Blast From the Past

Written by: Tom Niewulis, Geauga County I February 22, 2022

Regarding my radio program, I am often asked why I spend so much time talking about our past history. To that I respond, ‘We haven’t learned from it yet.’ The nefarious were and are the same then and now. How we respond today is nothing like our Founders.

In this article written by Sam Adams, I did add my emphasis of bold and italics not as a distraction, but to draw your attention to the parallels in history. I could have bolded more, but I hop and pray that you will read between the lines and know that the bad actors of our present are the same evil ilk of the past.

The question is, ‘Who has the fortitude to know history and respond like our Founders in these present times?’

ARTICLE SIGNED “A CHATTERER.”

[Boston Gazette, August 20, 1770.]

Before we get to the key quote I would like you to fully consider, I thought that the opening of this article is most applicable, especially to President Trump when he took office:

“One of the greatest indications of Wisdom that a Prince can show, is to converse with and have about him virtuous and wise Men: But Princes are liable to be deceived; Fraudum sedes aula, was the saying of a Philosopher who understood Courts well.—A good Prince may suffer by employing bad Ministers and Servants.”

And the body of the article with my emphasis added:

`MESSIEURS PRINTERS, WE are told in a late reply, that “the offices of Attornies and Sollicitors-General have been for more than fifty years past filled up by persons of the highest reputation for learning and integrity.” I am apt to think, if we look back we shall find that some of these officers of the crown have been as deficient in learning or integrity, or both, as we know some ministers of state have been.

The house of Representatives say, “the province has suffer’d much by their unjust, groundless and illegal opinions“— Among other instances of weakness or wickedness in some persons who have filled these offices, I shall only mention one which now occurs to my mind—There is an act of Parliament which exempts seamen from an impress in America: This act was upon several occasions urged by the Americans, and it has been the opinion of attornies and sollicitors general, at different times, that the act was limited to a time of war, when in truth there was no part or clause whatever in it to justify such opinion.

— Well then may it be called a groundless opinion; and if groundless, will any one insist that there was no defect in these instances in point of integrity, if not of learning.

— Perhaps these opinions may appear to his Honor to be founded upon wise reasons; but others who cannot see the force of these reasons, have a right to think differently; and such a freedom is not likely to bring dishonor upon them.

— It is enough for those who are dependent upon the great for commissions, pensions, and the like, to preach up implicit faith in the great—Others whose minds are unfettered will think for themselves.

—They will not blindly adopt the opinions even of persons who are advanced to the first stations in the courts of law and equity, any further than the reasons which they expressly give are convincing.

—They will judge freely of every point of state doctrine, & reject with disdain a blind submission to the authority of mere names, as being equally ridiculous, as well as dangerous in government and religion.

— It may have been, Messirs. Printers, too much the practice of late, for some plantation governors, like Verres either ancient or modern, to oppress and plague the people they were bound to protect, and, perhaps in obedience to “orders that have come from secretaries of state”.

—These orders truly were to be treated with as profound veneration, without the least enquiry into their nature and tendency, as ever a poor deluded Catholic reverenc’d the decree of Holy Father at Rome.

— While such a disposition prevailed, O how orderly were the people, how submissive to government! But when once a statute or the constitution was pleaded, which it was as dangerous for the people to look into, as it would be for an Italian, after the example of the noble Bereans, to search the scriptures, the secretary of state was to be informed that the people were become rebellious; as they said of St. Paul for preaching doctrines opposite to the humour of the Jewish Masters, that he “turned the world upside down”.

— The whole ministerial cabal was summoned; opinions were called for and taken—and however ludicrous, to say the best of them, those opinions were, if the people did not swallow them down as law & reason, they were told, that the freedom they used with the characters of great men forsooth “would bring dishonor upon them” and standing armies were sent to convince them of the reasonableness of these opinions,

— I confess that “too great a respect cannot be paid to the honorable part of the profession of the law,” but when state-lawyers, attorneys and sollicitors general, & persons advanced to the highest stations in the courts of law, prostitute the honor of the profession, become tools of ministers, and employ their talents for explaining away, if possible the Rights of a kingdom, they are then the proper objects of the odium and indignation of the public.

— A very judicious author has observed that “our maladies and dangers have originated chiefly in the errors and misconduct of ministers; who from defect of ability or fidelity, or both, were unequal to the wants of a kingdom: A great genius, infinite knowledge and infinite care, says he, are requisite to form a prime minister; but youth and dissipation, with the trainings of the turf and the gaming table, will now suffice to make a man master of the most difficult trade in the world, without learning it”.

— Such were the men, under whose Influence Attorneys and Sollicitors General, within these fifty Years past, have held their places, and have even been advanced to the highest Stations in the Courts of Law, without any other recommendation than a servile disposition to prostitute the Law and the Constitution, whenever their Masters should require it of them.

— Such have been the Men, from whom Orders have come to Governors and Commanders in Chief, civil and military in America! And shall we easily be persuaded to take it for granted that such men are incapable of abusing the high trust reposed in them, and that Orders coming from them are always to be considered as “Significations of the pleasure of the Sovereign.”—.

Your’s,

A CHATTERER.

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