49
to the war, when the tensions with the British were building, many thinkers, both in the
colonies and in England, were contemplating the likelihood and justifiability of war. For
example, one British supporter of revolution thought that “government
is just an agency
for executing the will of the people in the interest of the majority” and that “Britain
sought to tyrannize over the American colonies.”
118
So, if the colonists were not happy
with their government, they should be able to change to a government that was
responsive to their will, much as Spinoza suggested. John Adams,
one of the founders,
sought to justify, even encourage, a revolution. He was an “American pro-Revolution
conservative” who used Locke to shape his “doctrine of justified resistance” against what
he believed was an unlawful tyranny of the British.
119
Thomas Jefferson, framer of “The
Declaration of Independence,” was also opposed to what he called the “many
unwarrantable encroachments and usurpations, attempted to be made by the legislature of
one part
of the empire, upon those rights which God and the laws have given equally and
independently to all.”
120
Even before the war, the notable thinkers of America were
already concerned with protecting their rights, the rights to which the Enlightenment had
told them they were entitled. Just a few short years
after that statement, Jefferson
rephrased some of Locke’s words from
Two Treatises of Government
in the opening
statements of “The Declaration of Independence”: “we hold these truths to be self-
evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
118
Israel,
Democratic Enlightenment
, 447-8.
119
Ibid, 448-9.
120
Ibid.
50
Happiness.”
121
Liberty and rights were two of the optimal terms in frequent use in this period.
After the Articles of the Confederation proved to be inadequate and the new Constitution
was
proposed, arguments both for and against the constitution used these words to defend
their positions. One common argument was that too much blood was shed and too much
effort was put into the war to let the rights that were fought for be lost; thus, Americans
needed something stronger to protect those rights. For example, one anonymous writer
claimed that “American blood and treasure have been lavished [for liberty].”
122
Another
writer similarly claimed that a new constitution was needed because “Americans will not
consent that
the fair fabric of Liberty, which they have established with their blood, shall
be endangered.”
123
Americans were proud of the rights that they had fought hard for and
believed that “by the revolution [they] have regained all their natural rights, and possess
their liberty neither by grant nor contract.”
124
The Enlightenment
endowed the residents
of the new country with the belief that their rights were important and inalienable and
that they should not be taken away. Freedom of expression was one such right, and the
framers of the United States Constitution agreed on the importance of these rights
concerning expression.
The framers got some of their ideas about freedom of expression from reading
many Enlightenment writers. They also incorporated many Enlightened
ideas in the
Constitution. In fact, if the Enlightenment had not promoted new ways of thinking and
121
“The Declaration of Independence,” in
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