From the fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution—a space of thirteen centuries—the only real republican governments were mountain peoples and independent trading cities, in which again the voting class was in small proportion. The only factors that ardently strove for liberty were the knights and noblemen, who did their best to weaken the power of the kings, so that they might have the more authority over their own vassals. The Middle Ages and even the period of the Restoration, with its appeal to the right to choose one’s own religion and to achieve one’s own salvation, did little to relieve the serf, the peasant, and the poor workman.
TABLET CELEBRATING THE BOSTON TEA PARTY
The inscription reads: “Here formerly stood Griffin’s wharf, at which lay moored on December 16, 1773, three British ships with cargoes of tea. To defeat King George’s trivial but tyrannical tax of three pence a pound, about ninety citizens of Boston, partly disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, threw the cargoes, three hundred and forty-two chests in all, into the sea, and made the world ring with the patriotic exploit of the Boston Tea Party.”
English Liberty
Against this gloomy background rose the wondrous structure of English liberty. At first the English people under their Norman kings were no freer than other peoples: England contained serfs and even slaves. The only people that had a share in the government were the Norman nobles who were sometimes consulted on the making of laws, and they were not different from the nobles that tried to divide power with the sovereigns of France and Sweden and the Germanic countries. The difference was that the dukes and counts and barons in most parts of Europe lost ground before the growth of an arbitrary royal power, while the English lords banded together successfully to secure pledges from their kings. In 1215 they wrung from King John the magnificent Magna Charta, including the glorious privileges that: “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or banished, or any way destroyed, nor will we pass upon him, nor will we send upon him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or delay to any man, either justice or right.”
Original painting by Peter Frederick Rothermel (born 1817)
PATRICK HENRY ADDRESSING THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY IN 1765
Henry, supporting the resolutions to resist the Stamp Act, at one point exclaimed, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—” “Treason! treason!” shouted the Speaker of the Assembly. “Treason! treason!” shouted the members—“and,” Henry continued, “George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!”