[Peace-discuss] Some July 4 thoughts from John Quincy Adams: Not Dominion, But Liberty

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

Not Dominion, But Liberty
by John Nichols
 
As the 229th anniversary of the founding of the American
experiment approached, President Bush provided a painful
reminder of how far the United States has drifted from the
ideals of her youth.

Speaking to soldiers who would soon be dispatched to occupy
Iraq, Bush sounded an awfully lot like the King George against
whom George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and
the other revolutionaries of 1776 led their revolt.

America was founded in opposition to empire. The Declaration
of Independence was a manifesto against colonialism. And the
founding generations abhorred imperialism.

Their opposition to empire was not merely rooted in their own
bitter experience. It was, as well, rooted in a faith that
American freedoms and democracy would suffer in the nation
embarked upon a career of empire.

So, while Bush suggests that other lands must be occupied to
preserve liberty at home, the patriots of our time recall will
do well to recall words spoken on another July 4.

When America was younger and truer to her ideals, on
Independence Day, 1821, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams
appeared before the US House of Representatives and declared:

    And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned
philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of
nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether
and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and
Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire
what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

    Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which
spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to
mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the
only lawful foundations of government. America, in the
assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has
invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the
hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous
reciprocity.

    She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to
heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal
liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

    She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a
single exception, respected the independence of other nations
while asserting and maintaining her own.

    She has abstained from interference in the concerns of
others, even when conflict has been for principles to which
she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

    She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the
contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests
of inveterate power, and emerging right.

    Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been
or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions
and her prayers be.

    But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

    She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

    She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

    She will commend the general cause by the countenance of
her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

    She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners
than her own, were they even the banners of foreign
independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of
extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of
individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the
colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

    The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly
change from liberty to force....

    She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be
no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

    [America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march
is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but
the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace.
This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her
necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit,
her practice.

© 2005 The Nation
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Dr. Paul Patton
Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-344-5812
homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ppatton/www/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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