How did the Founding Fathers? Part II?

Question

I have read pretty much all of the documents of the founding era that are worth reading and there is no writer who has explained or tried to justify the American Revolution in light of Romans 13:1, etc. These men demonstrate a knowledge of the Bible sufficient to inform us that they knew of these passages. My question is: How did they explain/justify their rebellion (or did they?) when they knew it was contrary to the teaching of the Bible? Even if they were Deists and not at all concerned with strict adherence to the Bible, not all colonists were Deists (in fact, they were very religious). Therefore, some explanation would have to be offered to the non-Deist colonists to justify a rebellion against the crown. I am looking for their arguments, if any. I don't buy into the argument the Founders didn't respect the Bible. Obviously, their intimate knowledge of it puts the lie to that. My question requires an answer from one who has more knowledge of the history than I do. Not guesswork.

Answer 1

Sometimes people find commonality in strange places. Our founding fathers used the rift between the colonies and England to pull these people together.

Any time a group of people share a common problem, it can and does make for some interesting relationships. Look at Israel and Egypt when they signed the peace accord. That was unheard of from a Muslim nation to seek peace.

Also, many of the people had the current religion of England forced upon them and they rebelled against it forcefully. that is why the Separation of Church and State is in the Constitution. They didn't want this new nation to have a State sponsored Religion that people had to accept.

Answer 2

The defense that was used by the Founding Fathers lay in the subtle distinction in the Scriptures between a kingdom founded on an adhereing to godly principles and one that had exceeded them and had, indeed, set them selves up as a competing entity to God.
The first kingdom is the focus of the Romans 13:1 passage. Rebellion against that kingdom or its leadership should not be condoned. However, we have in the American Revolution, a circumstance which illustates the 2nd type of kingdom.
It is past argument, I believe, that England's monarchy of the late 1700's viewed themselves ruling as much by divinity as by law. They were the ones that bestowed or removed the rights of their subjects.They, in the minds of the colonial rebel leadership, had set up themselves as the arbiter of right and wrong and NOT God.
Therefore, it was perfectly acceptable in the colonial leaders' sight to seek remonstrance for their grievances. Those, of course, were spurned repeatedly and followed by hostile legislative actions from the Parliament. This led the Founding Fathers to embrace the recourse of rebellion.
Were they able to convince all of the properness of their conduct or the legality of their position. By no means! Many believed that ANY rebellion was counter to Scripture. These people made up the Tories who assisted the British crown during the Revolution and left the country for Canada afterwards.

Answer 3

Okay, I'm assuming that what you are asking is how the founding fathers got the rest of the colonialists to go along with the war, considering that many of the colonialists were good, God-fearing Christian folk, even if the founding fathers themselves weren't.

Well, first off, the war wasn't as popular here as you might have heard. Many colonialists were loyal Crown supporters, and many others were on the fence. It got really ugly. Revolutionaries would tar and feather the loyalists or burn them out of their houses. I'm sure it went the other way, too, but I very clearly remember the former situation from reading works written at that time (Crevecoeur's _Letters from an American Farmer_ Most of it is boring "America is so great" crap, but then he brings in the horrors he's also seen here).

I suspect it comes down mainly to economics and power. The revolutionaries hit hard on the taxation issue, what with the tarring and feathering of tax collectors and the Boston Tea Party. An individual person is smart and logical. People in general are very easy to lead, and money is a big motivator. By convincing a good number of colonialists that they would have more money and more power with a new government, they could fight against the British. Also, these guys were all very big on the ideas of independence and power in the hands of everyone (er, everyone white and male, at least). New England particularly had a long tradition at this point of town meetings where the town decided together on governmental matters. Plus, the main revolutionaries really, really believed in their cause and were extraordinarily powerful writers and public speakers. I imagine that, even if they couldn't hit you with money and power, they would be able to persuade most of you just with the power of their ideas and words.

Answer 4

Romans:
This is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thingDeclaration of Independence:

WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Read both passages.

Now, I'll be putting aside my personal views of religion. We also need to understand that a good percentage of our founding fathers were mason's and their philosophy was directly in opposition to Roman catholic church. It is well documented that our founding fathers were opposed Britians monarchy ruling class (power comes from birth not by God or God given ability) which would square with the passage from Romans which says " This is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thing".

Do you believe that the British monarchy was devoting themselves to God?
If the power of the president derives from the governed and the majority of those governed believe in God, is that not more in tune with what Romans stated?

Answer 5

go to religion section bible nut!
ughh, dolts still looking at a story book for answers, no wonder this world is such a mess.

Answer 6

They didn't.

Answer 7

They had tried to reconcile with the crown and parlaiment. This was not achieved. In the Declaration of Independence they gave their reasons for the rebellion. It was called the Indictment.

Such has been the patient Sufferance so these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 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. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid World.

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, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

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; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

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 constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

Then comes the Denunciataion.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

And that is how the founding fathers justified the rebellion.