English Ancestors Sentenced to Transportation

            Minor theft in the eighteenth century London was often treated harshly. It could result in job loss, criminal charges, and prison sentences. London at this time contained hordes of desperately poor people who had for years traveled from the countryside to avoid starvation (after industrialism’s disruptions and Protestant Reformers had destroyed the Church’s ability to care for them), so petty theft was common, and those convicted of petty crime were jailed even for such things as theft of a handkerchief or a loaf of bread.

            These arrests produced terrible overcrowding as people were stuffed into conditions of filth, disease, and deprivation. In Newgate, London’s infamous prison, people died “by the dozens of the jail distemper,” a disease of crowding, filth, and malnutrition. Prison workers carried the dead out by the cartload, threw them into pits, and buried them without ceremony.

            In 1718, to alleviate overcrowding His Majesty George I gave judges the authority to impose the sentence of transportation to America as a standard penalty for all but the most serious crimes. Excluded from transportation were hanging offenses such as murder, treason, rape, witchcraft, highway robbery, arson, and burglary.         

His Majesty’s government bonded sentenced people over to shipping merchants who could sell them for from two to seven years’ service. These agents arranged transportation for bonded passengers, who in most instances went to Virginia or Maryland where tobacco planters paid well for skilled and unskilled labor. In London shipping merchants struck deals with ships’ masters who paid them with tobacco shipped from America to pay for previous loads of laborers. Unskilled laborers sold for ten pounds while skilled craftsmen could bring as much as twenty-five pounds. Ships’ masters received an additional transportation fare of about four pounds per passenger.

            Shipping merchants also handled people under indenture. Indentured people voluntarily bonded themselves over to serve a stated period, usually seven years. Initially there appeared to be a difference between convicts and indentured servants, but to shipping merchants, ships’ masters, ships’ crews, and the people who received the convicts and indentures, there was little difference, and by the time they arrived in America any differences had been forgotten. Indentures and bonded passengers had been badly mistreated.

            Ill treatment began as soon as they left England. Ever mindful of profit, masters packed people in as tightly as possible, restricted their movement, and fed them poorly. Not surprisingly, people died in the process, and not only men but also women and children were transported. At times officials emptied brothels, rounded up orphans, and bonded the lot over. Ships’ crews abused women, sometimes unto death.

            When convicts and indentures landed in America, merchants reloaded ships with tobacco for the return trip to England. Because tobacco was highly prized in England, men made fortunes.

            As with African slaves, arriving indentures and convicts were marched to a central platform for display to potential buyers who poked, prodded, questioned, and then bought whom they wished. At this point the only differences among, bonded passengers, indentures and Negro slaves were the indentures’ length. As a matter of fact, in the early days of America some African slaves also came with limited indentures. It was not until later that African slavery became permanent.

            Transportation of convicts to America did not begin in 1718, but most were transported during the eighteenth century. Between 1615 and 1775 an estimated 50,000 people came to America as bonded passengers.

            Like many Americans of English ancestry some in my family have believed we descended from royalty – not very likely. Coats of Arms with the Chesser name are several and varied.     

Research prompted me to look at English shipping passenger lists for the period. I didn’t find Chesser but did find several Cheshire’s, of which Chesser is a variant spelling. In fact, in early U.S. censuses beginning in 1790 my ancestors spelled the name both ways, finally settling on Chesser in the 1810 census. I cannot say for certain if these bonded and indentured passengers are my direct descendants but in the absence of evidence of royal lineage, who knows?

            I know that some in my family were slow to abandon notions of descent from royalty.   

           

           

           

           

Constitutional Rigts v. Gimme Rights

            The Bill of Rights was not part of the document the Framers produced in Philadelphia but was added later in order to get reluctant states, those fearful of an all powerful central government, to ratify. And until the Supreme Court invented the incorporation doctrine, the Bill of Rights applied to the Federal government only. Only after the War of Northern Aggression and the cruel excesses of Reconstruction was the Bill of Rights extended to the states.

Even so, for all that history the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights remain simple and straightforward: speech, assembly, press, and religion; self defense with firearms; no unlawful searches and seizures; no self incrimination; and no cruel and unusual punishments, to name the better known.

Today, however, many people insist that other Constitutional rights exist in spite of the fact that in the U.S. Constitution

1.      There is no right to kill babies in the womb.

2.      There is no right to serve in the armed forces

3.      There is no right to own a house

4.      There is no right to free medical care.

5.      There is no right to employment

6.      There is no right to an education.

 Nevertheless, people assert these rights. For example, despite the Supreme Court invented right to abortion codified in Roe v. Wade, there is no such right in the Constitution. Before Roe abortion was permitted in some states, denied in others. Should Roe ever be overturned, the nation will return to the status quo ante, and who knows, more states, even a majority will pass liberalized abortion laws. Had the Supreme Court refused to rule in Roe and left abortion regulation to the states, abortion laws most likely would have been liberalized in many states, and the religious right as we now know it might never have arisen or have become so influential in politics. Think about that, those readers made apoplectic by the pro life movement.

Another example of made up rights: against human experience, practicality, and common sense, people insist that there is a right to serve in the armed forces and furthermore that women and the openly homosexual have an extraordinary right to serve, the consequences to good order, discipline, and efficiency be damned. And, I might add, should openly homosexual men be allowed to serve but are later determined to undermine good order and discipline, under no circumstances will openly homosexual service be rescinded. As with women, moral cowards in leadership positions will deny problems associated with their service, no matter how readily apparent. And by the way, denial of entrance into the armed forces to the openly homosexual is not the same as being forced to the back of the bus or being denied entrance to school. Suggestions to the contrary outrage many African Americans.    

Other examples: people have a right to own a house. The government’s push to guarantee that right has bankrupted to country. Still another right: people have a right to medical care. That imperative will degrade medical care for everyone and push the government deeper into insolvency. Then there is the right to a job. In practice, the exercise of this right in some areas means that incompetent, unqualified, and insubordinate employees cannot be discharged because of union negotiated and legislatively mandated rules.

Finally, the assumed right to an education: this has dumbed down learning to the point where young people spend lots of time learning very little. Someone suggested to me that were it not for public schools the poor would not be educated. Here’s a flash. The poor don’t get educated now even though more money is spent on them than ever. Programs to improve learning for poor children have not worked and will not work for reasons too many to discuss here.  

            Humorist P.J O’Rourke calls the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, “Get outta here rights!” because they limit the government’s power to interfere with citizens’ personal freedoms. He calls the rights I discuss above “Gimme rights” because they demand material benefits from government. Gimme rights, of course, come at a high price: a government that can do anything for you can do anything to you. A society that insists upon more and more gimme rights is a society of less and less freedom, and in our case, a society in decline. Look for the spectacle of people demonstrating in the streets in Europe now because their governments can no longer afford the gimme rights to which they think they are entitled to repeat itself here.

           

Is the US a Christian Nation?

A recent headline in my local paper asks this question: “Is the U.S. really a Christian nation?” To many the answer is no, and they are right to a point. America is not a juridically Christian nation, that is, the founding documents do not prescribe Christianity for its citizens, but that lawyer’s response in no way gainsays the profoundly Christian culture and character of America’s founders and of generations of American leaders.

The language of the founding documents is redolent of Christian teaching. For example, “All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” Where, pray tell, does that idea come from? It comes from Christian teaching. First from Genesis where God creates man in His own image and then from the New Testament, where St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, writes in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (KJV)

And Christianity suffuses the writing of not only the founders and but also of historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, who, while certainly not a religious man nor even identifiably Christian, demonstrates in his writing the rhythms, cadences, and literary devices of that most poetic of all English translations of the Bible, the Authorized or King James Version. For many generations, Americans of all classes and educational levels breathed the King James Bible in with their mothers’ milk. Anyone possessed of even a modicum of cultural literacy can discern that if he has the ears to hear and the eyes to see.

            In what can only be called special pleading, many choose to believe that secularism motivated the authors of the founding documents when in fact grievances against the established church were never part of the conversation. When our founders led their revolution against England, they were not leading a charge against Christianity or the established church; they merely wanted the same rights as their English Christian brethren. In fact, not once in the Declaration’s long list of grievances against the King is religion or the established church mentioned. Religion was not among the reasons that they rose up in rebellion. In fact, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, our Bill of Rights, were added after the Constitution was drafted, some thirteen years after the Declaration, in order to persuade reluctant states to ratify.

And don’t forget that in the beginning of our republic, the Bill of Rights applied to the Federal Government only, which incidentally, was the reason the Danbury Baptists wrote their letter to Thomas Jefferson, who used the phrase “separation of church and state” in his answer. That phrase does not appear in the Constitution.

            America has always been a Christian nation and in the future is likely to become even more Christian. What religion are the millions of Mexicans immigrants legal and illegal bringing with them?

           

Separation of Church and State

            Secular fundamentalists, secular humanists, moral relativists, and cultural nihilists often rail against an imaginary theocratic threat from sincere Christians, who they say want to impose their beliefs on everyone. First, as to the imposition of beliefs: everyone who petitions the legislature to pass laws about anything is trying to impose his beliefs on all citizens. At this point in the nation’s history, many people struggle under imposed beliefs that violate their religious faith, and also under imposed beliefs about taxes, environmentalism, marriage, and sexuality.

These secular impositions arise also from religious impulses. For many on the left and too many on the right, politics is religion. The left’s religious and political orientation – their compulsion to control every aspect of everyone’s life – is pure New England Calvinism. It’s not surprising that today’s main center of political thought control, that is,  of modern liberalism, is in the North East, the original home of American Calvinism.

            But back to separation: church/state entanglement rarely harms the state, as Barry Lynn and his followers believe, but it does harm the Church. In fact, the current ObamaCare attempt to force the Catholic Church against its fundamental beliefs to provide contraceptive services in Her Catholic hospitals, schools, and universities, is an example of church/state entanglement that harms the Church, and this has happened because for years Catholic Charities, Catholic Hospitals, and Catholic schools and universities have had financial arrangements with the government. Against warnings from traditional Catholics (like me), Church leaders have continued to take government money to fund Church sponsored charitable and educational activities. No wonder Obama, Sibelius, Pelosi, and their statist minions think ObamaCare has the right to tell the Church to go against Her teachings. Haven’t Church leaders for a long time been very willing to fill their coffers with government largesse?

Here I remind the Church’s shepherds of Rerum Novarum: On the Condition of the Working Classes, Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical concerning wealth, property, and the treatment of workers. Among other things, Pope Leo condemns socialism and unequivocally reiterates man’s God-given right to keep as private property the fruits of his own labor. The socialist confiscation of private wealth in this nation, especially since the Great Society, violates Church teaching, but against the teaching of Pope Leo XIII Church leaders have too often been willing to take taxpayer money for charitable and educational purposes. No wonder this administration sees nothing wrong with the contraception requirement.

            Very few institutions can resist the temptation to benefit from taxpayer money even though the penalties for not following government policies are well known. For example, if schools refuse to comply with the provisions of Title IX – part of the law that mandates equal support for women’s athletics – they can lose all their funding. For reasons related to Title IX and other Federal mandates, two schools, Grove City and Hillsdale, have refused to take any government money at all and have thus been free to establish their own policies. Catholic institutions should have followed their examples a long time ago.

            In another area, the matter of religious practice in public schools: trying to find non-sectarian, widely accepted prayers or meditative practices, Christians have had their religious customs watered down. Note to these Christians: watering down your beliefs in order to satisfy the masses violates Christ’s admonition about lukewarmness (Revelation 3:15-16).              

Separation of church and state serves the Church very well. Religious people should quit complaining about prayer in the public schools or in other government supported fora. If they want their children to say discursive Christian prayers aloud in school, they should send them to private Christian schools or home school. If people’s faith is important, they will find ways to fund private education, which is usually better than public.

Catholics and other Christians inclined to feed at the government trough should remember what Ben Franklin said: “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”

           

People want kings to look after them

People Want Kings to Take Care of Them

            No book illuminates political human nature better than the Bible and 1 Samuel 8 offers a timeless example. In the time of the Judges Samuel appointed his sons Joel and Abiah judges in Beersheba. But his sons “…walked not in his ways but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.”(3) Because of the corruption of Joel and Abiah, the elders of Israel asked Samuel to end rule by judges and to give them a king. Feeling rejected Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord assured Samuel that the elders were not rejecting him but were rejecting the Lord, who then revealed to him the things a king would do, which Samuel passed on to the elders:  

“And he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some will run before his chariots.”(11) Sons will be conscripted into the king’s army.

            “And he will appoint him (himself) captains over thousands … and make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.”(12) He will build a powerful imperial army.

            “And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries (concubines?), and to be cooks, and to be bakers.”(13) Daughters will also be drafted into his service.

            “And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.”(14)

“And he will take the tenth of your seed, and your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.”(15) In order to satisfy his imperial needs he will impose confiscatory taxes upon everything you produce.   

 “And ye shall cry out in that day because your king which ye have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.”(18) Looking to a king for salvation instead of to the Lord, Israel must suffer the king’s depredations.  

After Samuel told the people what the king would do and what they would suffer, they “… refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us.”(19) They rejected the Lord and chose a king, substituting an earthly father for their heavenly father.  

So the people got their kings, and the kings did as Samuel predicted, especially Solomon, who multiplied horses, wives, and gold. After Solomon the Kingdom split, to be followed by the Babylonian Captivity.  

What does all this say about human nature? In all eras, complex political systems notwithstanding, kings (we call them Presidents) behave like Samuel’s kings. But people still want kings, in reality powerful earthly fathers, to protect them, to give them bread and circuses, and to bring about earthly salvation. Because Presidents are the American versions of kings, Americans look to Presidents for salvation. During every election cycle citizens search the political landscape for a new savior. King makers then give them two choices, usually Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. When the new king inevitably fails, citizens look back nostalgically to the mythical great kings of old (who also failed): Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt (FDR), Truman, Kennedy, or Reagan. Unfortunately, each new king is like the old and does as Samuel predicts in 1 Samuel 8.

During the past two Presidential election cycles one of the potential kings declared himself the king of change. After four disastrous years, I hope no one is holding his breath. As the psalmist says, “Put not your trust in princes….” (Psalm 116)