Patrick J. Buchanan
Not until a year after Lexington did the Continental Congressmuster the resolve to declare the 13 colonies free and independentstates, no longer subject to Parliament or Crown.
Not for five years after July 4, 1776, did George Washington’s armytruly attain America’s independence at Yorktown.
Even then, Washington and his aide Alexander Hamilton knew that the13 states, while politically independent, were dependent uponEurope for the necessities of their national life. Without Frenchships and guns, French muskets and troops, the Americans could nothave forced Gen. Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown.
Cornwallis would have sailed away, as Gen. Howe had from Boston.
Indeed, absent the 1778 alliance with France, our Revolution wouldhave been a longer, bloodier affair and might not have succeeded.
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, both Washington andHamilton were determined to make America’s political independencepermanent, and to begin to cut the umbilical cord to Europe.
In the Constitution that came out of that convention, the stateswere prohibited from imposing any tariffs on the products of otherstates, thus creating the greatest common market in history, theUnited States of America. Second, the U.S. government was empoweredto raise revenue by imposing tariffs on foreign goods, butexplicitly denied the power to impose taxes on the incomes ofAmerican citizens.
And as Hamilton set the nation onto a course that would ensureeconomic independence, Washington took the actions and made thedecisions that would assure our political independence.
First, he declared neutrality in the European wars that followedthe French Revolution of 1789. Second, he sought to sever the 1778alliance with France, a feat achieved by his successor, John Adams.
Third, in his Farewell Address, the greatest state paper in U.S.history, Washington admonished his countrymen to steer clear ofpermanent alliances and to stay out of Europe’s wars. Rarely in the19th century did the United States divert from the course set byWashington and Hamilton.
In 1812, however, James Madison, goaded by "war hawks" Henry Clayand John Calhoun, and ignoring the counsel of the Farewell Address,declared war on Britain and came near to seeing his nation tornapart.
Had it not been for the Duke of Wellington’s preoccupation withNapoleon and Andy Jackson’s rout of a British invasion army at NewOrleans, America might have been split asunder. In 1814, NewEngland was on the verge of seceding, and the British had in mindsplitting off the vast Louisiana territory. As it was, Madison hadto flee Washington when a British army came up the Bladensburg Roadto burn the Capitol and Madison’s White House.
After peace in 1815, however, Madison signed the Tariff Act of 1816to prevent British merchants from dumping goods into the UnitedStates to kill America’s infant industries that had arisen duringthe war and to prevent British merchants from recapturing the U.S.markets they had lost.
For most of the 19th century, the nation followed the economicpolicy of Hamilton and the foreign policy of Washington - and wasrichly rewarded. By the first decade of the 20th century, Americawas the most independent and self-reliant republic in all of history.
And by staying out of two world wars of the 20th century until manyof the bloodiest battles had been fought, America emerged in 1945economically and politically independent of all other nations.
During the Cold War, however, Americans came to believe that atemporary alliance, NATO, was necessary to prevent Joseph Stalin’sempire from overrunning Europe and turning the balance of poweragainst us. To help our wartime allies and former enemies Japan,Germany and Italy to their feet, we set aside Hamilton’s policy andthrew open the American market to the goods of Free Europe and FreeAsia.
These should have been temporary alliances and temporary measures.Instead, they were made permanent.
No longer free of foreign entanglements, as Thomas Jefferson urged,we now have commitments to defend 50 countries. The old Hamiltonianpolicy of "Prosper America First" has given way to worship of aGlobal Economy, at whose altars we sacrifice daily the vitalinterests of our own manufacturers and workers.
"Interdependence" is now the desired end of the new elite.
And so we have become again a dependent nation. We borrow fromEurope and Japan to defend the oil of Europe and Japan in thePersian Gulf. We borrow from China to buy the goods of China. Weare as dependent on foreign borrowing as we are on foreign oil.
And the questions arise: If the men of ‘76, who led those small andvulnerable states, were wiling to sacrifice their lives, fortunesand sacred honor for America’s independence, what is the matterwith us?
Do we not value independence as they did? Or is it that we aresimply not the men our fathers were?
Happy Independence Day.
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