter, Mary plays the ace card:

My baby’s grandfather (really, a dear friend who is a quasi-grandfather figure) will be very angry if he discovers that you won’t let me decide on breastfeeding his grandchild.

Mary tells this story in a letter to the quasi-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin. Mary says that her mother views his opinion as perfect law, never to be challenged and never to be questioned.

Game over. Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.

* * * * * * *

The right to decide is self-government, a truth lived out today from Moses to Mary, today, 250 years ago.

Also

(the cathedral next to the park)

Today, 250 years ago, 2500 people in a French town are remembering what happened to them yesterday.

They were standing in the park near Saint Remi Abbey in Reims, France. They are the sufferers of scrofula, a severe swelling of the lymph nodes that shows itself in the neck. It’s a sign of tuberculosis infection.

They received the royal touch.

Newly coronated King of France, Louis XVI, was at the town’s cathedral following his official ceremony installing him as the nation’s monarch. He’d been anointed with holy oil and given royal robes. He took the time to touch each of the 2500 people at the abbey’s park, a gesture of healing from the earthly divine to the earthly subjected.

In other parts of France, collections of people seethe over their poverty and, more ominously, their hopelessness.

Perhaps one day, like the 2500 with scrofula, they’ll feel the royal touch.

For You Now

(seeing the operation up-close)

You’re seeing right in front of you a major surgical injection. And I’m not talking about Louis XVI’s healing touch.

It’s the transfer of a principle, pillar, and philosophical foundation stone from a smaller-scale government to the American Union’s centerpiece of togetherness.

It’s the idea of ultimate civilian control over the military, the organized capability of armed power. That’s the nature of the Second Continental Congress’s decision to agree to take over from the Massachusetts Provincial Assembly the direction of thousands of armed men surrounding Boston.

In the vote in Philadelphia a structure of an army appeared. The structure spans from the highest-ranking commanding general to the lowest-ranking private soldier. The armed structure will answer to civilian control.

The fear of standing armies goes back well over a century into English history and into European history, further still into ancient history and classical history. The fear is engrained in the men and women from Europe, but especially from England, who populate the eastern coast of North America. And for a significant fraction of those alive in the late spring of 1775, they’ve been dealing with real-time expressions of the fear for the past twenty years, from 1755 and the start of the French and Indian War (for comparison’s sake, do you have a memory from 2005 and the Second Gulf War?).

This fear is an ideal shared by tens of thousands of colonists in June 1775. A subset of those colonists are sitting in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State House 250 years ago today. They know the implications of their decision to create the Continental Army.

What’s perhaps less clear to us at this distance from them is the reality that they’ve simultaneously created a rival category of their own American Union. Up to now, 250 years ago, these delegates at Philadelphia were the only visible expression of the Union. As of now, however, they’ve just expanded and established a totally new and different type of Union expression. The Continental Army has the potential to be far more immediate, tangible, and consequential in daily life than the Continental Congress can ever hope to be. That potential is at the root of their fear.

And after all, were they really wrong about that? It’s not the Continental Congress that is celebrated. It’s the Continental Army, all the way down to today, 250 years later, now named the US Army. Of the many gifts bequeathed to us by the American founding generation, civilian control of the military is among the greatest.

Suggestion

Take a moment to ask yourself this question: how has the first American principle of civilian control of the military survived for 250 years?

(Your River)