Revolutionary War: Justified?

[rlg94086]

I don’t think the war was justified under Just War theory, but I am glad it happened.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Did you read what I posted of what one of your ‘founding fathers’ thought of Catholics and Catholicism?

Did I comment on that? I do not deny that.

What about the English monarchy? Hardly pro-catholic there either.

I, for one, would rather be free of a monarchy that is anti-catholic to the point where they kill people for being catholic and exclude them from the royalty.

But then I enjoy all the freedoms of our Constitution, one of which is the freedom of religion, that no one else in the world has.

 

[DL82]

The entire Stuart family took refuge in Rome; it was always in their minds, I would imagine, that Charles I had been beheaded…because he was Catholic!! That was the essence of the Jacobite Risings;

Charles I was NOT a Catholic. He was the head of the [protestant] Church of England - though he was married to a Catholic. The English Civil War began because Charles tried to impose Anglicanism on the Calvinist Scots, leading to the Bishops’ War, which dragged on longer than expected, forcing Charles to demand more taxes from Parliament, which refused as they really didn’t see the point in fighting to impose one kind of protestantism in place of another in Scotland, leading to the conflict that later became the Civil War.

Using the lack of legitimacy of the English/Hanoverian succession to justify the Revolutionary War just seems like a cop-out. Legitimate or not, the American people rebelled against a government that didn’t care about their welfare. The question is simply one of whether such a rebellion can be justified. Aquinas doesn’t address the legitimacy of the authority in his version of the Just War doctrine.

 

[estesbob]

It depends-If Bush was President when it started it was an unjust war. if not it was a just war.

 

[rlg94086]

It depends-If Bush was President when it started it was an unjust war. if not it was a just war.

Bush might have been…he commented on the Queens visit in 1776 recently didn’t he?

I think the Torries certainly had an argument at the time. In fact, even some of the “revolutionaries” tried very hard not to have a war, but Parliament wouldn’t hear their grievances.

 

[Zooey]

Yet nothing seems wrong with a monarchy where it is illegal to be a Catholic? That seems pretty anti-catholic to me.

It was anti-Catholic!! Whatever Adams, or any of the other founding fathers may have said in private letters to their wives, every one of them supported freedom of religion for everyone in America. Including Catholics, which was not a popular political stance in the 18th Century!

Charles I was NOT a Catholic. He was the head of the [protestant] Church of England - though he was married to a Catholic. The English Civil War began because Charles tried to impose Anglicanism on the Calvinist Scots, leading to the Bishops’ War, which dragged on longer than expected, forcing Charles to demand more taxes from Parliament, which refused as they really didn’t see the point in fighting to impose one kind of protestantism in place of another in Scotland, leading to the conflict that later became the Civil War.

Oh, but he was!! The only truly Protestant Stuart was King James, of King James Bible fame.
The Stuarts made an outward show of supporting the CofE, in order to (attempt to) hang on to their rightful place in the royal succession, but they were always Catholic in private. (Politics & religion have ever made for strange company)…

Using the lack of legitimacy of the English/Hanoverian succession to justify the Revolutionary War just seems like a cop-out. Legitimate or not, the American people rebelled against a government that didn’t care about their welfare. The question is simply one of whether such a rebellion can be justified. Aquinas doesn’t address the legitimacy of the authority in his version of the Just War doctrine.

And I went on to say, if Cardinal Stuart had been on the throne (where he belonged!), I would have taken up arms against the British anyway. But, then I might well have had some doubts about, not the justice of the Revolution, but its ethical sticky wickets.
And I would have called the good cardinal by his rightful title…A title which I do not, will not use, for those who stole his kingdom. But that’s me…and Susanna Wesley–mother to John. Her husband, Samuel, once moved out of the family home for a year, to get away from her saying then & there, exactly what I am saying here & now.It is, you see, a forgotten fact, that the Hanovers held sway by force of arms, & by fear, in Britain. Much less could they care for the welfare of those of us on this side of the Pond.

 

[Zooey]

I think the Torries certainly had an argument at the time. In fact, even some of the “revolutionaries” tried very hard not to have a war, but Parliament wouldn’t hear their grievances.

Precisely!!! The only people who wanted a war, were Elector George, & his cronies in Parliament. They wanted to hold onto the Americans they so despised, because we were a source of revenue to them.
Little did they guess, that every man-jack & his uncle, had had about enough, once it came to shooting & clubbing private American citizens for refusing to pay for our own oppression.

 

[vern_humphrey]

No one who knows the history of Ireland, and how that unhappy nation fared under British rule could say the Revolutionary War was not just – just as the “Mere Irish” were treated, so we “Mere Americans” would have been treated.

 

[xmydreamsfadex]

America Uber Alles!
i don’t think the founding fathers were too anti-catholic since Catholic France joined our side. i’ve always held the belief that the revolutionary war was blessed from God since we didn’t have the pocketbook or training as did the greatest military in the world at that time. it always makes me proud to be an american when i hear the stories of the revolution and brings a tear to my eye when i hear the star spangled banner.

 

[DustinsDad]

Christopher A. Ferrara wrote an article, Rebel Without a Cause, that got me thinking about this question (posed in this poll) a while back. Well worth the read I think.

Here’s an excerpt (the actual article has plenty of footnotes):
…Why, then, did the Revolution proceed when the unjust laws were removed? The answer is that the Revolution was driven at its ideological core by its radical leaders’ hatred of the remnants of Catholic social order as represented by a monarchy allied to an established Church. The French Revolution was likewise an attack on the Catholic social order that still actually existed in the ancien regime. David Hume, the British empiricist who died in the very year the American Revolution began, summed up the eighteenth century revolutionary spirit as a rejection of the age-old subjection of civil society to spiritual authority: “In all ages of the world priests have been enemies to liberty” Liberty of thinking and of expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power" and, by an infallible connection which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed" but in a free government"."

By “free government” Hume meant, quite simply, a secular state. America would become the first such state in the history of the West not because of any “conservative” response to given injustices, but because of the inevitable progression, especially in the northern colonies, of the Protestant principle that all authority, both civil and religious, derives from the private judgments of autonomous individuals, who must be free to dissent from the established order whenever they are moved to do so. This is what the radicals ultimately meant by Liberty. As Edmund Burke declared in his address to Parliament in 1775:

All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces "

It was, then, the very existence of a monarchy allied to a Church that was held to justify revolution in the minds of its radical leaders - that is, the perfection of Protestantism, as it were - even if the monarchs whose authority was thrown off were themselves quite mild, and indeed positively benign, compared with what was to follow. The problem in America, however, was that "‘the old and obsolete Whig ideal of virtual independence under a figurehead king of both Britain and America could only be shattered if the king were to be attacked personally.’
(excerpt from Rebels Without a Cause, Ferrera, )

​

I’ve read more since then (John Rao is very interesting as well if you can plow through his writings here - not really casual reading).

For good or bad, it puts the 4th of July in a whole new light. At least it’ll make you think. It does me.

Peace in Christ,

DustinsDad

 

[thomasf]

I think the revolution had very little to do with protestant rebellious tendancies, and a whole lot more with the colonists being tired of taxation, repression, and a lack of representation in the English parlaiment. The revolution had its roots in Boston, and most of the motivation was the taxation, lack of representation, and the crack down/occupation by the British crown. England tried to make examples of the Mass people, and instead only served to fuel the fire.

I watched quite a bit of stuff about the revolution yesterday, and I’ve always had a lot of interest in it. The American colonies for the most part had been on their own for most of their history. The Atlantic was a big ocean, and while England ruled the colonies, they did so from a distance. Which gave the colonies about a 100 years to gain their own identities. Massachuesetts had been meeting in local and state assemblies for much of that time. As had many of the colonies. When England tried to get rid of that, they made a huge mistake. By that time the colonies had already established a tradition of making decisions for themselves.

What really fueled the revolution was England’s greed. The crown went into debt fighting the french and indian war, and tried to pay for that debt by heaping taxes on the colonists. Instead of allowing the colonies to represent themselves in parlaiment, and giving them a voice in governement, they tried to squash them with force and opression.

Was that a just war? Absolutely. It couldn’t have been anything else. The American Colonies just wanted to be treated fairly, the English crown wanted to extract money and resources from the colonies without giving them a voice in government. It’s all summed up in the declaration of independence:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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 Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

This document has a great influence on it by God. It speaks of such things as Natural Law, God, the Creator, talk of suffering evils. This declaration wasn’t something that was taken lightly, or done for un-just reasons. These men who signed the Declaration knew that they could be put to death for such treason. They went to war to protect their lives, their property, their right to speak freely and worship freely, to govern themselves, to live freely. And they did so against the greatest power on the earth. If this war was so unjust, clearly God would not allow them to prevail.

But prevail we did, and this nation is still kicking after 231 years. Clearly they did something right.

 

[thomasf]

And while I’m at it, let’s clear something up. The founding fathers did not create this nation to be secular, or anti-God, or masonic. The founding fathers were clearly men of God, and you can’t help but see this in the Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, I do not find any of the values of freedom and independence to be in conflict with my catholic values. And when I compare my ability to worship freely, as well as every citizen’s ability to worship freely, to the religious oppression we see world wide, it is absolutely obvious and clear that America is the greatest nation on earth. A nation where anyone can choose from 30,000 versions of religion, and not fear for their life while worshipping. Compare that to nations that allow 1 religion and threaten all others with death. Compare the experience you had this week at mass with that of the caldean priest and his bishops that were gunned down for saying mass in Iraq. A country that we are supposedly helping to embrace democracy. It is clear, God ordained the United States to be the foundation for freedom in the world, and it is no accident that we have survived for this long. The US is a light of democracy and freedom in a world where people are still, to this day in 2007, not free to choose their God, to speak freely, to live freely without oppression.

 

[DixiesFinest]

In honor of Independance day, I pose the question:

Was the Revolutionary War a just war according to the Just War Theory?

Just to make this interesting…

how many feel that the War for Southern Independence was justified?

 

[Bennie_P]

And they did so against the greatest power on the earth. If this war was so unjust, **clearly God would not allow them to prevail. **

But prevail we did, and this nation is still kicking after 231 years. Clearly they did something right.

And our greatest ally were the French, I wondered why God let thier revolution prevail? Influenced by God too, I assume? Such an enlighten bunch the French and our fore-fathers.

Revolutionary War - Justified:dts:

 

[JW10631]

I used to read some of Christopher Ferrara’s stuff when he was having his battles against the bishop of Altoona-Johnstown.

Ferrara is a “rad trad” who would like to see a Catholic monarchy established.

No, thanks.

It wasn’t just then-Catholic France who assisted the Americans. It was Spain as well. Spain battled the British in the Carribbean and kicked the British out of the Mississippi Valley. In the Treaty of Paris, Spain regained Florida, which she lost to the British in 1763. Spain later sold Florida to the USA in 1821.

Spain held Florida, Texas and California at the time of our Independence. The Spanish knew real estate.

 

[JohnnyReb]

Just to make this interesting…

how many feel that the War for Southern Independence was justified?

LOL someone might wrongly point out that you mean the “Civil War” and wrongly say that the south went to war to “preserve slavery” so, no it was not justified.

All I can say is that the south’s war for independence is as likely justified as the war for American independence, since the south appealed to the same prinicipals as their revolutionary forefathers.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Being familiar with the fate of Ireland, a nation completely under England’s control, I find it hard to think that we would be better off had we not declared our independence.

 

[strngrnrth]

America is the country the largest number of people in modern times have struggled to enter and the fewest have striven to leave.
Most of the people who live here or have tried to live here would tell you that that is because America is the freest country in the world – the only large country that offers freedom, abundance and therefore the opportunity to live almost however one wishes and in harmony with almost all one’s neighbors almost all of the time.
That is probably in part because we are a people who have long been willing to fight for what we believe we should have.
America has big problems, but it also has big advantages. These are mostly the advantages of freedom.
If we lived under British control, I don’t know how it would be different, but the last I heard, in the UK it is illegal to defend oneself from a criminal. That tells me they think very strangely over there, from a US point of view. I can’t imagine our interests’ being served by a government so profoundly different from our culture.
USA! We’re 131.:tiphat:

 

[Bennie_P]

I can’t imagine our interests’ being served by a government so profoundly different from our culture.
USA! We’re 131.:tiphat:

But if we didn’t have the Revolution would today’s England be the England we know today? What is going on in England today has nothing to do with the what was happening in 1776.

 

[vern_humphrey]

America is the country the largest number of people in modern times have struggled to enter and the fewest have striven to leave.
Most of the people who live here or have tried to live here would tell you that that is because America is the freest country in the world – the only large country that offers freedom, abundance and therefore the opportunity to live almost however one wishes and in harmony with almost all one’s neighbors almost all of the time.
That is probably in part because we are a people who have long been willing to fight for what we believe we should have.
America has big problems, but it also has big advantages. These are mostly the advantages of freedom.
If we lived under British control, I don’t know how it would be different, but the last I heard, in the UK it is illegal to defend oneself from a criminal. That tells me they think very strangely over there, from a US point of view. I can’t imagine our interests’ being served by a government so profoundly different from our culture.
USA! We’re 131.:tiphat:

I am reminded of a lady who taught English as a Second Language to adults. She took her students on a “field trip” to MacDonald’s and other fast-foot restaurants and had them write essays about the trip.

She thought her students would write about the horrible eating habits of Americans. Instead, every essay had the same theme – “In America, there is food for everyone.”