By Thomas L. Krannawitter, Ph.D. | Commentary, Substack
The American Revolution launched the greatest anti-king and anti-slavery movements, at the same time, and for the same principled reasons.
Let me see if I understand: Progressives who insist on “No Kings” demand presidents—and an entire federal government apparatus—be constrained by the Constitution progressives have spent decades mocking, undermining, and ignoring?
And the same progressives who warn against monarchical power happily support millions of unelected, unionized bureaucrats issuing and enforcing their own “regulations” that have binding power of law over citizens, even though regulations are not laws?
No Kings
Remember, the United States was born out of a fiery rebellion against a king and a distant, aristocratic, unaccountable government.
We already have a “No Kings” day: It’s called Independence Day, which at least some of us celebrate each year on July 4th.
That is the date, in 1776, Americans adopted their Declaration of Independence, which reminded the world that special groups of people don’t have special rights. This might come as a surprise to postmodern progressives who assume rights differ based on a person’s sexual turn-ons, feelings about gender, skin color, or genitalia.
After all, progressives speak almost entirely in terms of group-based rights: black rights, women’s rights, homosexual rights, transexual rights, the rights of the poor, etc.
The core principle of the Declaration of Independence—the principle by which Americans in 1776 rejected kingship—was quite the opposite: each and every human being has the same, equal natural rightful claim to his own life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness simply because each human being is human.
That is why the only legitimate government is self-government—government by and with the consent of the governed.
That is the beautiful moral principle at the heart of the greatest “No Kings” document ever written and adopted by a sovereign people: our very own Declaration of Independence.
Bureaucratic Swarms
That is also why, in the list of grievances, the Declaration accuses King George III of establishing “absolute tyranny” by erecting “a multitude of new offices” and sending “swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
Does that not perfectly describe today’s administrative state—an unchecked bureaucracy staffed by millions of swarming unelected officers whose regulations create crushing burdens for ordinary citizens and business owners?
The Americans of 1776 understood with great moral clarity that kingship is wrong for the same reason slavery is wrong:
- Both kingship and slavery are gross violations of natural human equality and equal natural rights.
- Both kingship and slavery are gross violations of government by and with consent of the governed.
- Both kingship and slavery divide people and assign to different groups different kinds of rights.
- The premise of slavery is that some people are subhuman; the premise of kingship is that some people are superhuman. Both are wrong. The truth is that every human being is equally human, which means every adult human being has the capacity and right to govern himself.
No Kings, No Slaves
The American Revolution—the cause of which was summarized in the Declaration of Independence—launched the greatest anti-king and anti-slavery movements, at the same time, and for the same principled reason.
First generation Americans replaced an ancient kingship with a self-governing constitutional republic of liberty; second generation Americans abolished legalized ancient slavery by means of a terrible civil war, a constitutional amendment, and the creation of the Republican Party—Abraham Lincoln being the first Republican President of the United States.
Progressives today who oppose kingship and demand “No Kings” should restore the credibility of the Constitution they’ve worked so hard to discredit; they should reinstate the Constitution’s many limitations on government power; they should insist that those in government exercise ONLY the few powers that We The People delegated to them.
We should, in the words of that great anti-monarchist, Thomas Jefferson, “bind down” those in government with “the chains of the Constitution.”
Early progressive intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries condemned America’s self-governing constitutional republic as outdated and ill-suited for modern society, while fondly admiring European monarchies who could enact sweeping political and cultural change with the snap of a finger. Is it any coincidence that today’s administrative state is more regal—more royally elite—more unaccountable and tyrannical—than any actual king American revolutionaries ever faced?
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT DR. KRANNAWITTER’S SUBSTACK
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