The Convention of States movement has often held up the plain eloquence of Massachusetts farmer and Minuteman Levi Preston as a rallying cry for our effort. COSA co-founder and president Mark Meckler is fond of quoting Preston's response when asked why he, a simple farmer, joined the fight against the fearsome British armed forces:
"We had always governed ourselves, and them redcoats meant that we shouldn't."
Another son of Massachusetts honored and immortalized Preston and his like in a vivid poem that was read (and sung by a choir) on July 4, 1837, at a significant place.
As we approach Independence Day, it is well to revisit this poem -- this hymn -- and contemplate its inspirational qualities and meaning to the COS movement.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote Concord Hymn for the dedication ceremony of a monument in Concord, Massachusetts, which honors and commemorates the April 19, 1775, Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first significant military action of the Revolutionary War.
Emerson's opening stanza incorporates the fortitude of citizen-soldiers like Preston, and the timeless magnitude of what they initiated:
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
It is no exaggeration to state that, during this Independence week, all American citizens are embattled.
The United States is barely recognizable as a representative republic.
The rule of law has been inverted. Political opposition is criminalized.
Members of Congress -- the purported representatives of the people -- believe themselves unaccountable to the sovereign citizens who sent them there.
The executive and the administrative state halt productivity, choke innovation, and not long ago breached personal autonomy on pain of employment and well-being.
Such government – by self-appointed experts and self-deluded elite – is unsustainable. Seldom has the disconnect between the people and their representatives been so pronounced.
While glimmers of hope at times burst through the darkness, even sensible rulings of a judicial tribunal are openly undermined and disrespected.
An Article V convention would begin to remedy this diabolical disorientation. This non-partisan effort is aimed at returning the government to the sovereign citizens through our state legislatures as prescribed by the Constitution itself.
An Article V convention that begins the process of returning balance to the federal government would be the metaphorical shot heard round the country.
In reading the whole of Concord Hymn, we can take heart that the steadfast desire for self-government does not, at this moment, require us to "dare to die, and leave their children free."
What is required of us is time, commitment, and devotion to the principles for which the embattled farmers sacrificed and took up arms against what was then the most powerful military force on the planet. Such are the principles of our effort.
Let us read and listen to Emerson's hymn. Let us rededicate ourselves to the reestablishment of liberty where the rude bridge stood and all corners of this glorious land.
Let us redeem their deed.
Concord Hymn
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's Breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps:
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
