Let’s have a few words - One Less Dog In The Hunt

Below are a few words which have been cast about by the media and politicians. They have been used as descriptive narrative with particular emphasis toward January 6th, Anti-Vaxers, Canadian Truckers, and individuals of particular political swing. Definitions provided are courtesy of Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. I’ve used that particular dictionary because the 2022 form has been rewritten nearly daily as tech, politicians, and social hubs try to control the societal narrative. I present them without further commentary. Followed by a few quotes from a significant member of our founding fatherhood.

SEDI’TION, noun. [Latin seditio. The sense of this word is the contrary of that which is naturally deducible from sedo, or sedeo, denoting a rising or raging, rather than an appeasing. But to set is really to throw down, to drive, and sedition may be a setting or rushing together.] A factious commotion of the people, a tumultuous assembly of men rising in opposition to law or the administration of justice, and in disturbance of the public peace. sedition is a rising or commotion of less extent than an insurrection, and both are less than rebellion; but some kinds of sedition in Great Britain, amount to high treason. In general, sedition is a local or limited insurrection in opposition to civil authority, as mutiny is to military.

INSURREC’TION, noun [Latin insurgo; in and surgo, to rise.]

1. A rising against civil or political authority; the open and active opposition of a number of persons to the execution of a law in a city or state. It is equivalent to sedition, except that sedition expresses a less extensive rising of citizens. It differs from rebellion, for the latter expresses a revolt, or an attempt to overthrow the government, to establish a different one or to place the country under another jurisdiction. It differs from mutiny, as it respects the civil or political government; whereas a mutiny is an open opposition to law in the army or navy. insurrection is however used with such latitude as to comprehend either sedition or rebellion.

REBEL’LION, noun [Latin rebellio. among the Romans, rebellion was originally a revolt or open resistance to their government by nations that had been subdued in war. It was a renewed war.]

1. An open and avowed renunciation of the authority of the government to which one owes allegiance; or the taking of arms traitorously to resist the authority of lawful government; revolt. rebellion differs from insurrection and from mutiny. Insurrection may be a rising in opposition to a particular act or law, without a design to renounce wholly all subjection to the government. Insurrection may be, but is not necessarily, rebellion Mutiny is an insurrection of soldiers or seamen against the authority of their officers.

No sooner is the standard of rebellion displayed, than men of desperate principles resort to it.

2. Open resistance to lawful authority.

A few Words from Tom:

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”
Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

“…experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large,…”

““…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…”“

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 20 Dec. 1787, as subsequently extracted and revised by Jefferson and enclosed in Thomas Jefferson to Uriah Forrest, 31 Dec. 1787 [Quote]

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay, 27 Jan. 1790 [Quote]

the ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, that we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time, and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. it takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.