... and many happy returns, whereby we shall throw off those who would usurp the power of the people and corrupt our laws. As Jefferson
wrote to King George and all posterity:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Let our present-day King George understand this:
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
How many items in Jefferson's bill of particulars sound eerily familiar today?
- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good....
- He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance....
- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice....
- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance....
- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power....
- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws....
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury....
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences....
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments....
- He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation....
- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us....
On this Fourth of July, the 230th celebration of the birth of American Democracy, let us reaffirm that no president can appropriate the powers of a king, that no president can distort the clear meaning and intent of our Founders with pernicious theories of a "unitary executive," whether in times of peace or war.
The men who gathered during that sultry Philadelphia summer in 1776 were giants. We, who have inherited the sweet fruit of their genius, owe it to them to be rid of the moral pygmies who have stumbled and connived their way into power.
Let us, as Americans, be worthy of our Founders' faith in us and demand nothing less than a rebirth of the best of American ideals in ourselves and our leaders.
Happy Birthday, American Democracy.
[Cross-posted at The Broad View.]