Who is the King of America?
“…in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the Crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.” — Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
“Taxation without representation” is an oversimplification of why America declared its independence on July 4th, 1776. The Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, details numerous indictments against King George III. While it is true the colonies had no representatives in the British government to voice their concerns and protect their interests, the reasons we broke ties with Great Britain go far beyond this simple notion.
Jefferson wrote, “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.” The tyranny of the King included:
- Unfair Laws: Imposing laws without colonial consent.
- Ignoring Laws and Petitions: Disregarding the colonies’ laws and their petitions for redress.
- Dissolving Legislatures: Disbanding colonial legislatures that opposed British policies.
- Obstructing Justice: Manipulating the judicial system to favor British interests.
- Military Rule: Stationing troops in the colonies during peacetime.
- Forced Quartering: Requiring colonists to house British soldiers.
- Trade Restrictions: Limiting the colonies’ ability to trade freely with other nations.
- Denial of Self-Government: Preventing the colonies from governing themselves.
- Taxation Without Consent: Imposing taxes without colonial representation in Parliament.
King George III was not alone in exacting his tyranny over the colonies. His hand-picked Prime Minister, Lord North, and the biased British Parliament also played significant roles.
Changing the Rules to Benefit Themselves
When the British Crown and Parliament did not get what they wanted from the American Colonies, they simply changed the rules to their own benefit:
- Imposing Various Taxes: Like the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, without consulting the colonies.
- Trade Restrictions: The Navigation Acts forced colonies to trade primarily with Britain.
- Dissolving Assemblies: Undermining local self-governance by dissolving opposing colonial legislatures.
- Quartering Act: Forcing colonists to house British troops, infringing on personal property rights.
- Judicial Manipulation: Establishing vice-admiralty courts without juries, biased towards British interests.
- Coercive Acts: Including the closure of Boston Harbor and revoking Massachusetts’ charter in response to defiance.
The Supremacy Ideology Behind British Rule
King George, Lord North, and the British Parliament believed they could do whatever they wanted to the American Colonists because they saw themselves as superior and believed they had divine support. The history leading up to the 1770s was one of the divine right of kings, absolute monarchy, and hereditary succession.
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published January 10, 1776, perfectly captures this sentiment:
…there is another and greater distinction, for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS…how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.
Paine explains how government by kings began and how the Christian world adopted the same idolatry by seeing a king as sacred and superior to all other men:
Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!
Rejecting the Divine Right and Hereditary Rule
The divine right of kings was a tyrannical trick to steal and keep power, fusing religion and politics to give the king absolute authority. This weakened true religion, as it held that no one, not even religious leaders, could question the king’s authority. Additionally, the idea that the king’s bloodline deserved to rule over us for all time was equally flawed.
Paine writes:
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no ONE by BIRTH could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve SOME decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.
America’s Belief in Equality, Democracy, and Supremacy of the Law
This is why America does not have kings. We believe in voting for and choosing our “lions” and that we only have ourselves to blame when we sometimes choose an “ass.” We believe that all people are created equal and are endowed “with certain unalienable Rights.” We believe that the power to govern comes from the consent of the governed, not from some manufactured divine right or hereditary succession. “We the people” believe the U.S. Constitution is America’s king.
Publius
