Fight Tyranny in Principle March 15, 2007

by HUMPHREY Email

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 15, 2007

Writing in 1785, James Madison, often called the Father of the US Constitution, warned that Americans must ?take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.?

?The freemen of America did not wait until usurped power had strengthened itself in exercise, and entangled the questions in precedents; they saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.?

The wisest men of the founding generation understood that seemingly trivial excise taxes being placed on various items, from sugar to tea to printed paper, were insidious acts through which the distant British parliament was stealthily stealing American freedom.

The patriot leaders were not satisfied when specific taxes were repealed, because Parliament still claimed the power, in principle, to regulate and tax the colonies as they saw fit. It was to abolish that tyrannical principle, as much as any existing abuse, that the Revolutionary War was fought.

Contemporary Americans should apply the Founders' wisdom by fighting government policies that are tyrannical in principle, before they inflict tangible abuses.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

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