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- By Josh Marcinik
- Libertarianism
The Revolutionary Act of Non Agression
“It is not easy to give you a just and accurate idea of the sufferings of the Army at large – of the loss of men on this account. Were they to be minutely detailed, your feelings would be wounded,” wrote George Washington to the New Hampshire Convention of survival through the bitter winter of 1777 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. To this day, that fortitude remains the strongest memory of the Revolutionary War here in Montgomery County.
Such reflections ought to remind a modern audience that the conflict was underpinned by belief in universalist enlightenment ideals rather than strictly military exploits. Even as the United States attempts to emerge from its own societal winter, however, some have still drawn the incongruous conclusion that the American Revolution was won merely by shooting people. Their implied solution to current political trends is to likewise commence firing literal salvos. But the Revolutionary War and its rejection of the British monarchy did not immediately result in equal rights for all Americans. While the adoption of a Bill of Rights in 1791 was a start, the march towards universal rights of life, liberty, and property continues today. As the political duopoly flirts again with political violence, it is critical to remember that portraits of musket-bearing colonial militiamen do not show the entire picture.
“As a member of that society which has now made a solemn Appeal to Heaven… you must admit that there are such things as Right and Justice, to which the whole human species have an indefeasible claim,” wrote British abolitionist Thomas Day upon reading the Declaration of Independence. “He that admits no right but force, no justice but superior violence, arms every man against himself, and justifies all excesses.” A fractional majority of Montgomery County residents, like those who tried their hand at upending the results of the 2020 election or were convicted of shooting the county Democratic headquarters in broad daylight, have ably demonstrated that political violence is neither a persuasive nor constructive force.
The intent of the right to bear arms had been established nearly a century before it was codified in the United States Constitution. Scotsman Andrew Fletcher wrote in his 1698 pamphlet "A Discourse of Government with relation to militias” that the intent of “well-regulated militia's [sic]” would be keeping “these nations… free from the fears of invasion from abroad, as well as from the danger of slavery at home.” Fletcher, an author and politician who earlier fled the British Isles for mainland Europe to join a rebellion against King James II, argued that arms were “the only true badges of liberty.”
Yet the true bedrock of independence was not merely weaponry, contended America’s second president John Adams. Writing to newspaperman Hezekiah Niles in 1818, Adams said that the “radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments and affection of the people, was the real American Revolution.” In fact, he said, posterity should focus on the uncoordinated religious, moral, political, and social movements for the ways they “contributed to change the temper and views of the people and compose them into an independent nation.” The enthusiasm for rashly launching rebellions should be tempered with “deliberate consideration and sober reflection.” They ought not to be undertaken without “a solid, immutable, eternal foundation of justice and humanity; nor without a people possesed [sic] of intelligence, fortitude and integrity sufficient to carry them with steadiness, patience, and perseverance, through all the vicissitudes of fortune, the fiery tryals and melancholly [sic] disasters they may have to encounter.”
The nation was constructed to protect against the “violence of faction” from the beginning - whether schemes of vitriolic minority or “the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority.” Thus the ship of state was carefully laid down and designed to turn slowly, and its wheel cannot safely be turned faster without violating someone’s individual freedom. Though a plurality of Americans consider themselves independents, and a middle ground for discussion and promotion of liberal reforms has arisen, the language of warfare is now used by radical factions of both American right and left when the country will not bend to their will. The very concept of a peaceful resolution is mocked as unrealistic.
In actual fact, radical social changes elevated by principled nonviolence have been responsible for the dethroning of some of history’s worst authoritarians. A movement that began in the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland in 1980 would defeat secret police, martial law, and the communist system.Originally a free trade union, the Solidarity movement grew into “a nonviolent force with its strict nonviolent discipline and belief in the greater effectiveness of nonviolent actions over other means of a political contestation.” To undermine the dictatorship, Solidarity made use of strikes, protests, symbolic media, and mass amounts of literature. Even when outlawed, Solidarity caused enough damage to the prestige and economic power of the Polish People’s Republic to force reform. After nearly a decade of struggle, the party gained power in June 1989 elections, trumping the state security service and garrisons of Soviet troops. Nonviolent revolutions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria collapsed the entire Soviet Eastern Bloc, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall separating East and West Germany.
Libertarianism is the last American political philosophy which recognizes this tradition. The Libertarian Party has a unique identity in the non aggression principle, stating in their platform that “no individual, group, or government may rightly initiate force against any other individual, group, or government.” It has laid the political groundwork for the defense of individual rights at all levels of government.
Here at home, the Montgomery County Libertarian Party is the only political entity that carries these ideals forward. For those within the liberty movement, embracing violence not only scuttles principles, it imperils the hard-won progress of a state party that could double the count of elected Libertarians nationwide. For those seeking an alternative to the increasingly bellicose two party system, the revolutionary identity of nonaggression can be a torch held aloft to light the way forward.
Josh Marcinik is the current vice chair of the Montgomery County Libertarian Committee.
