Sunday, April 20, 2014

Two sets of Founding Fathers inspired our Nation...


People:  American identity was not founded on the GOP Lie that white British Subjects living in the American Colonies were “taxed enough already” and rose up and dumped tea in Boston Harbor and crafted a Declaration of Independence and a U.S. Constitution in support of vulture capitalism.

It makes me sick to watch the GOP co-opt Real American Patriots while espousing their hatred for their democratic experiment. The real Tea Party, The Sons of Liberty, estimated to be founded in 1765, was not protesting against paying taxes or against paying too much in taxes ~ they were protesting against being taxed without representation! Quite a different story than what the haters spew.


Real American Patriots were a mix of public statesmen and private managers of the rank and file fighting to create a more perfect union ~ not government haters fighting to deny the existence of it as sovereign citizen-like talking Clive Bundy and his minions are … declaring U.S. Federal Courts foreign, declaring Nevada a sovereign state and declaring a range war against the nation.



In fact, Real American Patriots drew on the diversity of their time and place to craft that literary piece of work The Declaration of Independence and that masterful piece of work The U.S. Constitution. And, the Iroquois, primarily through their relationship with Ben Franklin, played a key role in the creation of the United States as a federal union guaranteeing its citizens a voice and well-being…

“The Iroquoian system, expressed through its constitution, "The Great Law of Peace," rested on assumptions foreign to the monarchies of Europe: it regarded leaders as servants of the people, rather than their masters... The Iroquois’ law and custom upheld freedom of expression in political and religious matter... It provided for political participation by women and the relatively equitable distribution of wealth. These distinctly democratic tendencies sound familiar in light of subsequent American political history – yet few people today (other than American Indians and students of their heritage) know that a republic existed on our soil before anyone here had ever heard of John Locke, or Cato, the Magna Charta, Rousseau, Franklin, or Jefferson…To Jefferson, as well as Franklin, the Indians had what the colonists wanted: societies free of oppression and class stratification.”

Ironically, the Iroquois (non-angry-non-whites) demanded the Colonies (non-angry-whites) form a union so they could work together. They found 13 separate entities (sovereign entities) too complicated to work with efficiently and trade regulation.  Quite amusing when one thinks about all of that angry, white, sovereign testosterone flying around Clive’s place as if they are just so damn superior…

A little background…

The Crown wanted the Iroquoian confederation in their camp to fight French creep.

“In order to cement the alliance, the British sent Colonial envoys, one of whom was Benjamin Franklin, to the frontier and beyond. This decision helped win North America for the British -- but only for a time. In the end, it still cost them as the Colonial delegates passed more than wampum over the council fires of the treaty summits. They also came home with an appetite for natural rights --life, liberty, and happiness -- that they saw operating on the other side of the frontier. These observations would help mold the political life of the colonies…

By the early 1750s, Franklin was an Indian commissioner.  His attention to Indian affairs grew in tandem with his advocacy of a federal union of the colonies. Franklin’s writings indicate that as he became more deeply involved with the Iroquois and other Indian peoples, he picked up ideas from them concerning not only federalism, but concepts of natural rights, the nature of society and man’s place in it, the role of property in society, and other intellectual constructs that would be called into service by Franklin as he and other American revolutionaries shaped an official ideology for the new United States.

As early as 1750, Franklin recognized that the economic and political interests of the British colonies were diverging from those of England and he began to think of forms of political confederation that might suit a dozen distinct, often mutually suspicious, political entities. A federal structure such as the Iroquois Confederacy, which left each state in the union to manage its own internal affairs and charged the confederate government with prosecuting common, external matters, must have served as an expedient, as well as appealing, example. As Franklin began to express his thoughts on political and military union of the colonies, he was already attempting to tie them together culturally, through the establishment of a postal system and the American Philosophical Society, which drew to Philadelphia the premier Euro-American scholars of his day.

The London Board of Trade wrote to the New York provincial government September 18, 1753, directing all the colonies that had dealings with the Iroquois to join in "one general Treaty to be made in his Majesty’s name." It was a move that began, in effect, to bring about the unified management of Indian affairs that Colden, Kennedy, Franklin, and the Iroquois had requested.  Franklin was appointed to represent Pennsylvania at the Albany congress in 1754.

Franklin had drawn up a draft of "Short Hints Toward a Scheme for Uniting the Northern Colonies.” His final draft was commissioned two weeks to the day after his newspaper published the "Join or Die" cartoon, a forceful statement in favor of Colonial union.

The Albany Plan of Union gained Franklin general recognition in the colonies as an advocate of Colonial union. The plan also earned Franklin a position among the originators of the federalist system of government that came to characterize the United States political system. According to Clinton Rossiter, "Franklin made rich contributions to the theory and practice of federalism . . . he was far ahead of the men around him in abandoning provincialism.

While the Iroquois and Franklin were ready for a Colonial union, the legislatures of the colonies were not. Following its passage by the Albany congress on July 10, 1754, Franklin’s plan died in the Colonial legislatures … Franklin showed his dismay at the inability of the colonies to act together when he said that ‘the councils of the savages proceeded with better order than the British Parliament.’

Franklin’s plan was also rejected by the Crown, but for reasons different from those of the Colonial legislatures. To the British, the plan was too democratic.  … The separate Colonial governments and the Crown had, in effect, vetoed the plan of the Albany commissioners -- a veto beyond which there could be no appeal. Nonetheless, the work of the congress was not in vain.”

Approximately 20 years later, the colonists took Franklin’s advice ~ hang together or hang separately! (Paraphrased) He brought the Albany plan to the table and the process of negotiations and compromises began behind closed doors. It would end in the formation of the United States of America, per a federal confederation of Native American Nations.




The rest is history, as someone once said, and as we forever strive to create a more perfect union a wise People would disregard the government haters twisted claims of Patriotism and take the time to read some of our founding history, much of the basis of which can be found in the “Great Law of Peace,” and proceed from there to vote the haters out in November!

Let me leave you with a highly relevant snippet of a quote from Forgotten Fathers:

…America can be revived, rejuvenated, by recognizing a Native School of thought.

-- Chief Luther Standing Bear ~ Lakota (Sioux) ~ Land of the Spotted Eagle


G. aka Partisan Democrat


Special thanks is extended to Bruce E. Johansen , author of Forgotten Fathers  for his dissertation work on the topic and for his offering of the book for free online! http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FF.html

and to Gerald Murphy (The Cleveland Free-Net-aa300) Distributed by the Cybercasting Services Division of the National Public Telecomputing Network (NTN for his preparation of the Iroquois Constitution.

Others sources of information include:






2 comments:

  1. Brava! Thank you, for this article on the United States history. Sharing it across social media platforms.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Laurel. Your opinion means a lot to me! And, of course, I appreciate the sharing...

    ReplyDelete