Wednesday History Note: John Adams

“Americans had been well prepared for their revoluion by colonial institutions.  The American people had long been knit together by their towns, schools, congregations, and militia.  Public issues had always been subject to debate.  Every turn of the revolutionary movement had been argued—in town meetings (in other words, not decided elsewhere and dictated from above, as in France [from Paris]).  Public education was the right of every American child and required in every town with sixty families or more, and these schools (not a social hierarchy) were responsible for turning out the community’s future leaders.  The church’s congregations (not Rome, not hereditary wealth) determined who would preach in every pulpit, and church leaders were held to practice what they preached.  Finally, the core of the American military was its militia, a citizens’ army charged to protect citizens’ rights and public safety.”

 

This is Adams reflecting and comparing the American Revolution to the French Revolution.  For Adams, the murder, chaos and terror that happened in France in the 1790s leading ultimately to the emergence of a new absolute ruler in Napoleon was all easy to see.  Read his words again as they actually provide insight to what both President Obama and Bush seemed to miss about our actions in the Middle East.  Adams is reminding everyone that the Americans had about 160 years of government by the people on “training wheels”…the opportunity to have both unity and education through experience born over decades, taught the insights of both Locke and Hobbes.