Volume 1, Episode 1
THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS:
THE PATH TO INDEPENDENCE
by Trent England
Vice President of Policy
Freedom Foundation
WILLING TO DIE
too, were willing to stand, to fight, even to die.
Most people were sound asleep when the alarm came. Men and women
The people of Lexington had hurried, and now they waited. With no
roused themselves, heard the news, began to understand—soldiers were
sign of approaching troops, Captain Parker released his men to wait
marching toward their town. A part of the occupying army was moving,
indoors. They gathered in nearby homes and at Buckman’s Tavern adja-
menacing the countryside. And so each man and woman faced a deci-
cent to the green. It was 4:30 a.m. when one of Captain Parker’s lookouts
sion. They could ignore the alarm, perhaps pretending not to hear, and
frantically rode into town yelling that the soldiers were just behind him.
remain under warm blankets safe from the cold and uncertain night. Or
Young William Diamond beat his drum to summon back the militia. Ser-
they could rise up, make their preparations, and step out into the misty
geant William Munroe hastily lined up the returning men in two ranks.
darkness.
British light infantry—troops selected for their strength and stamina—
In the town of Lexington, Massachusetts, men and women rose up.
entered Lexington at a double-quick march. Each infantryman carried
They lit candles with shaky fingers and tried not to wake their children.
the five-foot-long “Brown Bess” musket. Each musket was loaded with
John Parker—a farmer and the elected captain of the Lexington mili-
gunpowder and a .75 caliber lead ball and topped with a 17-inch steel
tia—dressed quickly, took his flintlock musket from the wall, and went
bayonet. The soldiers were miserable—tired of sitting around in Boston,
out. He was older than his 45 years, frail and sick, and still a trusted and
wet after wading ashore from boats at the beginning of the night’s march,
resolute man. He walked in the darkness to the triangle-shaped field, the
and cold. But they were professional soldiers ready for a fight and con-
town green, which sat beside the road from Boston to Concord.
vinced of their superiority against this rabble of farmers.
Anna Harrington sent her husband, Daniel, to the green. She knew
“Yet hundreds and later thousands would step away
from ordinary lives and decide that they, too, were
willing to stand, to fight, even to die.”
that her father, Robert Munroe, a veteran of the war against the French
and Indians, would be there as well. At least eight Munroes and nine
Harringtons assembled on the Lexington green. By 2 a.m., as many as
130 men were standing in the dark in the wet grass on the green.
Three British officers on horseback rode forward yelling orders at the
The odds were against them. The soldiers were well armed and well
men of Lexington: “Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, and dis-
trained; many were hardened veterans. The townspeople were the op-
perse.” No more than 70 of Captain Parker’s men had reached the field;
posite—mostly ordinary men and women with small farms or businesses
they faced several hundred red-coated light infantry with a thousand
and large families. By offering any opposition to the soldiers, the people
and more on the road behind them. Captain Parker decided it was futile
risked their lives, possessions, families—everything. Yet hundreds and
to fight, but he and his men refused to surrender their arms. Just as the
later thousands would step away from ordinary lives and decide that they,
militia began to withdraw under a hail of British curses, there was a shot.
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A few overeager British infantry fired randomly and to no effect. Then
would take another year for Congress to build up the fortitude to declare
a massed volley of British fire ripped through the Lexington men. Jonas
independence.
Parker, the Captain’s cousin, returned fire but he was already gravely
On April 19, 1775, at Lexington, Massachusetts, a group of regular
wounded. He sunk to his knees frantically trying to reload; before he
people—farmers, pastors, laborers, machinists, business owners, stu-
could raise his musket a second time he was stabbed to death with a
dents—stood up. They stood up against oppressive government, against
bayonet.
bureaucratic excess, against arrogant officials. They stood up for their
Other militiamen fired, others were hit. Jonathan Harrington was shot
families, their communities, and their principles—for what they believed
in the chest as his wife, Ruth, and their eight-year-old son looked on
was right and good.
from their home. As Jonathan staggered toward his front door, his wife
Years later, when the great statesmen of the American Founding
rushed out to him. He fell and died before she reached him.
penned the Constitution, they wisely began it with the words, “We the
Seven men were killed and nine wounded on the Lexington green that
people . . .” because that’s where it all begins. As Abraham Lincoln said,
morning. At least one more would be killed in fighting later that day. This
the American system of government is “of the people, by the people, for
was a quarter of the men who stood there—who stood up for their com-
the people.” It’s not about government. It’s not about politicians—even
munity and for what they believed.
the very best of them. It’s about We The People.
As the British marched away from the bloodied town green the Lexington fight appeared purposeless and inconsequential. Yet the sacrifice
“A SHINING CITY ON A HILL”
at Lexington changed everything; it delayed the British and forged in a
Taking the less traveled road, wrote Robert Frost, makes “all the differ-
moment the resolve that would become manifest at Concord. There the
ence”—for one traveler. But what of he who takes no road at all but blazes
unthinkable would happen—the British would turn, flee back through
his own new path? Such an act may come to naught, but, if successful, it
Lexington into Boston, and within a year surrender the city altogether.
will make all the difference for many who follow. This is the spirit of the
entrepreneur; it was the spirit that found the new world and eventually
WHY THE LEXINGTON MATTERS TO YOU
founded a new nation.
The American War for Independence isn’t just about men like George
The first entrepreneurs were the explorers: Christopher Columbus,
Washington and Thomas Jefferson, great and indispensable leaders
Amerigo Vespucci, John and Sebastian Cabot, and Giovanni da Verraz-
though they were. After all, they didn’t even start the war. The Continen-
zano, each accompanied by officers, scientists, and scores of seamen. All
tal Congress took two months to adopt the army that sprang up from the
boarded wooden ships and set their sails into the Mare Tenebrosum—the
deeds of Lexington and Concord and besieged the British in Boston. It
Sea of Darkness. Their discoveries turned the end of the world into the
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gateway to a new world.
followed the Pilgrims and settled just to their north. Together, these
A little less than a century after Columbus, European attempts to colo-
religious outcasts would become the Colony of Massachusetts. During
nize North America began in earnest. The Spanish dominated the Carib-
the 1630s, about 20,000 Puritans left their homes in old England for the
bean, reaching north into present-day Florida. The French established
dangerous journey into an uncertain future. John Winthrop, one of their
settlements in the northernmost reaches of North America. In between,
religious and political leaders, expressed a vision for their settlement that
the English established two colonies dedicated to two different sorts of
would eventually become the vision of an exceptional nation. “For we
entrepreneurialism.
must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people
In Chesapeake Bay, after multiple failed attempts to establish a colony,
are upon us.”
the settlement of Jamestown finally took hold in 1607. It was an explic-
Winthrop’s image comes from the words of Jesus in the Book of Mat-
itly entrepreneurial venture, backed by a company of investors hoping to
thew: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be
turn a profit. The colonists themselves, mostly but not entirely British,
hid.” While the Pilgrims were content to be left alone, the Puritans were
were also entrepreneurs looking to improve their economic conditions.
motivated by political-religious entrepreneurialism: they hoped to create
They did so at the risk of their own lives, and hundreds perished of dis-
a new kind of society—based on the Bible—that would be so glaringly
ease and deprivation over the first few years. Nevertheless, the survivors
successful that it would be imitated in England and beyond. The Quakers
persevered, more colonists arrived, and the Colony of Virginia began to
who established Pennsylvania in 1681 shared a similar ideal.
flourish.
While descendants of the Puritans would eventually preach religious
Jamestown was established by a royal charter. London was a long way
freedom, the early Massachusetts communities banished dissenters.
off, however, and in 1619 the colonists initiated a political meeting in
These refugees established what became the colonies of Connecticut and
their church that was the first representative assembly in North America.
Rhode Island, which, together with the Dutch city of New Amsterdam
This would become the Virginia House of Burgesses and eventually the
(eventually New York), were some of the most tolerant communities
Virginia General Assembly. The following year, a group of English reli-
anywhere in the Western world at that time. The greatest evidence of this
gious dissenters survived a series of mishaps to reach the waters off Cape
is that Jewish congregations began meeting, first in New Amsterdam in
Cod. Uncertain about their own charter, these colonists—the Pilgrims—
1654, and then in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1658. It was to the Hebrew
drew up and signed their own agreement with one another. This would
Congregation at Newport that President George Washington wrote in
become known as the “Mayflower Compact,” a forerunner to both the
1790:
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud
A much larger group of English religious dissenters, the Puritans,
themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and
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liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of
the American colonies and could fairly look to them for more revenues.
conscience and immunities of citizenship.It is now no more that tolera-
Many of the colonists saw things differently.
tion is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that
George Washington, by all accounts, ought to have died fighting the
another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.
Indians and the French during the war. He played a prominent role in
Washington, like Winthrop, understood the unique opportunity of
the conflict from the start—as an emissary to a French fort (his diary
the people of America, both to earn their own success and to serve as a
from this trip was published in London newspapers), as the leader of an
beacon of hope for the world.
unsuccessful and controversial relief mission, and, finally, as an unlikely
hero amidst a terrible British defeat.
When French and Indian forces attacked a larger British column near
the Monongahela River, only the colonists—particularly the Virginia
militia—used the foliage and terrain to their advantage. The paradeground efficiency of the red-coated soldiers made them easy targets.
British losses mounted, along with the sounds of war whoops and scenes
of fallen men having the tops of their heads sliced off by Indian warriors.
When General Braddock, the British commander, was shot down from
his horse and suffered a mortal wound, panic began to spread.
As a major in the Virginia militia, Washington had no formal authority over the British regular troops. The 23-year-old surveyor and obscure
member of Virginia’s upper class was recovering from an illness as the
battle began. Yet when Braddock fell, Washington took his place, rallied
AT THE EDGE OF A WORLD WAR
the remaining British forces, and prevented even greater disaster. Rid-
What Americans call the French and Indian War, fought from 1756 to
ing into the fray and yelling commands, the tall youth made himself a
1763, was actually a world war (the Seven Years War) involving most of
target—two horses were shot from beneath him and no fewer than four
the powers of Europe. The victory of Great Britain and its allies brought
musket balls left holes in his coat.
Florida and Canada into the British Empire, greatly expanding its control
Washington and his fellow colonists learned many lessons during
over North America. It also swelled Britain’s national debt to a discon-
and in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Though the British
certing £130,000,000. From London’s perspective, Britain had defended
eventually won, the British army was not invincible. In certain North
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American settings, it was downright incompetent, especially compared to
genuity and tenacity of the Americans, describing achievements in areas
American frontiersmen. While the colonists believed they were as good
like agriculture and whaling, saying:
as anyone “back home” in Great Britain, many of those who had come
When I contemplate these things; when I know that the Colonies in
from Britain to fight the war had only disdain for America and Ameri-
general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not
cans. In 1764, the colonists learned that Parliament’s post-war policy
squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspi-
toward the colonies would greatly increase taxation and regulation of
cious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a gen-
American trade.
erous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I
reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us,
GOVERNMENT NEGLECT & THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY
I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of
The 13 British colonies had long been largely ignored by the British
human contrivances melt and die away within me. My rigor relents.
government. Part of this was policy, but much of it was the simple real-
I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
ity that 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean lay between London and North
Burke recognized that the Americans were the great proof of what a
America. To regulate affairs, each colony had a legislature and various lo-
free people might accomplish. He also saw that such a free people would
cal governments. British common law, Biblical moral law, and the harsh
not be easily subdued by force of arms. Within less than a month—not
realities of life at the fringe of civilization all worked to order society with
time enough for Burke’s sentiments even to cross the Atlantic—shots
very little direct government coercion.
would be fired at Lexington. Two months later, General George Wash-
The British had always governed trade, but that was near the extent of
ington would join the rag-tag army encircling Boston. One year after
it. Parliament’s new policies, beginning in 1764, included prohibiting co-
that, the Second Continental Congress would follow the lead of the men
lonial currencies, forcing local governments to provide for British troops,
of Lexington and legally resolve and honestly declare “That these United
new taxes and restrictions on numerous imported goods, and a direct
Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”
tax on newspapers, legal documents, and even political pamphlets. These
END
policies led to a struggle—a war of words and political theories and civil
disobedience—that would culminate with the British military occupation
of Boston.
One of the colonists’ greatest defenders during this time was a member
of parliament, Edmund Burke. In a speech in Parliament on March 22,
1775, Burke coined the term “salutary neglect.” He spoke of the great in5