Compliance Destroys Freedom
The Foundation of the Revolution
The Foundation of the Revolution
(Tenth Amendment Center) - “RESIST THEM”
American Independence was built on the understanding that compliance with arbitrary power isn’t safety – or peace.
It’s surrender.
That’s an essential, but long-forgotten foundation of the American Revolution: Laws made outside the limits of the constitution aren’t law at all.
And they should be treated that way too.
LIMITS
The starting point? Government doesn’t get to do whatever it wants. It has limits.
As third Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth put it, when it goes beyond those limits – those acts aren’t “law.” They’re void – right from the start.
“If they make a law which the Constitution does not authorize, it is void”
Declaring something void is one thing. But making it that way in practice is another. Algernon Sidney, whose book Discourses Concerning Government was highly influential on the American revolutionaries, said the people should treat them that way, too.
“That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed”
This view was widely held throughout the Revolution. For example, Patrick Henry, in his Virginia resolves against the Stamp Act, said that when government goes beyond its limits, the people are not required to obey.
“The Inhabitants of this Colony, are not bound to yield Obedience to any Law or Ordinance whatever, designed to impose any Taxation whatsoever upon them, other than the Laws or Ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid.”
But the British persisted in passing more arbitrary acts. And by the time the…