Mercantile Madness
This Samuel Adams article is slightly modified to bring it up to date. The 21st Century words are in italics. I could only add minimally to the great wisdom of Samuel Adams as he addresses the businesses of his day and for that matter, the globalists corporate greed of our present age.
ARTICLE SIGNED “DETERMINATUS.
[Boston Gazette, January 8, 1770.]
To the Printers.
In the 20th and now 21st Centuries, there is no solid agreement from merchants to with hold importations from China or other nations that would decimate our US businesses and economy. Where As at the time of this original, The agreement of the Merchants of this distressed and insulted continent, to with hold importations from Great Britain, it seems to be allowed on all sides, has the strongest tendency towards the repeal of the acts of parliament for raising a revenue in America without our consent. There to is that the major businesses and political elite are opposers of the intent to withdraw from treaties favoring other nations for their own profit. It is no wonder then, that it was oppos’d with so much vehemence at first, by the Cabal; who knew full well, that their Places and their Pensions, and all the delectable profits which they expected to reap, and are now actually reaping, at the expence of the people in town and country, would entirely cease, if these acts, by the means of which their places, pensions and profits arise should be repealed—When they could no longer with any face call it the last efforts of a dying faction, (for the measure was so rational and pacific, that it soon spread far and wide, and was chearfully adopted by all disinterested friends of the country thro’-out the continent) they put on the appearance of the Sons of Liberty; and now their cry is, Where is that Liberty so much boasted of and contended for?
We hear them very gravely asking, Have we not a right to carry on our own trade and sell our own goods if we please? who shall hinder us? This is now the language of those who had before seen the ax laid at the very root of all our Rights with apparent complacency,—And pray gentlemen, Have you not a right if you please, to set fire to your own houses, because they are your own, tho’ in all probability it will destroy a whole neighbourhood, perhaps a whole city!
Where did you learn that in a state or society you had a right to do as you please? And that it was an infringement of that right to restrain you? This is a refinement which I dare say, the true sons of liberty despise. Be pleased to be informed that you are bound to conduct yourselves as the Society with which you are joined, are pleased to have you conduct, or if you please, you may leave it. It is true the will and pleasure of the society is generally declared in its laws: But there may be exceptions, and the present case is without doubt one.
Suppose there was no law of society to restrain you from murdering your own father, what think you? If either of you should please to take it into your head to perpetrate such a villainous act, so abhorrent to the will of the society, would you not be restrained? And is the Liberty of your Country of less importance than the life of your father! But what is most astonishing is, that some two or three persons of very little consequence in themselves, have Dared openly to give out that They Will vend the goods they have imported, tho’ they have Solemnly pledg’d Their Faith to the body of merchants, that they should remain in store ’till a general importation should take place! In the 20th and 21st Centuries we cannot get the merchants to even promise that they will hold Chicom goods in particular, let alone reject them. Worse! Our medicines are wholly dependent on this enemy.
Where then is the honor! where is the shame of these persons, who can look into the faces of those very men with whom they have contracted, & tell them Without Blushing that they are resolved to Violate the contract! Is it avarice (extreme greed)? Is it obstinacy, perverseness, pride, or from what root of bitterness does such an unaccountable defection from the laws of honor, honesty, and even humanity spring? Is it the Authority Of An Unnatural Parent — the advice of some false friend, or their own want of common understanding, and the first principles of virtue, by which these unhappy young persons have been induced, or left to resolve upon perpetrating that, at the very tho’t of which they should have shudder’d! By this resolution they have already disgrac’d themselves; if they have the Hardiness to put the resolution into practice, who will ever hereafter confide in them? Can they promise themselves the regards of the respectable body of merchants whom they have affronted? or can they even wish for the esteem of their country which they have basely deserted, or worse, which they have attempted to wound in the very heart. — If they imagine they can still weary the patience of an injured country with impunity. — If — I will not utter it — would not the grateful remembrance of unmerited kindness and Generosity, if there was the least spark of ingenuity left, have Influenced to a far different resolution!—If this agreement of the merchants is of that consequence to All America which our brethren in All the other governments, and in Great-Britain Itself think it to be—If the fate of Unborn Millions is suspended upon it, verily it behooves, not the merchants Only, but every individual of Every class in City and Country to aid and support them and Peremptorily (insisting on immediate attention or obedience) To Insist upon its being Strictly adhered to.
Signed
DETERMINATUS.
June 2020 Analysis and Comparison
To the extent that at the present, our Founders are under attack not by the British Empire of their day but by the ideological reprobates inculcated in all the variations of Marxism. It is now the full frontal attack of these enemies of true Liberty that will never listen to the truth.
But I find comfort in that the writings of our Founders not only predict our present but also echo the very concerns that afflict US as we see the riots, looting and statue destruction across the land. I have to begin the analysis of Sam Adams article with a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1814. Consider that Sam was dead for ten years at the writing of this letter from Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford,
“—I join in your reprobation (express disapproval) of our merchants (business leaders/globalists), priests (pastors) and lawyers for their adherence to England & monarchy (globalism and unencumbered free trade) in preference to their own country and it’s constitution. But merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. In every country and in every age (now to include the 20th and 21st Centuries), the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the Despot abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own (This seems to be even more true with modern mega-church pastors). It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them: and to effect this they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man, into mystery & jargon unintelligible to all mankind & therefore the safer engine for their purposes. (The exception being the early Reformation pastors/teachers.) With the lawyers it is a new thing. They have in the mother country been generally the firmest supporters of the free principles of their constitution. But there too they have changed. I ascribe much of this to the substitution of Blackstone for my Lord Coke1, as an elementary work. In truth Blackstone and Hume have made tories of all England, and are making tories of those young Americans whose native feelings of independance do not place them above the wily sophistries (the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving) of a Hume or a Blackstone. These two books, but especially the former have done more towards the suppression of the liberties of man, than all the million of men in arms of Bonaparte and the millions of human lives with the sacrifice of which he will stand loaded before the judgment seat of his maker. I fear nothing for our liberty from the assaults of force; but I have seen and felt much, and fear more from English books, English prejudices, English manners, and the apes, the dupes, and designs among our professional crafts. When I look around me for security against these seductions, I find it in the wide spread of our Agricultural citizens, in their unsophisticated minds, their independance and their power if called on to crush the Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England. I see our safety in the extent of our confederacy, and in the probability that in the proportion of that the sound parts will always be sufficient to crush local poisons. In this hope I rest, and tender you the assurance of my esteem and respect.”
The Analysis is simple but the descriptive words for merchants takes on the most modern language. The reality is that when a human of any profession manipulates or utterly rejects the fundamental realities and principles of the Biblical Reformation truth – than as Sam Adams notes, “Is it avarice (extreme greed)? Is it obstinacy, perverseness, pride, or from what root of bitterness does such an unaccountable defection from the laws of honor, honesty, and even humanity spring?” The root of it all is the sinfulness of mankind that is willing to enslave others for riches and power. Gee, there is nothing new under the sun on that.
The Comparison of the merchants that both Sam Adams and Thomas Jefferson speak to are now the mega-global-corporations that easily subsume all other businesses. We can see the Walmarts taking out the local ‘five and dimes’ or the technology companies buying up all competition. Although statistically it has historically been the Small, Medium Business (SMB) that were the majority of the US economy, the like of an Amazon establish mechanisms that make it very difficult for the SMB environment to keep ahead of these entities.
Worse, the majority of products in the supply chain, as well as our medicine supply chain are sourced from China. They are a sworn Marxists enemy. So instead of the merchant issues that Adams and Jefferson were writing about concerning Great Britain, China as an enemy is akin in its desire to destroy our Constitutional Republic. Yes, early on Great Britain wanted to destroy the US – Remember the War of 1812 and Jefferson wrote his letter in 1814.
Wrapping it up
The warnings of mercantile avarice and lust for power has been there for 250 years. The expectation of Sam Adam, John Adams, James Madison and yes, even Thomas Jefferson was that pastors would ensure that the ‘purest religion’, being Christianity, would be simply preached and that we would have a moral and virtuous people. Without these predominant traits being lived out in society, all the ills that trouble mankind subsume all professions. Thus leaving those ills to destroy good governance and do not preserve our God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Are you willing to fight for the Liberty of our Founders or accommodate the bureaucratic-mercantile slavery that binds the minds of mankind to the frivolities of life for the fantasies of pleasure. In the concept of the movie ‘The Matrix,’ – Will you UnPlug?
1Sir Edward Coke (pronounced cook) (1552-1634) was a lawyer, Member of Parliament, and judge of great renown. He is considered one of the premier champions of the common law, which he defended against the attempted encroachments of the courts of equity and the royal prerogative of the Stuarts—James I (r. 1603-1625) in particular.