He felt some folk might take serious issue with such a notion. Thus, to him, the most pervasive threat, to such an undertaking, at that moment, wasn't the other guys, so to speak, like the English or the Spanish, but rather the coming up of its old self that self felt by divine right, pure royal you know where in contempt of all type, or what might be today called a control freak with an army. Thus, at such a seminal moment he entrusted not in fire power, but hung his high hopes up on faith in the citizens to be so inspired by their new found condition to muster themselves at the proper moments calling.
On down the road, President Andy Jackson, in his farewell address, observed, "It is from with in among your selves, from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst of power that factions will be formed and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, what ever disguise the actors may assume, that you have especially to guard against."
Suppose patriotism, itself, might be used as such a disguise? In fact, a wise old Englishman, Samuel Johnson, once called "patriotism the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Tim O'Leary
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