Tea Party Charter: Defense of Property & Revival of Virtues Equals Liberty

It's obvious that a society highlighting freedom must also honor virtue. For without the cooperation of law-abiding citizens, government devolves into a police state or anarchy. As virtue ebbs across America at every level, from kindergarten to the Oval Office; from pulpit to boardroom, an uprising demands an American revival. This is the Tea Party, a spontaneous lawful revolt demanding a return to our ancestral ideals and constitutional freedoms. This group represents a reformation of the quintessential American virtues: a defense of life, liberty and property.

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That these intrepid patriots arose without central planning or a galvanizing leader remains one of the astounding occurrences in US political history. And so a debate rages -- What is the central motif of the Tea Party? Does this ragtag army, a modern day Peasant's Revolt -- even have a theme? A central idea lies just under the surface. The inchoate theme of the Tea Party is nothing less than America's Declaration and Constitution. The following is a brief elucidation and defense of the Tea Party's raison d'etre.

I. American Tax Protests as Tea Party Antecedent

The USA arose because of British usurpation of various illegal taxes. This can be summed up as "taxation without representation." These included the protests over the Stamp Act, Townsend Act, and Whiskey Rebellion. The famed Boston Tea Party was merely the most memorable. It can be fairly argued that without these precedent tax protests there would have been no Declaration or Constitutional Congress. One reason the Founders decided to protect property was a result of tax issues. In fact, the entire Bill of Rights was assembled to protect the people from the undue power of government.

II. Defense of Property: John Locke's Great Bequest

John Locke was the first great thinker to enshrine private property. His innovation was to demand from government an absolute defense of private property. Without this evolution it would be impossible to imagine the modern world. Recall Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, a supposed great work of innovation, is actually a throwback to the ancient notion that government owned all property. As John W. Danford writes in Roots Of Freedom, a Primer On Modern Liberty,

Locke was perhaps the first great thinker to grasp the rudiments of modern liberal economics, and to incorporate a radically new understanding of wealth into his political philosophy. He argued that the preservation of property -- meaning men's "lives, liberties and estates" -- is the basic justification of all civil order. He writes, "The great and chief end , therefore, of Men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of Their Property."

When the Tea Party attacks deficit spending, reckless taxation, or other unjust takings it is a defense not just of our Constitution, but our entire way of life. Let us recall, without an unqualified right to private property, our entire system falls into ruin.

III. Civic Virtues, The Only True Secular Bulwark

The Founders were opposed to the establishment of a state religion because they saw it hampering the equality of worship. It is an utter falsehood to claim the Founders were anti-religion, although some were undoubtedly deistic. Yet none discounted the good Christianity had done to civilize Europe and potential to humanize mankind. For example, the most cited book in the Founding colonial era (1760-1805) was the Bible. But on top of a Christian witness, the colonists understood that virtue had to be inculcated in a civic setting for their society to prosper. There can be no successful democracy without a republic of civic virtues. George Washington & Jonathan Edwards offer several examples of American virtue instruction. Washington trained himself for years with a list later discovered which enumerated 110 'Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.' The first few will give a sense of the tenor:

1. Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present. 2. When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usually discovered.

Jonathan Edwards, the man still regarded as America's greatest philosopher and theologian had his own list of virtues, perhaps a bit weightier than Washington's.

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1722-1723) Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake. Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week. 1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad's of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

Humanistic Ben Franklin lists of thirteen virtues, including the last: "HUMILITY: Imitate Jesus and Socrates." Now consider a list of biblical virtues early colonialists tried to emulate (1 Corinthians 13):

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Bear several things in mind about the colonial idea of virtue. First, while colonists were encouraged by the classical ideal, this was not their model. Second, the early Pilgrims and Puritans, as well as later colonists and Founders all understood the very logical connection between Christianity and the development of modern virtues. Third, the Founders also understood that the creation of a practice of civic virtues must be independent of the church, and the future of the Republic would stand upon this edifice. And fourth, adults had to be encouraged to be virtuous as a way of sustaining the Republic, and children therefore must be inculcated in this ideal. The McGuffey Reader was instrumental in this task.

IV. Liberty, Our Most Noble Estate

What is "Liberty"? It is simple freedom and has been a hallmark of Western thought since the Enlightenment, but its seeds go back to the Renaissance and Reformation, and even further to the early Christian Church. There were certain aspects of liberty in the classical world. But no pagan society believed man was free in the modern sense, as outlined in the Bill of Rights. According to Vetterli and Bryner's In Search Of The Republic, Public Virtue & The Roots Of American Government, the colonists became increasingly fixated on liberty the more it was encroached upon. The issue began to dominate public discussions and was especially discussed from the pulpits of colonial pastors. They write,

The sermons of American ministers repeatedly linked the fight against Britain with the fight against sin. Engagement and zeal in both struggles offered the hope of a dual salvation: The soul of the Christian and the Liberty of America. Liberty, or freedom is a promise given in the Bible from Christ to His followers, as explained by Saint Paul in his Epistle Galatians 5:1 --

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

The concept of freedom was detailed in the Bible and yet it took thousands of years for the implications of this to be developed in society. Lynn Hunt, in Inventing Human Rights points how the English preacher and pamphleteer Richard Price, in Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America. discussed four aspects of Liberty in his support of the colonists, citing:

First, physical liberty; secondly, moral liberty; thirdly, religious liberty; and fourthly, civil liberty. These heads comprehend under them all the different kinds of liberty. And I have placed civil liberty last because I mean to apply to it all I shall say of the other kinds of liberty.

Such thinkers helped to develop America into a colossus of freedom. And today the Tea Partiers demand their rights which the government has usurped.

V. Education & Religion, A Firm Foundation

Classical

The Classical period developed the notion of virtue within the context of both pagan religious and secular settings, albeit without a biblical context. The Renaissance brought back classical learning and their ideal of virtue. Such writers as Cicero focused on virtue as being "public mindedness," whereas the Founders saw that virtue was a set of good habits that benefited the Republic which drew inspiration by private biblical piety.

Colonial

The Puritan educational ideal was a Renaissance classical model added to deep biblical study. The Puritans were the model for the Founders who were deeply influenced by Calvinist theology. As Douglas F. Kelly writes in The Emergence Of Liberty In The Modern World, "In terms of population alone, a high percentage of the pre-revolutionary American colonies were of Puritan-Calvinist background." Vetterli and Bryner write on this,

The idea of the necessity of virtue -- developed as a "modern" doctrine and practice from an amalgam of classical, medieval, Renaissance, Reformation and biblical concepts -- was commonplace. Out of this metamorphosis came the belief that virtue and morality -- specifically biblical morality -- were synonymous, although they were sometimes referred to as separate concepts.

Modern

Alexis de Tocqueville noted how habitually virtuous Americans were, the opposite of today. What has occurred? America's educational downfall began when John Dewey, a crypto-Marxist, became the gatekeeper. The impact of Dewey's ideas halted the classical Puritan model. This coincides with the rise of Darwinism while forcing American Christianity into a ghetto. Darwinism established a respectable face of secularism upending America's Christian heritage. Marxism was the economic aspect of radical secularism Darwinism also represented. So a secular worldview was cobbled together, wholly false but seemingly defensible given apparent unity.

Conclusion

The Tea Party represents the richest tradition in the history of the United States -- an orientation towards our Declaration's Life, Liberty and Happiness, ie Property. Further, the Tea Party senses the decline in public virtue as represented by rampant public corruption revealing an ax laid at the roots of the Republic. This is best illustrated by the crazy deficit spending which achieves no economic product but threatens to impoverish future generations of Americans. We cannot gain our liberty back without the secret to the Founder's freedoms, which Vetterli and Bryner describe as virtue, "Christianity and its emphasis on virtue was a central component of the intellectual environment in which the Founders matured and acted." Today, lying, cheating, sabotage and theft occur regularly at the highest levels of America's government. This political morass represents a sickness unto death to the American Republic, which if not addressed must kill the host. That the Tea Party is willing to fight this grim battle needs celebration. This selfless, virtuous act of fighting tyranny ought be saluted by every good American citizen as well as generations of future patriots not yet born, if we can but survive our constitutional crisis.