TO BE FREE
Most of us rarely think of the special freedoms we enjoy in these United States of
America.
We become aware of them from time to time when we are forced to do so by world
events. The news tells us that other people do not enjoy freedoms we take for granted
and, at such moments, we begin to think about the security of our own beliefs. There are
always some individuals who doubt the continued existence of our valued freedoms, too.
So often, they are loud, insistent voices which come to us in the slyest guises through one
or more of the many flexible facets of a vibrant media surrounding us on all side.
In Revolutionary times the scattered locations of the citizenry and the polyglot
nature of their folkloric backgrounds caused many to respond to the idea of
independence in varied ways, not always in the agreement with separatists.
Many did not wish to leave what, to them, seemed the great security of belonging
to the British Empire. Many must have though seriously of the impending conflict with the
Indian tribes which occupied the lands toward the west into which they were to expand.
They worried, too, I would imagine, about the French in Canada, the Mississippi and New
Orleans and Spanish influences in Florida, the Caribbean Islands and the rim thereof
around that Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Who could best protect their possessions if war
should come with any of those factions? Certainly not a ragtag militia from the colony
with which they happened to be associated.
Later when the rebels became more active, many of king-minded settlers either
returned to England, moved the Scottish Nova Scotia settlements or to other parts of
Eastern Canada. Other chose to exist in Tory enclaves in rebel areas. And, there also was
a large group of people who did not care which way it all went, as well as those who
looked for ways to profit from whichever way it might seem to be going. Not all were what
we like to think of as “patriots.”
Our freedoms have been bought, not only by the blood of thousands those who
have died in the various wars we have met with, but also those individuals and groups
who, between such moments of obvious crisis, maintained firm moral standards against
great obstacles of a rough, frontier lifestyle and tried to live in keeping within the best of
the religious concepts of the time.
Lest we come to think that all honor for having won and held our freedom belongs
to militant individuals, we might all profit from looking at the average person of Colonial
and Revolutionary times. Our freedoms were won by those who entered the fray in a
physical sense, of course, but we must not forget they were sustained and their victories
made possible by the sacrificial support of, for example, farmers - men, women and
children; by the formative industrial workers of that day,- men, women and children
giving their every awakened hour to provide critical support for the military - all working
together to forward the causes they and their leaders believed in so strongly at that time.
We might realize, too - the children, in particular, might have worked without knowing the
real value of what they were doing. Much of it might have been a way of assuring
themselves that their father, husband, son, brother or relative in the armed forces might
have a better chance of returning to them, or simply because they needed a means of
staying alive themselves in trying times.
We need to be reminded that our freedoms today were each and items purchased
by someone who did without them for a time..of a long time ... so that we might enjoy
living security, independence and also be so wondrously blessed in so many ways.
A.L.M. June 23, 2002 [c655wds]
