The Founders on What Really Makes a “Land of the Free”

By: Michael Boldin

 

“All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.”

Samuel Adams penned these words with the kind of clarity that makes modern political discourse look like finger painting.

Here’s the rub: Do we actually value freedom enough to defend it? Or have we become so comfortable with our chains that we’ve forgotten what it means to be truly free?

Let me be blunt. Freedom isn’t about having benevolent masters. It’s not about government officials who promise to be nice – or even those who actually do.

It’s about power itself – who has it, who controls it, and most importantly, whether it can be stopped the instant it exceeds its limits.

THE ACID TEST OF LIBERTY

During the height of the Revolution, John Dickinson posed the fundamental question that should haunt every American today. What does it actually mean to live in a “land of the free?”

“For WHO ARE A FREE PEOPLE? Not those, over whom government is reasonable and equitably exercised, but those, who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled, that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised.”

Let that sink in. The “Penman of the American Revolution” wasn’t talking about good government. He was talking about limited government – one that literally cannot exceed its bounds without being immediately slapped back into its constitutional box.

In short, if government has vast power but simply chooses not to use it today, congratulations: you’re not free. You’re just lucky.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF FREEDOM

Decades earlier, John Trenchard understood this distinction with painful clarity. Writing in Cato’s Letters, he declared that checks on government are the sole difference between free nations and unfree ones.

“Only the checks put upon magistrates make nations free; and only the want of such checks makes them slaves.”

Trenchard took it further and explained that freedom depends on one simple question: Do the people control the government, or does the government control itself?

“They are free, where their magistrates are confined within certain bounds set them by the people, and act by rules prescribed them by the people: And they are slaves, where their magistrates choose their own rules, and follow their lust and humours.”

Sound familiar? When government writes its own rules, interprets its own powers, and judges its own actions, you’re living in a soft tyranny – even if it respects the constitution and your liberty. The velvet glove doesn’t change the iron fist underneath.

Sound familiar? When government writes its own rules, interprets its own powers, and judges its own actions, you’re living in a soft tyranny. The velvet glove doesn’t change the iron fist underneath.

As Montesquieu put it, the solution is to use power to check power.

“To prevent this abuse, it is necessary, from the very nature of things, power should be a check to power.”

Making that work requires something most people don’t grasp – you need so many restraints on government that it’s practically in a straitjacket. Why? Because, as Thomas Gordon explained, humans are predictably terrible with power.

“Considering what sort of a creature man is, it is scarce possible to put him under too many restraints, when he is possessed of great power: He may possibly use it well; but they act most prudently, who, supposing that he would use it ill, inclose him within certain bounds, and make it terrible to him to exceed them.”

The founders took this seriously. They didn’t design a system betting on good people doing the right thing. They designed it knowing that any power that can be abused will be abused.

THE PAPER TIGER PROBLEM

Here’s where most people get it wrong. They think freedom is about having the right words on paper – a good constitution, a bill of rights, the perfect legal framework. But, as Roger Sherman explained, words on paper don’t enforce themselves. Never have, never will.

“No bill of rights ever yet bound the supreme power longer than the honey moon of a new married couple, unless the rulers were interested in preserving the rights.”

So how do you make constitutional limits actually work? You make violating them more terrifying than following them. Gordon explained the mechanics.

“The only security which we can have that men will be honest, is to make it their interest to be honest; and the best defence which we can have against their being knaves, is to make it terrible to them to be knaves. As there are many men wicked in some stations, who would be innocent in others; the best way is to make wickedness unsafe in any station.”

You don’t get good government by hoping for good people. You get it by making bad behavior too costly or too difficult to attempt.

WHO DECIDES?

This is where it gets even more interesting. If government is merely an agent of the people – not their master – then who determines when government has violated its constraints? The answer is obvious: As Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui pointed out, it’s the people who gave government its power in the first place.

“It certainly belongs to those who have given any person a power, which he had not of himself, to judge whether he uses it agreeably to the end for which it was conferred on him.”

John Locke made the same point decades earlier, and also made the case that the people aren’t just the source of government power – they’re the ultimate judges of whether that power is being properly used.

“Who shall be judge, whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust? To this I reply, The people shall be judge; for who shall be judge whether his trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in him, but he who deputes him.”

THE DUTY TO CHECK POWER

But judgment alone isn’t enough. As Mercy Otis Warren made clear, the people, who are the source of power, also have the right to control it – to check it when it oversteps.

“The origin of all power is in the people, and that they have an incontestible right to check the creatures of their own creation.”

Samuel Adams took this even further. It’s not just a right, it’s a duty.

“The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”

John Dickinson recognized that even the best constitution can’t guarantee good government. When bad administrations arise, he explained, the response is up to the “supreme sovereignty of the people.”

“IT IS THEIR DUTY TO WATCH, AND THEIR RIGHT TO TAKE CARE, THAT THE CONSTITUTION BE PRESERVED; Or in the Roman phrase on perilous occasions – TO PROVIDE, THAT THE REPUBLIC RECEIVE NO DAMAGE.”

Thomas Jefferson knew better than to trust anyone with power.

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

But how do you enforce these chains? James Iredell, who would become one of the first Supreme Court justices, reminded us of the hard truth – it’s up to the people themselves.:

“The only resource against usurpation is the inherent right of the people to prevent its exercise.”

Nothing else works. Not courts. Not elections. Not petitions. When government usurps power, there’s only one way to stop it

THE ULTIMATE REALITY CHECK

St. George Tucker drove home the brutal truth about what real freedom means. If government merely has the power to oppress you – even if it’s not using that power today – you’re already living in a state of slavery. You’re just experiencing a benevolent phase.

“It is the due restraint and not the moderation of rulers that constitutes a state of liberty; as the power to oppress, though never exercised, does a state of slavery.”

Jean Louis De Lolme tied it together. All these checks, all these restraints, all these constitutional chains – they’re worthless unless the people actually use them

“But it is here to be remembered, that those powers of the People which are reserved as a check upon the Sovereign, can only be effectual so far as they are brought into action by private individual.”

Without human action, checks, restraints, and reserved powers are just theory.

THE BRUTAL TRUTH

Here’s what almost no one wants to admit: The “land of the free” is a myth.

You don’t have freedom just because politicians occasionally behave themselves. You don’t have freedom because you vote. You don’t have freedom because of words on old parchment.

You’re only free when government literally cannot get away with violating your rights – when every unconstitutional act meets immediate, effective resistance. That requires a people who understand their constitution, value their liberty, and are willing to defend both against all attacks.

As Samuel Adams reminded us: “All might be free if they valued freedom and defended it as they ought.”

The question isn’t whether you live in a free country. The question is whether “we the people” are willing to do what freedom requires to make it one. Because without that willingness – without that action – all you have is temporary luck disguised as liberty.

And luck, as any gambler will tell you, always runs out.