Saturday, April 5, 1774. A growing rift.

Benjamin Franklin wrote an open letter to Lord North.

To Lord North.

Smyrna Coffee-House, April 5. [1774]My Lord,

All your small Politicians, who are very numerous in the English Nation, from the patriotic Barber to the patriotic Peer, when big with their Schemes for the Good of poor Old England, imagine they have a Right to give Advice to the Minister, and condemn Administration if they do not adopt their Plan. I, my Lord, who have no mean Opinion of my Abilities, which is justified by the Attention that is paid to me when I harangue at the Smyrna and Old Slaughter’s, am willing to contribute my Mite to the public Welfare; and have a Proposal to make to your Lordship, which I flatter myself will be approved of by the Ministry, and if carried into Execution, will quiet all the Disturbances in America, procure a decent Revenue from our Colonies, make our royal Master (at least there) a King de facto, as well as de jure; and finally, as it may be managed, procure a round Sum towards discharging the national Debt.

My Scheme is, without Delay to introduce into North America a Government absolutely and entirely Military. The Opposition which some People suspect would be made by the Colonies, is a mere Bugbear: The Sight of a few Regiments of bold Britons, appearing with Ensigns displayed, and in all the Pomp of War, a Specimen of which may be seen every Summer at the Grand Review on Wimbledon Common, with that great Commander G——l G——e at their Head, accompanied with a Detachment from the Artillery, and Half a Dozen short Sixes,2 would so intimidate the Americans, that the General might march through the whole Continent of North America, and would have little else to do but to accept of the Submission of the several Towns as he passed. But as the Honour would be too great for one Man to reduce to absolute Subjection so great an Extent of Territory, I would propose that a separate Command be given to L——d G—— G——e, who by his animated Speeches in the House, and coinciding so entirely with your Lordship’s Opinion on the proper Methods for humbling America, deserves a Share in the Fame of such a grand Exploit. Let him have one half of the Army under his Direction, and march from New York to South Carolina. No one can object to the Nomination, as his Military Prowess is upon Record.3 The Regiments that are in America, with those who are about to embark, will be amply sufficient, without being at the Expence of sending more Troops.4 Those who served in America the last War, know that the Colonists are a dastardly Set of Poltroons; and though they are descended from British Ancestors, they are degenerated to such a Degree, that one born in Britain is equal to twenty Americans. The Yankey Doodles have a Phrase when they are not in a Humour for fighting, which is become proverbial, I don’t feel bould To-day. When they make this Declaration, there is no prevailing on them to attack the Enemy or defend themselves. If contrary to Expectation they should attempt an Opposition, procure Intelligence when it happens not to be their fighting Day, attack them and they will fly like Sheep pursued by a Wolf. When all North America have thus bent their Neck to the Yoke designed for them, I would propose that the Method made use of by the Planters in the West Indies may be adopted, who appoint what they call a Negro Driver, who is chosen from among the Slaves. It is observed that the little Authority that is given him over his Fellow Slaves, attaches him to his Master’s Interest, and his Cruelty would be without Bounds were he not restrained; but the Master is certain, that the utmost Exertion of Strength will be exacted by this cruel Task-Master for the Proprietor’s Emolument. Let all the Colonists be enrolled in the Militia, subject of course to Martial Law. Appoint a certain Number of Officers from among the conquered People, with good Pay, and other Military Emoluments; they will secure their Obedience in the District where they command. Let no other Courts be allowed through the whole Continent but Courts Martial. An Inhabitant, who disobeys an Order, may by a Court Martial be sentenced to receive from One Hundred to a Thousand Lashes in a frosty Morning, according to the Nature of his Offence. Where Punishment is thus secure, this Advantage will accrue, that there will not be the same Necessity of hanging up so many poor Devils as in this free Country; by which Means the Service of many an able Man is lost to the Community. I humbly propose that the General and Commander in Chief be vested with the Power, and called by the Name of the King’s Viceroy of all North America. This will serve to impress the Americans with greater Respect for the first Magistrate, and have a Tendency to secure their Submission. All Orders issuing from this supreme Authority to have the Force of Laws. After this happy Change of Government, how easy to collect what Taxes you please in North America. When the Colonists are drained of their last Shilling, suppose they should be sold to the best Bidder. As they lie convenient for France or Spain, it may be reasonably expected one of those little Powers would be a Purchaser. I think Spain is to be preferred, as their Power hath more of the Ready5 than France. I will venture a Conjecture, that the Ministry might get at least Two Millions for the Soil, and the People upon it. With such a Sum what glorious Things might he not achieve! Suppose it should be applied towards the Payment of one hundredth Part of the National Debt, I [it?] would give him an Opportunity of drawing down upon him the Blessing of the Poor by making him to take off the Halfpenny Duty on Porter. Considering the probable Stability of the present Ministry, this Honour may be reserved for your Lordship.

My Lord, excuse the Crudity of these indigested Hints, which your Wisdom is so capable of improving; and believe me, with infinite Respect, Your Lordship’s Most obedient Humble Servant,

A Friend To Military Government.

On the same day, women gathered in Wilmington, North Carolina, and burned tea in protest.  The date isn't particularly clear, however, and could have occured as early as March 25.

Thomas Gage, who is best remembered for commanding English forces against Colonial rebels in the early part of the American Revolution, was commissioned as Vice Admiral of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay on this day.

5 April, 1774

George the Third by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland king defender of the Faith. To our beloved the honble Thomas Gage Esquire Lieutenant General of our Forces and our Captain General and Governor in Chief of our Province of Massachusetts Bay in America Greeting.

We confiding very much in your fidelity care and circumspection in this behalf do by these presents which are to continue during our pleasure only, ordain, constitute and depute you the said Thomas Gage Esquire our Captain General and Governor in Chief aforesaid, our Vice Admiral Commissary and Deputy in the office of Vice Admiralty in our Province of Massachusetts Bay in America aforesaid and Territories thereon depending in the room of Thomas Hutchinson Esqr and in the Maritime parts of the same and thereto adjoining whatsoever with power of taking and receiving all and every of the Fees, profits, advantages, emoluments Commodities and appurtenances whatsoever due and belonging to the said office of Vice Admiral, Commissary and Deputy in our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories dependant thereon and maritime partsof the same and adjoining to them whatsoever according to the Ordinances and Statutes of our high Court of Admiralty of England and We do hereby commit and grant unto you the aforesaid Thomas Gage Esquire our power and authority in and throughout our Province of Massa Bay in America aforementioned and Territories thereof and maritime parts whatsoever adjacent thereto and also throughout all and every the Sea shores, public streams, Ports, fresh waters, Rivers, Creeks and Arms as well of the sea as of the Rivers and Coasts whatsoever of our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories dependant thereon & maritime parts whatsoever of the same and thereto adjacent as well within liberties and franchises as without to take cognizance of and proceed in all causes Civil & Maritime and in Complaints, Contracts, offences or suspected offences, Crimes, pleas, debts, Exchanges, accounts, Charter parties, agreements, Suits, trespasses, injuries, extortions and demands and businesses Civil and Maritime whatsoever commenced or to be commenced between Merchants or between owners and proprietors of Ships and other Vessels and Merchants or others whomsoever with such owners and proprietors of Ships and all other Vessels whatsoever employed or used within the maritime Jurisdiction of our Vice Admiralty of our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America aforementioned and Territories depending on the same or between any other persons whomsoever had, made began or contracted for any matter, thing, cause or business whatsoever done or to be done within our maritime Jurisdiction aforesaid, together with all and singular the incidents, emergencies, dependencies annexed and connexed causes whatsoever wheresoever or howsoever and such Causes, Complaints, Contracts and other the premises abovesaid or any of them which may happen to arise be contracted had or done to hear and determine according to the Rights Statutes, Laws Ordinances and Customs anciently observed and moreoverin all and singular complaints, contracts, agreements, causes and businesses civil and maritime to be performed beyond the Sea or contracted there howsoever arising happening and also in all and singular other Causes and matters which in any matter whatsoever touch or any way concern or anciently have & do or ought to belong unto the Maritime Jurisdiction of our aforesaid Vice Admiralty in our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereon depending and Maritime parts thereof and to the same adjoining whatsoever and generally in all and singular other Causes, Suits, Crimes, offences, Excesses, injuries, complaints, misdemeanors or suspected misdemeanors Trespasses, regratings, forestallings and Maritime businesses whatsoever throughout the places aforesaid within the maritime Jurisdiction of our Vice Admiralty of our Province of Massachusetts Bay in America aforesaid and Territories thereon depending by Sea or water or the Banks or Shores of the same howsoever done, committed, perpetrated or happening And also to enquire by the Oath of honest and lawful Men of our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories dependant thereon & maritime parts of the same and adjoining to them whatsoever dwelling hath within liberties and franchises and without as well of all and singular such matters and things which of right and by the Statutes Laws and Ordinances and customs anciently observed were wont and ought to be enquired after as of Wreck of the Sea and of all and singular the Goods and Chattels of whatsoever Traitors Pirates, manslayers and Felons howsoever offending within the Maritime Jurisdiction of our Vice Admiralty of our Province of Massachusetts Bay in America aforementioned and Territories thereunto belonging and of the Goods, Chattels and debts of all and singular their maintainers, accessaries, counsellors, abettors or assistants whomsoever And also of the Goods, debts and Chattels of whatsoever person or persons, felons of themselves by what meansor howsoever coming to their death within our aforesaid Maritime Jurisdiction wheresoever any such Goods, debts & Chattels or any parcel thereof by Sea, Water or Land in our said Province of Massa Bay in America and Territories thereon dependant and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjacent whatsoever as well within liberties and franchises as without have been or shall be found forfeited or to be forfeited or in being And moreover as well of the Goods, debts and Chattels of whatsoever other Traitors, felons & manslayers wheresoever offending and of the Goods, debts and Chattels of their maintainers, accessaries, Councellors abettors or assistants as of the Goods, debts and Chattels of all fugitives, persons convicted attainted, condemned, outlawed or howsoever put or to be put in exigent for Treason Felony, Manslaughter or Murder or any other offence or crime whatsoever And also concerning Goods waving flotson Jetson Lagon shares and treasure found or to be found deodands and of the Goods of all others whatsoever taken or to be taken as derelict or by chance found or to be found or howsoever done or to be done and of all other casualties as well in upon or by the Sea and Shores Creeks or Coasts of the Sea or Maritime parts as in upon or by all fresh waters, ports, public streams Rivers or Creeks or places overflown whatsoever within the ebbing and flowing of the Sea or high water or upon the shores or Banks of any of the same within our maritime Jurisdiction aforesaid howsoever whensoever or by what means soever arising happening or proceeding or wheresoever such Goods debts and Chattels or other the premises or any parcel thereof may or shall happen to be met with or found within our maritime Jurisdiction aforesaid And also concerning Anchorage, lastage and ballast of Ships and of Fishes Royal namely Sturgeons, Whales, porpusses, dolphins, Riggs and Crampusses & generally of all other Fishes whatsoever which are of a great or very large bulk or fatness anciently byright or custom or any way appertaining or belonging to us and to ask require levy take collect receive and obtain and to the use of us and the office of our high admiral of Great Britain aforesaid for the time being to keep and preserve the said Wreck of the Sea and the Goods, debts and chattels and all and singular other the premises together with all and all manner of fines, mulcts, issues, forfeitures, amerciaments, ransoms and recognizances whatsoever forfeited or to be forfeited and pecuniary punishments for Trespasses crimes injuries, extortions, contempts and other misdemeanors whatsoever howsoever imposed or inflicted or to be imposed or inflicted for any matter cause or thing whatsoever in our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjoining in any Court of our Admiralty there held or to be held presented or to be presented assessed brought forfeited or adjudged and also all amerciaments, issues, fines, perquisites, mulcts and pecuniary punishments whatsoever and forfeitures of all manner of Recognizances before you or your Lieutenant, deputy or deputies in our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjacent whatsoever happening or imposed or to be imposed or inflicted or by any means assessed presented, forfeited or adjudged or howsoever by reason of the premises due or to be due in that behalf to us or our Heirs and successors. And further to take all manner of Recognizances, cautions, obligations and stipulations as well to our use as at the instance of any parties for agreements or debts and other causes whatsoever and to put the same in execution and to cause and command them to be executed And also to Arrest and cause and command to be arrested according to the Civil and maritime Laws and ancient custom of our said Court all Ships, persons, things Goods Wares & Merchandizes for the premises and every ofthem and for other causes whatsoever concerning the same wheresoever they shall be met with or found throughout our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts thereof and thereto adjoining as well within the liberties and franchises as without and likewise for all other agreements, causes or debts howsoever contracted or arising so that the Goods or the persons of the Debtors may be found within our Jurisdiction aforesaid and to hear examine, discuss and finally determine the same with their emergencies dependances incidents annexed and connexed causes and businesses whatsoever together with all other causes civil and maritime and complaints contracts and all and every the respective premises whatsoever above expressed according to the Laws and customs aforesaid and by all other lawful ways means and methods according to the best of your skill and knowledge and to compel all manner of persons in that behalf as the case shall require to appear and to answer with power of using any temporal correction and of inflicting any other penalty or mulct according to the Laws and customs aforesaid and to do and minister Justice according to the right order and course of the Law summarily and plainly looking only into the truth of the fact And to fine correct punish chastize and reform & imprison and cause and command to be imprisoned in any Goals being within our Province of Massachusetts Bay in America aforesaid and Territories thereunto belonging the parties guilty and the contemners of the Law and Jurisdiction of our Admiralty aforesaid and violaters, usurpers, delinquents and contumacious absenters Masters of Ships, Mariners, Rowers, fishermen, Shipwrights and other workmen and artificers whatsoever exercising any kind of maritime affairs according to the rights, Statutes, Laws or Ordinances and customs anciently observed and to deliver and absolutely discharge and cause and command to be discharged whatsoever persons imprisoned in such caseswho are to be delivered And to preserve and cause to be preserved the public streams, Ports, Rivers, fresh waters and Creeks whatsoever within our maritime Jurisdiction aforesaid in what place soever they be in our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjacent whatsoever as well for the preservation of our Navy Royal and of the Fleets and Vessels of our Kingdoms and dominions aforesaid as of whatsoever fishes increasing in the Rivers and places aforesaid. And also to keep and cause to be executed and kept in our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts thereof and thereto adjacent whatsoever the rights Statutes Laws Ordinances and customs anciently observed, and to exercise expedite and execute all and singular other things in the premises and every of them as they by right & according to the Laws and Statutes ordinances and customs aforesaid should be done. And moreover to reform Nets too close and other unlawful Engines or instruments whatsoever for the catching of Fishes wheresoever by Sea or public streams Ports, Rivers Fresh Waters or Creeks whatsoever throughout our Province of Massachusetts Bay in America aforesd and Territories dependant thereon and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjacent used or exercised by Water within our maritime Jurisdiction aforesaid wheresoever and to punish and correct the exercisers and occupiers thereof according to the Statutes Laws ordinances and customs aforesaid and to pronounce, promulge and interpose all manner of Sentences and Decrees and to put the same in execution with Cognizance and jurisdiction of whatsoever other causes civil and maritime which relate to the Sea or which any manner of ways respect or concern the Sea or passage over the same or Naval or Maritime voyages or our said maritime Jurisdiction or the places or limits of our said Admiralty and cognizance aforementioned and allother things done or to be done with power also to proceed in the same according to the Statutes Laws Ordinances and customs aforesaid anciently used as well of meer office mixt or promoted as at the instance of any party as the case shall require and seem convenient and likewise with cognizance and decision of Wreck of the Sea great or small and of the death drowning and view of Seas, bodies of all persons howsoever killed or murdered or which shall happen to be killed drowned or murdered or by any other means come to their death in the Sea or public streams Ports fresh waters or Creeks whatsoever within the flowing of the Sea and high water mark throughout our aforesaid Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjacent or elsewhere within our Maritime Jurisdiction aforesaid together with the cognizance of Mayhem in the aforesaid places within our Maritime Jurisdiction aforesaid and flowing of the Sea and water there happening with power also of punishing all delinquents in that kind according to the exigencies of the Law and customs aforesaid And to do exercise, expedite and execute all and singular other things which in and about the premises only shall be necessary or thought meet according to the Rights Statutes Laws, Ordinances and customs aforesaid with power of deputing and surrogating in your place for the premises one or more deputy or deputies as often as you shall think fit and also with power from time to time of naming appointing ordaining assigning making and constituting whatsoever other necessary fit and convenient officers and Ministers under you for the said office and execution thereof in our said Province of Massachusetts Bay in America and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjacent whatsoever (saving always the right of our high Court of Admiralty of England and also of the Judge and Registrar of the said Court from whom or either of them it is not our intentionin any thing to derogate by these presents and saving to every one who shall be wronged or aggrieved by any definitive Sence or interlocutory decree which shall be given in the high admiralty Court of our Province of Massachusetts Bay aforesaid and Territories thereunto belonging the right of appealing to our aforesaid high Court of Admiralty of England). Provided nevertheless and under this express condition that if you the aforesaid Thomas Gage Esquire our Captain General and Governor in Chief aforesaid shall not yearly (to wit) at the end of every year between the Feasts of Saint Michael the Archangel and all Saints duly certify and cause to be effectually certified (if you shall be thereunto required) to us and our Lieutenant official principal and Commissary General and special & Judge and President of the high Court of our Admiralty of England aforesaid all that which from time to time by virtue of these presents you shall do execute collect or receive in the premises or any of them together with your full & faithful account thereupon to be made in an authentic form and sealed with the Seal of our Office remaining in your custody that from thence and after default therein these our Letters Patent of the office of Vice Admiral aforesaid as above granted shall be null and void and of no force or effect. Further We do in our name command all and singular our Governors, Justices, Mayors Sheriffs Captains Marshals, Bailiffs keepers of all our Jails and Prisons Constables and all other our officers & faithful and liege Subjects whatsoever and every of them as well within liberties & franchises as without that in and about the execution of the premises and every of them they be aiding, favouring, assisting, submissive and yield obedience in all things as is fitting to you the aforesaid Thomas Gage Esqr our Captain General and Governor in chief of our Province of the Massachusetts Bay in America aforesaid and your deputy whomsoever and to all other officers (by you appointedor to be appointed of our said Vice Admiralty in our Province of Massa Bay in America aforesaid and Territories thereunto belonging and maritime parts of the same and thereto adjoining under pain of the Law and the peril which will fall thereon. Given at London in the high Court of our Admiralty of England aforesaid under the Great Seal thereof the fifth day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy four and of our Reign the fourteenth.

GODF: LEE FARRANT Registrar

Apparently the concept of short paragraphs was largely unknown in 1774.

Friday, March 18, 1774. Lord North goofs.

Lord Frederick North introduced the Boston Port Act to the House of Commons.  The proposed act stated:

Parliament of Great Britain

Anno Decimo Quarto Georgii III. Regis.

An Act to discontinue in such Manner, and for such Time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of Goods, Wares, and Merchandise, at the Town and within the Harbour of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.

Whereas dangerous commotions and insurrections have been fomented and raised in the town of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, by divers ill-affected persons, to the subversion of his Majesty's Government, and to the utter destruction of the public peace, and good order of the said town; in which commotions and insurrections certain valuable cargoes of teas, being the property of the East India Company, and on board certain vessels lying within the bay or harbour of Boston, were seized and destroyed: and whereas in the present condition of the said town and harbour, the commerce of his Majesty's subjects cannot be safely carried on there, nor the Customs payable to his Majesty duly collected; and it is therefore expedient that the officers of his Majesty's Customs should be forthwith removed from the said town; may it please you Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advise and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that from and after the first day of June, 1774, it shall not be lawful for any person or persons whatsoever, to lade or put, or cause or procure to be laden or put, off or from any quay, wharf, or other place, within the said town of Boston, or in or upon any part of the shore of the bay, commonly called the Harbour of Boston, between a certain headland or point, called Nahant Point, on the eastern side of the entrance into the said bay, and a certain headland or point called Alderton Point, on the western side of the entrance into the said bay, or in or upon any island, creek, landing place, bank, or other place, within the said bay, or headlands, into any ship, vessel, lighter, boat, or bottom, any goods, wares, or merchandise, whatsoever, to be transported or carried into any other country, province, or place, whatsoever, or into any other part of the said Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England; or to take up, discharge, or lay on land, or cause or procure to be taken up, discharged, or laid on land, within the said town, or in or upon any of the places aforesaid, out of any boat, lighter, ship, vessel, or bottom, any goods, wares, or merchandise, whatsoever, to be brought from any other country, province, or place, or any other part of the said Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, upon the pain of forfeiture of the said goods, wares, and merchandise, and of the said boat, lighter, ship, vessel, or other bottom, into which the same shall be put, or out of which the same shall be taken, and of the guns, ammunition, tackle, furniture, and stores, in or belonging to the same; and if any such goods, wares, or merchandise, shall within the said town, or in any the places aforesaid, be laden or taken in from the shore into any barge, hoy, lighter, wherry, or boat, to be carried on board any ship or vessel outward bound to any other country or province, or other part of said Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, or be laden or taken into such barge, hoy, lighter, wherry, or out of any ship or vessel coming and arriving from any other country or province, or other part of the said Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, such barge, hoy, lighter, wherry, or boat, shall be forfeited and lost.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any wharfinger, or keeper of any wharf, crane, or quay, or their servants, or any of them, shall take up or land, or knowingly suffer to be taken up or landed, or shall ship off, or suffer to be waterborne, at or from any of the aforesaid wharfs, cranes, or quays, any such goods, wares, or merchandise; in every such case, all and every such wharfinger, and keeper of such wharf, crane, or quay, and every person whatsoever who shall be assisting, or otherwise concerned in the shipping or in the loading or putting on board any boat or other vessel, for that purpose, or in the unshipping such goods, wares, and merchandise, or to whose hands the same shall knowingly come after the loading, shipping or unshipping thereof, shall forfeit and lose treble the value thereof, to be computed at the highest price which such sort of goods, wares, and merchandise, shall bear at the place where such offence shall be committed, at the time when the same shall be so committed, together with the vessel and boats, and all the horses, cattle and carriages, whatsoever made use of in the shipping, unshipping, landing, removing, carriage, or conveyance of any of the aforesaid goods, wares, and merchandise.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any ship or vessel shall be moored or lie at anchor, or be seen hovering within the said bay, described and bounded as aforesaid, or within one league from the said bay so described, or the said headlands, or any of the islands lying between or within the same, it shall and may be lawful for any Admiral, Chief Commander, or commissioned officer, of his Majesty's fleet or ships of war, or for any officer of his Majesty's customs, to compel such ship or vessel to depart to some other port or harbour, or to such station as the said officer shall appoint, and to use such force for that purpose as shall be found necessary: and if such ship or vessel shall not depart accordingly, within six hours after notice for that purpose given by such person as aforesaid, such ship or vessel, together with all the goods laden on board thereon, and all the guns, ammunition, tackle and furniture, shall he forfeited and lost, whether bulk shall have been broken or not.

Provided always, That nothing in this Act contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to any military or other stores for his Majesty's use, or to the ships or vessels whereon the same shall be laden, which shall be commissioned by, and in the immediate pay of, his Majesty, his heirs and successors: nor to any fuel or victual brought coastways from any part of the Continent of America, for the necessary use and sustenance of the inhabitants of the said town of Boston: provided the vessel wherein the same are to be carried, shall be duly furnished with a cocket and let-pass, after having been duly searched by the proper officers of his Majesty's customs at Marblehead, in the port of Salem, in the said Province of Massachusetts Bay; and the same officer of his Majesty's Customs be also put on board the said vessel, who is hereby authorized to go on board, and proceed with the said vessel, together with a sufficient number of persons, properly armed, for his defence, to the said town or harbour of Boston; nor to any ships or vessels which may happen to be within the said harbour of Boston, on or before the the first day of June, 1774, and may have either laden or taken on board, or be there with intent to load or take on board, or to land or discharge any goods, wares, and merchandise, provided the said ships and vessels do depart the said harbour within fourteen days after the first day of June, 1774.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all seizures, penalties, and forfeitures, inflicted by this Act, shall be made and prosecuted by any Admiral, Chief Commander, or commissioned officer, of his Majesty's fleet, or ships of war, or by the officers of his Majesty's Customs, or some of them, or by some other person deputed or authorized, by warrant from the Lord High Treasurer, or the Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury, for the time being, and by no other person whatsoever; and if any such officer, or other person authorized as aforesaid, shall directly or indirectly, take or receive any bribe or reward, or connive at such lading or unlading, or shall make or commence any collusive seizure, information, or agreement, for that purpose, or shall do any other act whatsoever, whereby the goods, wares, or merchandise, prohibited as aforesaid, shall be suffered to pass either inwards or outwards, or whereby the forfeitures and penalties inflicted by this Act may be evaded, every such offender shall forfeit the sum of five hundred pounds for every such offence, and shall become incapable of any office or employment, civil or military; and every person who shall give, offer, or promise, any such bribe or reward, or shall contract, agree, or treat with, any person, so authorized as aforesaid, to commit any such offence, shall forfeit the sum of fifty pounds.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the forfeitures and penalties inflicted by this Act shall and may be prosecuted, sued for, and recovered, and be divided, paid, and applied, in like manner, as other penalties and forfeitures inflicted by any Act or Acts of Parliament, relating to the trade or revenues of the British Colonies, or Plantations in America, are directed to be prosecuted, sued for, or recovered, divided, paid and applied, by two several Acts of Parliament, the one passed in the fourth year of his present Majesty, intituled "An Act for granting certain Duties in the British Colonies and Plantations in America; for continuing, amending, and making perpetual, an Act, passed in the sixth year of the Reign of his late Majesty King George the Second, intituled, An Act for the better securing and encouraging trade of his Majesty's Sugar Colonies in America; for applying the produce of such duties, and of the duties to arise by virtue of the said Act, towards defraying the expense of defending, protecting, and securing, the said Colonies and Plantations; for explaining an Act made in the twenty-fifth year of the Reign of King Charles the Second, intituled, An Act for the encouragement of the Greenland and Eastland Trades, and for the better securing the Plantation Trade; and for altering and disallowing several drawbacks on exports from this Kingdom, and more effectually preventing the clandestine conveyance of goods to, and from, the said Colonies and Plantations, and improving and securing the trade between the same and Great Britain;" the other passed in the eighth year of his present Majesty's Reign, intituled, "An Act for the more easy and effectual recovery of the penalties and forfeitures inflicted by the Acts of Parliament, relating to the trade or revenues of the British Colonies and Plantations in America."

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every charter party bill of loading, and other contract, for consigning, shipping, or carrying any goods, wares, and merchandise, whatsoever, to or from the said town of Boston, or any part of the bay or harbour thereof, described as aforesaid, which have been made or entered into, or which shall be made or entered into, so long as this Act shall remain in full force, relating to any ship which shall arrive at the said town or harbour, after the first day of June, 1774, shall be, and the same an hereby declared to be, utterly void, to all intents and purposes whatsoever.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That whenever it shall be made to appear to his Majesty, in his Privy Council, that peace and obedience to the laws shall be so far restored in the said town of Boston, that the trade of Great Britain may be safely carried on there, and his Majesty's customs duly collected, and his Majesty, in his Privy Council, shall adjudge the same to be true, it shall and may be lawful for his Majesty, by Proclamation, or Order of Council, to assign and appoint the extent, bounds and limits, of the port or harbour of Boston, and of every creek or haven within the same, or in the islands within the precinct thereof; and also to assign and appoint such and so many open places, quays, and wharfs, within the said harbour, creeks, havens, and islands, for the landing, discharging, lading, and shipping of goods, as his Majesty, his heirs, or successors, shall judge necessary and expedient; and also to appoint such and so many officers of the Customs therein, as his Majesty shall think fit; after which it shall be lawful for any person or persons to lade or put off from, or to discharge and land upon, such wharfs, quays, and places, so appointed, within the said harbour, and none other, any goods, wares, and merchandise, whatsoever.

Provided always, That if any goods, wares or merchandise, shall be laden or put off from, or discharged or landed upon, any other place than the quays, wharfs, or places, so to be appointed, the same, together with the ships, boats, and other vessels employed therein, and the horses, or other cattle and carriages used to convey the same, and the person or persons concerned or assisting therein, or to whose hands the same shall knowingly come, shall suffer all the forfeitures and penalties imposed by this or any other Act on the illegal shipping or landing of goods.

Provided also, And it is hereby declared and enacted, that nothing herein contained shall extend or be construed, to enable his Majesty to appoint such port, harbour, creeks, quays, wharfs, places, or officers, in the said town of Boston, or in the said bay or islands, until it shall sufficiently appear to his Majesty, that full satisfaction hath been made by or on behalf of the inhabitants of the said town of Boston, to the United Company of merchants of England, trading to the East Indies, for the damages sustained by the said Company, bv the destruction of their goods sent to the said town of Boston, on board certain ships or vessels, as aforesaid; and until it shall be certified to his Majesty, in Council, by the Governor, or Lieutenant Governor, of the said Province, that reasonable satisfaction hath been made to the officers of his Majesty's Revenue and others, who suffered by the riots and insurrections above mentioned, in the months of November and December, in the year 1773, and in the month of January, in the year 1774.

And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That if any action or suit shall be commenced, either in Great Britain or America, against any person or persons, for any thing done in pursuance of this Act of Parliament, the defendant or defendants, in such action or suits, may plead the general issue, and give the said Act, and the special matter in evidence, at any trial to be had thereupon, and that the same was done in pursuance and by the authority of this Act; and if it shall appear so to have been done, the jury shall find for the defendant or defendants; and if the plaintiff shall be nonsuited, or discontinue his action, after the defendant or defendants shall have appeared; or if judgment shall be given upon any verdict or demurrer against the plaintiff, the defendant or defendants shall recover treble costs, and have the like remedy for the same as defendents have in other cases by law.

It would pass on the 25th, and help propel the Colonies into war against the United Kingdom. 

Last prior edition:

Thursday, March 17, 1774The Lyme Tea Party

The First (North American) Thanksgiving. (With a shout out to Craig Beard, Canadian historian).

1621,with the Pilgrims and local Natives, right?

Not hardly, buckwheat.

1578 with Marin Frobisher and his men holding a Thanksgiving feast, somewhere in North America, thankful for not dying crossing the Atlantic.  It might have been in Newfoundland, or maybe on the Canadian Atlantic Arctic, or maybe somewhere else on the Canadian Atlantic coast.

Frobisher was an explorer and privateer and, interestingly enough, died in the manner depicted as a danger in Master and Commander. I.e, he was shot in an engagement with the Spanish and the surgeon extracted the ball, but not the patching, which infected.

Doesn't county? Well, some 39 years later, Samuel de Champlain held one in Quebec with the Québécois, probably not called that yet, and the Mi'kmaq. Cranberries were served.  I don't know about turkey, but could be.  Quebec is within the historic range of turkeys.

All of the above courtesy of Craig Beard.

But wait, Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés had a Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated on September 8, 1565 upon his landing in Florida.  That beats out Frobisher by over a decade.  And if that doesn't count, coming after Frobisher, but before Champlain, was Juan de Oñate in 1598, who led an expedition of 500 people, and 7,000 head of livestock through the harsh Chihuahua to a location that is now El Paso and, on April 30, 1598 dedicated a day of Thanksgiving.

What does all this tell us?  Well, what we've noted before. Thanksgivings are a common thing in Christian cultures.  The "first" Thanksgiving really wasn't, and it wasn't particularly unique.

A Protestant Country. It's history, and what it means.

Puritans on their way to church.

One of the blogs that's linked into the right on this site recently had this item:

The Declaration of Independence Founded a Theistic Republic

I should note, if you look at the items linked in on this site, over on the right, in the general interest category, there are things from the right and the left.  If you only looked at some of my posts,  you would assume that I'm a flaming liberal, maybe even a progressive.  If you look at others, you'd assume I'm a conservative (you wouldn't assume I'm a populist, and I'm not).  That probably means that I'm something else entirely, and indeed my views span right and left.  

A full reader of this blog would know that I'm a Catholic, however.

One thing that I think is obvious to serious observant Catholics, and likely observant Orthodox, is that this is a Protestant Country.  It really is. That's different from a "Christian Country".  It's Protestant. Even people who like to spout off that this country doesn't have a religious founding of some sort are, actually, some sort of cultural Protestant, by and large.  It's pretty obvious if you are a dedicated member of one of the minority religions, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, etc.  As Protestants live in a Protestant culture, they don't realize that the culture is Protestant.  Indeed, one of the charming things about Americans in general is the belief that everyone all over the globe thinks just like we do.

To take it a step further, quite a few sort of adherent members of other faiths, or maybe just not really well-informed members of other faiths, are heavily Protestantized.  So you'll find Catholics that have heavily Protestant views, for example.

The deeply Protestant culture of the country impacts almost everything about it, from our economics to our foreign policy.  It may not be at all evident to average people, but an example of that can be found in the country's overall reaction to the two major ongoing wars being fought right now.

I've supported, as people here would note, the Israeli war against Hamas, which Hamas started.  But to be brutally honest, a lot of American support for Israel comes from two sources.  One is the country's Jewish population, which is actually quite small, but which has been historically influential since some point in the mid 20th Century. The other is due to Evangelical Christians who see the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 as a fulfillment of a promise in the book of Revelation, although they aren't the only Christian's, or perhaps individual Christians, to see that, that way.  Evangelical Christians, however, tend to see Israel in absolutist terms and many see supporting Israel as a way to directly bring about the Second Coming.  For its part, the Israeli government, which actually tends to be highly secular, has worked that pretty heavily over the years.

Catholics and the Orthodox have a much more nuanced view of this topic, however, as their relationship with the region goes all the way back.  Apostolic Christians were present in the region since day one.  Early on, Apostolic Christianity won many converts of the Jews in the region, but also of Arabs and other regional populations.  Christianity, and by that we mean Apostolic Christianity, largely converted the entire region before the Arab conquests of the 5th and 6th Century brought in Islam, but even then huge populations of Christians, and again we mean Apostolic Christians, as that is all that there were, remained.  What Protestants, not Apostolic Christians, termed the Crusade when they began to falsify history came about originally to try to protect the pilgrimage routes to the very region that is now being fought over.  At least up until fairly recently, 10% of the Palestinian population remained Catholic, and to the north, Lebanon was, up until fairly recently, predominately so.  Large populations of Orthodox Christians were also to be found.  Israel, in its relationship with out of the region Christians, however, reaches out mostly to Evangelical Christians who are pretty much completely foreign to the region.

The English Colonies were of course colonized by residents of Great Britain, who were, at the time they began to do that, Protestants.  They were not all members of the Church of England or the Church of Scotland, however, and that very much has its ongoing impact today.  Dissenters from the Protestant state churches, such as the "Pilgrims", took refuge in North America from whichever Protestant church was in control at the time, which was usually the Anglican Church in England, and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in Scotland.  Immigrants from minority Protestant faiths didn't tend to have a concept of extending religious liberty in the New World, but rather escaping oppression for their minority views in the Old.  Once in North America, they tended to be just as intolerant as the established churches they had escaped from.  The one thing they could all agree on, however, is that they hated Catholics.

That was in large part because the English Protestant churches of all types had to rely on myths to justify their existence. The Church of England hadn't even really intended to separate long from the Catholic Church at first, but once things got rolling, it was hard to go back.  This was for a variety of reasons, and to at least some degree the Church of England remains uncomfortable with its separation.  It's made several attempts towards reversing it, and some significant sections of it basically pretend it didn't occur to a certain degree.  But an early feature of it was an attempt to justify what it had done, which it never really came up with a good thesis for.  Part of that simply devolved to creating a mythical history of Medieval Catholicism, a different approach than that taken by the norther European principalities that followed Luther, who also didn't mean to really separate at first.

Over time, the mythical history of the Medieval Church that the English created passed away in the UK itself.  Brave Catholic remnants hung on, and the fact that Ireland was part of the United Kingdom always meant that the fables had objections to them.  But in the English colonial experiments in North America, this was largely untrue.  Immigrants to the colonies were overwhelmingly Protestant, if in some areas not overwhelmingly Anglican.  Fables developed during the Reformation were carried over and instituted into the telling of American history and into American culture, which is why even now students at higher levels will hear stories of bloody Inquisitions and naked aggression in the Middle East that are simply untrue.

Part of the fable is that the country has always been supportive of "freedom of religion" and even that this is enshrined in the Constitution.  It isn't, and it hasn't been.  

At the time of the Revolution, almost all American colonist were Protestants.  Certainly exceptions existed, but Catholics were a distinct minority and members of other religions, such as Judaism, were nearly non-existent.  A significant exception had been Africans brought over as slaves prior to the 1700s, but during the 1700s they largely converted to Protestant faiths, reflecting the religion of where they were held, although often not the same varieties, exactly, of Protestantism of those who held them in bondage.  Certainly slaves when first brought over, which was still occurring at the time of the Revolution irrespective of its illegality, were members of African animist religions by and large. About 1/3d were Muslim, however, and a few were Catholic.  In terms of cultural myth, this is interesting in that it's commonly forgotten that most African slaves were animists at the time of their enslavement and also that the common excuse at the time that they would be introduced to Christianity actually wasn't true for all of them, some already being Christians.  Be all of that as it may, the legacy of pre enslavement religions dissipated relatively rapidly, although some remnant of it remains even today in terms of folk beliefs.¹ 

In 1776 when the nation rebelled against its Anglican monarch, King George III, most of the rebellious leaders in the Continental Congress were solidly Protestant.  Indeed, one of the Intolerable Acts they passed as causi belli was the Quebec Act, which allowed the Québécois to remain Catholic, which says volumes about just how anti-Catholic the country was.  A popular myth had developed that the founders of the republic and its constitution were largely non-Christian theists, but it's largely baloney.   The article linked in above sort of adopts that view, without really fully expressing it, in order to avoid, most likely, that the Founders founded a Christian nation, or a Protestant one.

That aside, they certainly did found a theistic republic, and their early thoughts and documents are shot through with it.  Nearly all of them, if not in fact all of them, believed in "natural law" which, as the article notes shows up in the Declaration of Independence, which states:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

And it goes on from there.

Okay, well so what?

Part of this is just historical.  It's important to be accurate about a nation's history, and frankly the country was founded as a Protestant republic in which everyone, almost, was a Protestant.  That was its culture, and to an enormous degree, it remains its culture today.  Countries always have a culture, and beyond that, they deserve one.

But (and there's always a but), this also raises some important cultural, let alone, religious topics.

As to Protestants, one thing to keep in mind that while various Protestant denominations made up the majority of practice for Americans, there was not one single Protestant church and as the nation grew, this very much became the case. At the time of the  Revolution, it would have been highly likely that almost everyone in a community in which any one person lived was the same type of Protestant.  In Appalachians regions, for example, most were some type of Protestant.  In New England, most were (although not all0 were likely Anglicans.  There were Quakers and other sects of course, but people largely lived in a community in which everyone was a member of that sect, unless you were of a distinct minority community like Catholics and Jews.

As the country expanded, however, this began to change, a fact aided by the separation from the United Kingdom which now meant that immigrants from Norther Europe in general, rather than Great Britain in particular, were widely accepted..  European Protestant faiths that had not been in the country in large numbers began to come in, with no real opposition to that.  Lutherans became very common in areas with large communities of Germans.  Various Anabaptist groups, always present, likewise expanded and became very influential in some regions of the country, particularly the American South.

And into this distinctly American brands of Protestantism developed, something that Americans seem particularly ignorant of today.  The "village preacher" or the church that was only loosely affiliated with a denomination became common.

Gather at the River in eight different John Ford films.  Ford was a devout Catholic, and obviously saw this song as emblematic of American, and Protestant, Christianity.  I've heard it in a Catholic Mass exactly once, in Pennsylvania.

This in fact became a feature of American life.  Well into the 1980s, of course, most American towns were heavily represented by a wide variety of American Protestant churches, but almost all of them had what is now called  "non-denominational" church headed up by a pastor who likely also worked five days out of seven in something else.  That figure became such an iconic American that such pastors are portrayed again and again in American films, such as those noted above, but even in much more recent ones.

The fact that American Christianity became sufficiently separate from European Christianity mean that a sort of do it yourself Christianity took particularly strong root in the US, and also in Canada, in a way that it didn't elsewhere.  Those who separated, for example, from the Russian Orthodox Church in Imperial Russia tended to become Old Believers, or even Catholics, although populations of refugee Anabaptists came into the country as well.  You don't find big populations of minority in Protestant religions anywhere else, however, in North America, save for areas that American Protestants have sought to proselytize in, some of which are areas that are already heavily Catholic or Orthodox.  Unique nearly wholly American strains of Protestantism, or religions that came out of Christianity, developed.

As this occured, it had an impact on the culture noted above, and still very much does.  Demographers have wondered about the rise of the "nones", but in fact they've always been there.  Rank and file Protestants have often not worried much about pew hopping.  People baptized in a Baptist Church will go to an Assemblies of God Church, and not think much about it.  Beyond that, a fairly large group of Americans feels that they are really God-fearing Christians, even though they very rarely go to Church.  I've heard people who never darken the door of a church save for a funeral or wedding discuss in earnest terms how the country needs to turn back to its Christian values, and in fairness, some do in fact practice Christian virtues fairly notably.

As the same time, however, people who claim this sort of loose ill-defined American Christianity often have completely jettisoned huge tenants of actual Christianity.  People will live together without being married or otherwise engage in conduct that any conventional strain of Christianity regards as gravely sinful.  Divorce, specifically prohibited by Christ, is widely practiced by American Protestants who don't give it a second thought.  In some ways, the easy practice of the very loose American Protestantism ranges from religion made very, very easy, to those denominations which have very strict rules that never actually appear in the New Testament, or Old, at all.

The Pine Tree Flag, one of the flags used by American revolutionaries during the war for independence.  People can say what they like, but a rebel army flying a flag like this is not battling for a secular republic.  Currently, this flag is associated with a group of far right wing Evangelicals of the New Apostolic Reformation who are inaccurately defined as Christian Nationalist, but who do share significant amounts of their goals including the restoration or imposition of a Christian, by which they really mean Evangelical Protestant superstructure on the country. 

Into this mix, however, we now have the New Apostolic Reformation, a Protestant movement that is confused by commentators with Christian Nationalism and even sometimes confused at to its American Protestant status.

The New Apostolic Reformation comes out of that branch of American Protestantism that has the concept that the United States itself has a particular Devine mission.  This sort of thinking has roots in American Protestantism that go fairly far back in the 19th Century, and it still is particularly strong in some branches of non-mainline, if that is a word, Protestantism, and also in Great Awakening religions that came out of Protestantism.  The followers of such thoughts tend to believe, for example, that certain figures (often George Washington) were charged by a Devine mission at the time of the Revolution, and also tend to believe that the U.S. Constitution was divinely inspired.  You can find such thoughts today amongst various American Protestant religions outside of those which have retained strongly European roots, and also, as noted, as offshoots from Christianity.  For example, you will sometimes hear the words common to the belief quoted by some Mormons, although it is not a tenant of the Mormon faith itself.

It was partially this line of thought that gave rise to the Manifest Destiny belief that many Americans held in the 19th Century, but it carried on until the 20th Century. Consider, for example, this 1900 statement after the US had taken the Philippines during the Spanish American War:

Mr. President, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever, "territory belonging to the United States," as the Constitrltion calls them. And just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. And we will move forward to our work, not howling out regrets like slaves whipped to their burdens, but with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength, and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world.

* * *

Mr. President, this question is deeper than any question of party politics: deeper than any question of the isolated policy of our country even; deeper even than any question of constitutional power. It is elemental. It is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing hut vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given its the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are trustees of the world's progress, guardians of its righteous peace. The judgment of the Master is upon us: "Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many thing."

From Congressional Record(56th Cong., 1st Session) Vol XXXIII, pp.705, 711.

The concept of the US as a New Testament "chosen people" remains surprisingly strong in some quarters of American Protestantism.

The New Apostolic Reformation, faced with a United States of the early 21st Century in which the openly strong Protestant connections are now highly muted in many places, have taken this one step further than most did in the past and openly seek to establish a new wing of Protestantism which advocates for the "restoration" of perceived "lost offices" of what they conceive to have been, inaccurately, in the early Church, such as prophet and apostle. There were indeed, of course, prophets in Judaism.  And there were apostles during the Apostolic Age.  Indeed, as a distinctly Protestant movement, it ironically fails to grasp that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are true Apostolic Churches, and they were founded by the apostles.  Restoring the "office" of apostle is not possible, as the Apostolic Age is over and Apostolic revelation fixed, something acknowledged not only by the Apostolic Churches, but also those churches of the Protestant Reformation which arose during the Reformation, the latter of which differ on that point from the Apostolic Churches only in regard to their relationship to the Apostles.

The NAR has been particularly associated with current strains of Trumpist populism, and in a vague sort of way helps to explain what is going on.  As American Protestantism outside the mainline Protestant churches has always had sort of a "do it yourself" aspect to it, it's free to conceive of a mission like the NAR's while also free to ignore vast tracks of actual Christian doctrine.  Looked at that way, the NAR doesn't, at least for the time being, need to worry itself about divorce and remarriage as antithetical to Christianity, or even the requirement that Christians be their brother's keeper.  Rather, the thought is, that is, by some, that political success can be achieved, after which a society modeled in their view of Christianity can be imposed from the top down.

In this fashion, the life of a figure like Donald Trump can be flat out ignored in pursuit of what is imagined to be a greater goal, which is distinctly different from the view of some other Christians that they must vote for Trump as they have no other moral choice.  Looked at this way, Trump becomes some sort of latter day Cyrus the Great, a non congregant being used by God to achieve a greater goal.  It's a radical belief, but it is out there.

Speaker of the House Johnson flies the Pine Tree flag outside of his Congressional office.

The flag of Vatican City.  This flag can occasionally be found in Catholic Churches.  I can recall at one time a point at which American flags, which also occasionally could be found in Catholic Churches in the US, were removed.

An oddity in the US is that the largest single religion in the United States is a minority religion, that being Catholicism.  Most Americans are Protestants, but the single biggest faith is the Catholic faith.  And contrary to what some like to suggest, not only are Catholic numbers holding their own, but they're growing.  At the same time this is occurring, moreover, the second "lung" of the Church, Orthodoxy, is expanding as well.  

Because this is such a Protestant country in culture and outlook, one of the things about at least a lot of Catholics in the US is that they were heavily Protestantized, something that really took off once JFK told the country he could be a Catholic on Sundays, but the country didn't really need to worry about that for the rest of the week. A disaster for Catholics, Catholics rushed to acclimate and went from being seen as vaguely strange and threatening to the rest of the country to being just one denomination. At the same time that this occured, actual reforms in the Church, combined with the "Spirit of Vatican Two" in fact made Catholics seem that way to many "main line" Protestants and also to many rank and file Catholics.  Many distinctly Catholic practices that had deeply inserted themselves into Catholic culture disappeared.  Catholics Masses were now in English (most places) or Spanish in some.  Catholics no longer were bound to eating fish as a penitential observance on Fridays outside of Lent.  Distinctive female head coverings started to disappear (prior to Vatican II, we'd note).  Unique accordance of respect in a formal way towards Priests ended.  A fairly uniform Catholic education ended (one that I hadn't participated in, nor had my father).  A weak 1970 Catechetical set of instruction came in, leading to an entire generation, of which I am part, hardly knowing the ins and outs of their Faith by the time they passed through it.

By the 80s and 90s, members of the Church who would never have thought of marrying in a Protestant Church or church shopping were doing so. Divorce and remarriage, something long common in the Protestant churches, also came in.

In some ways, it's now easy, retrospectively, to see how this came about.  A lot of this was due to what might be regarded as cultural shell shock, or as one sociologist put it in a different context, "future shock".  A generally disdained people for the most part, in much of the country Catholics kept to themselves and lived in "Catholic Ghettos" where their cultural uniqueness wasn't open to the rest of the world up through the middle of the 20th Century. This was never wholly the case, of course, and there were always notable converts to Catholics who were out in the world.  In the West, which always tended to break down distinctions, this was much less the case once people were outside of big cities, like Denver and Salt Lake.  

Still, in that time period, most Catholics were also blue collar workers and very few, save for some in certain professional occupations, had attended university.  Those that did often tried to attend a Catholic university, which in those days were really Catholic.  So, in much of the country they worked blue collar jobs, if they were professional their clientele was Catholic as a rule, and they tended to live in Catholic Communities. This was true for the Orthodox as well.  And it was also true for Jews.  Indeed, in some ways, the overall situation of these communities resembled that of African Americans, all of whom were disdained by the Ku Klux Klan and other nativists. 

World War Two started to massively erode this.  For the first time large numbers of Catholics attended university and after the war, for the same reason, this continued on due to the GI Bill.  The walls of the Catholic (and Orthodox) Ghettos began to come down.  Vatican II came along and made institutional changes in the church. Separately, the Vatican change the liturgy to its current form, a definite improvement, and provided that it could be said in the vernacular.  Bishops and Priests who assumed a certain directly from this began to expand on it, and a Catholic President came in and told Americans that Catholics were just like everyone else, something a lot of Americans rapidly embraced. Similar developments happened north of the border where the Church itself started the process of dismantling institutional control of large areas of Quebec society, which in turn developed into the Quiet Revolution.

Looking back now, lots of younger Catholics wonder why their grandparents allowed so much to erode.  Why did they allow the incidents of Catholic culture to fade? Why did they put up with taking out the altar rails?  Why wasn't some Latin retained?  Why did the parishioners not balk when the Bishops lift year around penitential meatless Fridays?  The shock of it all seems like a likely answer.  Having gone from heavily Irish, or German, or Italian communities and practicing a religion that practically had its own language, and that meaning that your future in the larger, Protestant, American society was at least partially laid out for you, and limited, to one in which they were told that they were fully part of the larger consumerist limitless American society where the rules only loosely applied, and then having part of the old culture simply destroyed, they were shell shocked.

But, in application of Yeoman's First Law of Behavior and Third Law of History, they've gotten over it now.

We've discussed this a lot recently, but at this point, it seems pretty clear that something is going on, and maybe even clear what it is.  One big thing is that we Catholics are different after all.

Try as the American Church of hte 70s might, the fact of the matter is that CAtholic's remain stubbornly subject to the letter to Diogentus:

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred. 

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments. 

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.  

In other words, Catholics that came up after the 80s looked at what the World had given to accommodating Catholics of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s, and found it wholly wanting.  Like topics, we're otherwise writing on in slow motion, tradition, which turns out to be grounded in something real, and there's an effort to take it back. As that's being done, it's the case that the reforms that came in are being rejected, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

Trad girls in conservative skirts and wearing chapel veils, young men fairly conservatively dressed, parishioners attempting to secure Latin Masses, or going to Easter Rite Devine Liturgy, aren't seeking to reform the reform, which up until recently was the vanguard of a return to tradition. They're seeking to wholesale bring the incidents of Catholicism back in.  In doing that, they're making it plain that they're not just another denomination, and they don't want to really be part of the American religious scene.  Whether they're applying the Benedict Option or the Constantine one, they're not only not melting in, they're returning to wholesale different.  And that different doesn't look back to 1776, it looks all the way back.

So why does any of this matter?

Cyrus the Great.  Some far right Evangelicals tend to see Trump as a sort of Cyrus figure.  Cyrus was not Jewish, but his proclimations favored the Jewish faith in an existential sense.

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying: 'Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD, the God of heaven, given me; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all His people—his God be with him—let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel, He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And whosoever is left, in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill-offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.'

 Ezra 1:1–4

Well, it does, for a variety of reasons, some mild, and some a bit scary.

One thing is this.  It used to be particularly noted by some that the English-speaking world was particularly given to democracy, which it was.  Those with a limited horizon tended to associate this solely with the United States, but that was in fact extremely inaccurate.  The United Kingdom had a functioning parliament in 1776 when we abandoned the UK's overlordship, and in fact that is part of the reason that we did that. They had a Parliament, and they weren't letting us in.

A person can say what they want about that and try to disassociate it somehow from something particularly English, but it is there.  France, in 1776, wasn't democratic. Spain wasn't either.  You can't really find another major power that was.  And all of England's progeny took this path for a long time.  Canada never had a non-democratic moment.  Nor did New Zealand, or Australia.

Now, English democracy was not perfect, and the franchise was not even particularly large.  Major classes were completely excluded based on economic, and also in the case of Catholics, religion.  But it was there and that heritage was conveyed.  Moreover, when it took root in North America, it expanded beyond what it had been in the UK pretty rapidly.

Which leads us to a more radical proposition.

What was also conveyed early on was a certain culture, and part of that was a political culture. The overall culture, however, was Protestant.  And it remains so.  It's so Protestant that even the atheists are culturally Protestant.

An essential element of that American Protestantism is the concept of "I can make up my mind for myself and nobody can tell me what to do".  Lots of religious "reformers" in the US have done that, but that's a Protestant thing.  To Protestants, it's not strange to hop from one Protestant denomination to another, and to even include denominations that claim to have no denomination, even though the they do.  Catholics and Jews, on the other hand, are part of one, big, global, faith.  Moving from parish to parish, for Catholics, is no big deal, as Catholicism is the Church.  But going to another denomination is an extraordinarily radical move and an act of rebellion.

Democracy, of course, as a movement has spread well beyond the English-speaking world and indeed, there were democracies that spring up in various places in the non Protestant world, as for in example Italian city states.  Antiquarians will point out the example of ancient Athens, or even Germanic and Nordic raiding bands.  On the last item, all people are democratic at the tribal level, pretty much.  None of this really counters the point, however.

This brings us to the next reason this is important.  The most recent movement, which is threading through American Evangelicalism, is radically exclusionary in a way, and this too is part of the North American religious heritage.

It wasn't until after the Civil War that American society really started to view Catholics as suitable citizens,a and then only reluctantly. The huge Irish and German immigrant populations that fought in the war made Catholics impossible to really ignore.  Jewish Americans were really small in number, but they started to be accepted, very reluctantly, about the same time.  As this occured the word "Judeo-Christian" was invented to include everyone then in the country in a singular larger American Christian sort of world.  But the fact remains that hostility towards both religions, and more recently Islam, has been an ongoing feature of American life.

Catholics, and if there are any, Jews and Muslims (the latter two unlikely in any numbers) flirting with the new concepts of Christian Nationalism and National Conservatism really need to do so at their caution.  The New Apostolic Reformation forces may have a similar view on moral matters as mainstream and conservative Catholics do, but the NAR is definitely not Catholic.  And the history for Americans of general of politics and religion being welded together, and indeed coopting each other, is not a comfortable one at all.  Put another way, Donald Trump is not a deeply religious, or even moral, man, and there's no real reason to believe that he's some sort of Cyrus the Great.

But some clearly see him that way, explaining their actions, and even some of the odd propoganda in the Trumpist camp.

None of this is to say that faith shouldn't inform a person's politics.  It should.  But they are not the same thing.

Footnotes:

1. Native Americans of course had their own religions, but what was different about their history, up until the early 20th Century, is that unless highly assimilated, they weren't "Americans" at all.  It wasn't until 1924, a date which our 100 year retrospective posts haven't even yet reached, that all Native Americans were granted U.S. citizenship.

Related Threads:

Christian Nationalism, National Conservatism and Southern Populism. Eh?

Probably a fairly realistic idea of "First Thanksgiving" fare.

Except a lot fancier.

Apple Cider Braised Deer Roast with Roasted Butternut Squash and Rice

Saturday August 13, 1921. The Plymouth Pageant.

"Mounted Performers", Pilgrim Tercentenary Pageant, Plymouth, Mass.

"Royal Progress".

 

Monday August 1, 1921. Looking at the 300th Anniversary of the founding of Plymouth, MA, from the prospective of the 400th

On this day in 1921, President Harding addressed a crowd at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of an English colony there.  Why they regarded the founding as 1621 in 1921, and we regard it as 1620 in 2021, isn't really clear to me.

At any rate, apparently this year there's been trouble actually figuring out how to celebrate the anniversary, with COVID 19 playing a definite role in that.  Celebrations planned last year were pushed into this year, and a news story indicates they're still up in the air.

A 400th anniversary only comes about once, of course, so something ought to be done to mark the event, although the big shadow that hangs over it is the reassessment of the country's early history and its association with colonization, imperialism, and race.  This started prior to 2021 with the New York Times releasing its 1620 Project, which has been controversial, and under the Trump Administration sparked the 1776 Project, which in turn was immediately terminated following the election of President Biden.  Nonetheless, this may be an event which the dampening impact of SARS-CoV-2 which is oddly a good thing in some ways, although the disease and pandemic certainly are not.

On the same day, President Harding informed Congress that the US was obligated to loan $5,000,000 to Liberia under an agreement reached in September, 1918.  The loan itself had come about in the context of World War One, and was part of an inducement for the Liberian declaration of war against Germany.  Germany had constituted 75% of Liberian trade prior to the war.

It was the first flight for the Curtis CR-1, a racing airplane designed for the U.S. Navy.

A grand total of four were built.

If it seems odd that a racing plane was built for the navy, racing aircraft were a major feature of fighter, or as they were then called "pursuit" aircraft development between the wars. Even the Supermarine Spitfire was developed from a racer.

The relationship between the CR-1 and the Curtis Hawk series of biplane fighters is obvious.

Curtis P-6.

I've always thought the P-6 was one of the most beautiful biplanes every built.

In Spain, riots broke out and troops mutinied over recent Spanish defeats in Morocco. At this point, in fact, Spanish Morocco was in control of the Rifian government, save for a small portion still held by the Spanish.