This campaign is not about capturing an office. This campaign
is about recapturing a dream.
What is "The American Dream?" Is it to work two jobs
so that half your income can be taken by the government and given
to special interests and causes you don't agree with? Is it to
build a home and fill it with memories only to have it seized by
politicians whose campaign contributors want to build a strip mall
on your property?
What motivated the Founding Fathers? What caused them to risk
so much--their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor?
Answer: the idea of every American owning his own "vine
and fig tree," and dwelling in safety and peace,
without being molested by princes or politicians.
George Washington's Diaries are available
online at the Library of Congress. They are introduced with
these words:
No theme appears more frequently in the writings of
Washington than his love for his land. The diaries are a
monument to that concern. In his letters he referred often, as
an expression of this devotion and its resulting contentment, to
an Old Testament passage. After the Revolution, when he had
returned to Mount Vernon, he wrote the Marquis de Lafayette on
Feb. 1, 1784: "At length my Dear Marquis I am become a
private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, & under the
shadow of my own Vine & my own Fig-tree." This phrase
occurs at least 11 times in Washington's letters. "And
Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and
under his fig tree" (2 Kings 18:31).
It is also a phrase
from the prophet Micah, the idea of everyone owning property
and enjoying the fruits of their labor without fear of theft or
political oppression, of sitting peacefully under your "Vine
& Fig Tree."
Few Americans today have heard the phrase "Vine
& Fig Tree," but it sums up the American
Dream as it was dreamed 200 years ago. A few highly-educated
scholars and historians might recognize the phrase, but you would
draw a blank from the "man on the street." A few people
living in New York might have a glimmer of recognition. The
prophecy from Isaiah, Micah's contemporary, is memorialized in a
United Nations garden. Needless to say, our idea of "Vine
& Fig Tree" did not come
from the U.N.
Nor did any Americans in the past get the "Vine
& Fig Tree" idea from the United Nations.
And the interesting thing is, many Americans once had the "Vine
& Fig Tree" idea. The Bible was better
understood by most Americans 200 years ago than it is
today.
This page is a growing collection of references to
a by-gone ideal.
- The
Puritans and Micah's Holy Mountain
- From Democracy in America.
-
- England's
Conquest of Canada
- From George Bancroft's History of the United States
-
- The
Bramble vs. the Fig Tree
- Thomas Paine's critique of the king in Common Sense
-
- George
Washington's Vine & Fig Tree
Longings.
- A collection of references.
-
- Slavery
vs.Vine & Fig Tree
- James Madison's hopes
-
- A
Slave is Baptized (off site)
- Musings of the baptizer from Annals of the Poor.
Containing The Dairyman's Daughter, (with considerable
additions) The Negro Servant, and The young Cottager. By
the Reverend Legh Richmond, A.M. Rector of Turvey, Bedforshire;
and Chaplain of His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent and
Strathern, 1815 (See page 154.)
-
- Anti-Federalist
No. 85 (off site)
- Concluding Remarks- Evils Under Confederation Exaggerated;
Constitution Must Be Drastically Revised Before Adoption
-
- Shall
Liberty or Empire be Sought- - Patrick Henry (off site)
- From a speech made on June 5, 1788, in the
Virginia Convention,
called to ratify the Constitution of the United States.
-
- Tench
Coxe, Dealer in Arms
- He believed the only way to achieve the "Vine
& Fig Tree" ideal was "Arm
yourselves. To arms, to arms, and you may then sit down
contented, each man under his own vine and his own fig-tree
and have no one to make him afraid." But Micah and Isaiah
both agreed: we must beat our swords into plowshares.
"The light of Christianity ... ought
to be . . . imparted to the whole race of mankind,"
as Madison put it.
-
- The
Polish De Tocqueville
- Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz findsVine
& Fig Tree in his American travels.
-
- The
Scotch De Tocqueville
- Finds plenty of land, little aristocracy, and every man
under his Vine & Fig Tree.
-
- The
French Opposition to Communist Dictatorship
- With all his talk about Vine &
Fig Tree, French writer Pierre Joseph Proudhon
alienates Marx.
-
- Abraham
Lincoln's Overthrow of America's Vine
& Fig Tree Vision
- Lincoln was an archist
(Mark 10:42-45).
-
- Lyndon
Baines Johnson?
- At least his speechwriter knew about Micah's vision.
-
- Jimmy
Carter: The Truth is Out There
- Can a Democrat be a Christian?
-
- Ronald
Reagan Hijacks Micah
- Can a Republican be a Christian?
-
- Micah
vs. The United Nations
- George Bush (41) speaks of "Vine
& Fig Tree" more than Reagan and
Carter
Remarkably, references to Micah's vision seem to be on the
increase. The references to "Vine
& Fig Tree" and "Swords
into Plowshares" in the 20th century vastly
exceed the number of references in the 19th, even though the
20th was incomparably more violent and warlike. It has become
almost trendy for politicians to speak of "Swords
into Plowshares." Many of these references
are to Isaiah's parallel prophecy, so they are not catalogued
here.
next: Introduction: The
Nature of Government
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