With Trump’s demand for martial display on the streets of our capital city, I’m struck by how closely he and the GOP-in-Congress are adopting measures Americans opposed in the colonial era.
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When I teach law students the elemental concepts of American law I begin with the concept of “tyranny”, because the struggle against tyranny as understood in colonial times fomented the American Revolution.
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After Great Britain levied taxes on the colonists (akin to GOP taxing middle class for benefit of richest), Massachusetts Colony circulated a letter to sister colonies.
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The Massachusetts Circular Letter objected to British taxation. NJ and VA responded to MA favorably.
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The royal governor of Mass ordered the Mass Assembly to revoke the Circular letter, and the assembly refused.
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This led to the British occupation of Boston, the imposition of martial law, and the insistence by the governor that the residents of Boston feed and house the soldiers.
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The colonists resented the presence and the costs of having British soldiers on their streets, which they understood as tyrannical impositions.
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The Declaration of Independence labels the King a tyrant for his elevation of the military over civil power.pic.twitter.com/6RL5xUitVr
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I won’t belabor all the analogies between Trump and Congressional GOP activity and King George III’s and the British Parliament.
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But all the original state constitutions and ultimately the US federal constitution were meant to safeguard the populace from tyranny.
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Tyranny was not something American revolutionaries saw as being imposed by some totally alien, foreign element. They argued it was imposed by their own putative leader, the King of England.
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It would come as no surprise to John Adams or James Madison that in our own time, the menace of tyranny comes from our own president and his political party.
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End of conversation
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