[Looking at why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]
How does a nation balance the needs of the many against the needs of the individual or smaller populations like the Native Americans?
Our Constitutional Bill of Rights is the greatest document for accomplishing that august goal. Unfortunately, the tendency of politicians and bureaucrats is to ignore those fundamental rights. The recurring refrain has become all too common.
Taking the land (or whatever) is for the greater good of the country, individual rights are nothing.
Does that sound familiar? It should. The proclamation is common to every action of a strong central government, but it is contrary to our Constitution, the first Ten Amendments, and any sense of fairness.
The consequence of this political philosophy is that the Bill of Rights mean absolutely nothing, if a political activist does not like your philosophy.
- The government can control your speech and religion.
- The government has a right to take your arms, freedoms, and self-defense.
- The government can put government officials in your house.
- The government can demand any of your records.
- The government can bring spurious charges against you to defend and intimidate you into testifying.
- The government can arrest or charge you with activity without telling you what they think you did.
- A series of courts can try you until the prosecution finds a verdict they like.
- Cruel and unusual punishment is acceptable on people with whom you disagree.
- Bureaucrats, courts, or legislature can add to the enumerated acts in the Constitution, at will.
- The Federal government overrides anything a State desires.
This was and is the sad condition the Native Americans experienced. Why? Because the government considered them less than a person. They were not even in the census.
How did the Bill of Rights come about?
More than anything else, it is this free-thinking, separate-from-government, religious dissenters who coalesced behind James Madison to obtain the Bill of Rights, not just for themselves but for the entire nascent nation. That is the history.
In 1775, Virginia Baptists with other dissenters presented a petition including 10,000 signatures calling for abolishment of the state church. Before the women’s suffrage, the signatures would be by men only. That huge percentage is no wonder, the legislature paid attention.
In 1776, Virginia disestablished the mandated Church of England and Dissenters received exemption from attending and paying taxes to that church.
In 1777, Jefferson wrote a Virginia “Bill of Religious Freedom” which Madison championed.
In 1787, John Leland, a Massachusetts missionary to Virginia, was a popular and stirring minister. “Leland rallied Baptist support behind James Madison’s candidacy for the Virginia Convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution in turn for Madison;s promise to pursue a federal religious liberty amendment.”
In 1789, Madison, elected to Congress, championed constitutional amendments, based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
In 1792, The Bill of Rights was ratified, with Religious Liberty clause.
Looking back, we tend to think that is the beginning and the end of the story. Unfortunately, history is not that clean.
The background story is about local political involvement. John Leland had delivered 8,000 sermons by his eightieth birthday. A Massachusetts native, Leland was a trusted friend of both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Eventually, 35-year-old Leland became a missionary to the frontier of Virginia.
The Rev. Leland was so influential that his supporters elected him to the Orange County seat of the Virginia Convention on ratifying the Constitution, although his friend and neighbor, Madison had written much of the document. In exchange for Madison agreeing to include a religious liberty amendment to the Constitution, Leland put his support behind Madison.
Leland did not like using religion as a political issue, but disliked the threat of government involvement even more. As the old saying, all politics are local. Thanks to the Rev. John Leland and his friend James Madison, we have the Bill of Rights.
Does the Bill of Wrongs above look familiar?
Think about, if the government can make any one person or group a lesser person, then they will try to do it again to someone else, as history has shown.
It only takes one person of character to stand and create a revolution in thinking that is generational.
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Excerpts from our book:
No Man’s Land Pioneers, Louisiana’s Wild, Wild West, ISBN: 9781694632128.