Arriving in America: English Civilization Shapes the New World

While Spanish and Portuguese explorers organized most of Central and South America, it was the British, along with French and Dutch, who began the settlement of North America. Later, it would be the Germans who built most of the agricultural and industrial base, but initially, the British shaped the area.

The first groups of settlers from Britain — i.e., from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales — journeyed for a variety of reasons. Some went to America for financial opportunities: money could be made by selling animal fur, or by growing tobacco. Others arrived seeking religious freedom: in North America, they could organize their worship and live their faith as they pleased. A third reason for the relocation was political liberty: the thirteen British colonies had an atmosphere which tolerated diverse opinions and public debate. Finally, some came with ambitions of becoming political leaders: in the New World, ordinary people could be elected to town councils or colonial legislatures, something rarely possible in Britain.

Society in North America, specifically in the regions that would become the United States, was built by ideas and cultures from many nations: Germany, France, Holland, etc. But the early years, and some of the most formative influences, came from the English, as historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski writes:

Crossing the Atlantic during the seventeenth century was a perilous voyage, entailing weeks or months of cramped quarters, inadequate food, and unsanitary conditions. Yet in the late 1500s Englishmen had begun to hazard the venture, and in 1607 they planted their first permanent settlement on the North American continent at Jamestown. By the early 1730s, thirteen separate colonies hugged the seaboard. Although great diversity prevailed among the colonies, most colonists shared a common English heritage and clung to it tenaciously. Their religious attitudes, economic views, political thoughts, and military ideals and institutions were all grounded in English history. In no aspect of colonial life was this heritage more important than in regard to military matters. The colonists' most revered military institution (the militia) and their most cherished military tradition (fear of a standing army) both came from England.

The difference between the ‘militia’ and the ‘standing army’ shaped American history for several centuries. The ‘militia’ is a group formed of ordinary people — farmers, lawyers, teachers, doctors, etc. — who had some basic military training and could be called upon when needed. The men in the militia weren’t full-time soldiers, and spent their weekdays at their normal jobs. Only in cases of emergency were they called upon to meet and go into action.

By contrast, the ‘standing army’ is a group of full-time professional soldiers, who usually wear uniforms, don’t have other employment or jobs, and live in some type of army housing.

The settlers from England brought with them a distrust of ‘standing armies’ and a preference for ‘militia’ units. They passed this disposition on to the other settlers in North America. The British suspicion of standing armies arose from the fact that, when a full-sized trained and equipped army is not usefully occupied, government leaders can use it to harass ordinary people.

The appropriate use of an army is for it to fight with other armies from other countries. But the English government had used the army to intimate civilians into paying excessive taxes, silencing their political opinions, and preventing diverse forms of religious worship. In summary, the army was a ‘muscle’ or ‘enforcer’ for the whims of the King or the Parliament. Instead of protecting the British people, the army was being used to intimidate the British people. So the attitude developed among the British: they didn’t really like the army, and prefered to have a militia.

The events that created this attitude in England were followed by events in America that reinforced the attitude. British soldiers in North America were supposed to be there to protect the colonists who’d settled there; but the colonists were capable of defending themselves, as they did on several occasions, and didn’t need the British army. But the British government placed extra taxes on the settlers to pay for the army to be there. So the settlers were forced to pay for an army they didn’t need.

It got worse. The British soldiers were used, in America as in England, to harass the local population.

These circumstances merely reinforced the anti-army attitude which the settlers brought with them from England.

So, the settlers turned to the idea of the ‘militia’ — which turned out to be less costly, to be a more effective way of defending themselves, and to be less of a danger to the rights and freedoms of the settlers.

The American militia grew to be not only a powerful fighting force, but also a part of the American culture and American mentality. At that time, as at the present time, a large percentage of Americans had a rifle or other firearm at home anyway. Men and women were familiar with rifles, knew how to use them, and used them on a regular basis to provide food for their families. American villages had a communal spirit: neighbors helped each other with barnraising and harvesting, with quilting and tanning, with butchering and fence building. So it was an obvious step that they should help each other in the defense of their villages, joining together to form a local militia.

The militia was a local institution, not commanded by officials in a far-away government center. The militia was self-organized, self-funded, and self-directed.

In this way, we can see one source in the American preference for local government over national government, for self-government over imposed power, and for private citizen initiatives instead of enforced tax-funded projects.

The Quest for Freedom and Equality: Liberalism vs. Classical Liberalism

Three distinctive features of the United States are the establishment of freedom and equality as goals, the steady effort applied in the service of these goals, and the measurable forward movement toward these goals. This is a consistent American trend over several centuries.

In political vocabulary, this can be expressed in a variety of ways. It is worth noting that the word ‘liberalism’ has several different meanings. A particular type of liberalism called ‘classical liberalism’ was and is found as a foundation for the peculiarly American values of freedom, equality, and individualism.

Classical liberalism is found in the thoughts and writings of authors like John Locke, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and James Otis, along with many others who influenced the American Revolution in the 1700s. Classical liberalism places emphasis on the freedom of the individual: personal political liberty. Classical liberalism wants to protect the individual from government control, taxation, and regulation.

By contrast, the word ‘liberalism’ was used in a different way in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The liberalism of the late 1900s and early 2000s desired to regulate personal behavior, public speech, and economic transactions. This type of liberalism also sought higher taxes.

So the ‘classical liberalism’ of the 1700s and early 1800s is different from the liberalism of later eras. It was classical liberalism that began and completed the fight against slavery, as historian Jonathon Bean writes:

In the era of antislavery, classical liberal voices for racial freedom drew upon the Constitution, Christianity, and belief in the right to self-ownership.

The antislavery movement drew from a diverse set of philosophical underpinnings: the classical liberal framework of the U.S. Constitution, the values of freedom and equality as articulated by Christianity, and the somewhat abstract concept of self-ownership. The ideological and intellectual matrix of the abolitionist movement was robust.

These ideas were intertwined with each other in the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson’s original draft argued that “these truths” were “sacred and undeniable,” while the final draft called them “self-evident.” Jefferson’s draft stated that all people are created “equal and independent,” while the final draft said simply that they were “equal.” These differences may be subtle, but the fact that the changes were made between the first draft and the final draft show how logically, carefully, and philosophically the members of the Second Continental Congress were thinking and writing.

The Declaration of Independence was also a touchstone of abolitionism quoted and discussed by James Forten, David Walker, Lysander Spooner, Frederick Douglass, and nearly every other antislavery writer in the tumultuous period leading up to the Civil War.

African-American leaders like James Forten, David Walker, and Frederick Douglass used the Declaration of Independence to express and support their views, because it combined various versions of Natural Law thought. The tradition of Natural Law asserts that there is a foundation in the structure of the universe which determines what justice is, i.e., that justice is not the arbitrary opinion of some person or group of people, but rather that justice stands objectively and enduringly above, beyond, and outside of mere personal opinion.

Natural Law theory has a diverse range of supporters: some argue that Natural Law is the result of reason, that people who think logically and precisely will come to a clear conclusion about what justice is; others argue that Natural Law is divine, and has been established and articulated by God; a third group argues that Natural Law is known intuitively and instinctively by people.

The Declaration of Independence brought these three different groups together, allowing them to cooperate in the American Revolution, and in opposing slavery.

Natural Law theory is a foundation for the antislavery movement, because it was necessary to show that slaver is unjust and immoral. It is not enough to say merely that slavery is unjust in the opinion of some people; it must be demonstrated that slavery is unjust in an objective and absolute sense, as Jonathan Bean explains:

Strong, often violent, opposition to antislavery activists led them to develop a coherent tradition that dominated the civil rights movement well into the twentieth century and still persists today.

As Jefferson phrased it in his first draft, people are created equal, and “from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable.” The final draft says that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Again, the difference is slight, but the mindfulness devoted to the wording is detailed.

While Jefferson spoke of “the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the final draft shortened this summary to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Early African-American leaders were keenly aware of the irony of the fact that several of the men who laid the groundwork for the antislavery movement were themselves slave owners. These early black leaders embraced these documents, but certainly did not approve of every detail of the men’s lives.

Although the author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, was a slaveholder, that fact did not undermine the meaning and power of the natural rights theory set forth in that famous document, which mentions God four times as the source of those “unalienable Rights.”

The power of the words — and more importantly, the power of the ideas — put forth by the classical liberals of the 1700s was strong enough that it would not be nullified by failings and weaknesses of the authors who expressed them.

It was the power of classical liberalism thought that exposed the falsehoods presented by the pro-slavery political leaders. By means of careful analysis, the classical liberals understood that there was a dichotomy between authentic Christianity and fake Christianity. Slaveholders sought to justify their actions by appealing to a counterfeit version of Christianity which they manufactured to justify their crimes.

Classical liberals understood that true Christianity supported Natural Law theory and was therefore opposed to slavery. One of the greatest and earliest religious conflicts in American history is the struggle between real Christianity and fake Christianity, as Jonathan Bean reports:

Throughout this period, classical liberal Christians found themselves fighting proslavery interpretations of Christianity advanced by southerners.

So it was that the abolitionist movement represented a harmonization of diverse views. Whether people held that Natural Law was known by logical reasoning, by spiritual faith, or by intuition and instinct, they could all agree on Natural Law theory and its opposition to slavery. So it was that both men and women, both white Americans and black Americans, agreed from early 1700s onward that American Revolution and its drive for independence was identical to the demand that slavery be ended.

This diverse set of thinkers, agreed on this unifying thought, together rallied around the words of the Declaration of Independence:

In response, classical liberals invoked the concept that “all men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [and] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It was ‘classical liberalism,’ not later forms of liberalism, which both launched the American Revolution and launched the abolitionist movement. The drive for American independence and the drive to end slavery were both fueled by Natural Law. The quest toward individual political liberty, toward personal freedom, and toward respect for the individual person arose from a concept of equality; the notion of equality arose from the idea of human nature in which all people equally share, and which demands both independence for America and freedom for slaves.