Tyranny today? Learning from History

The King who helped during the American Revolution

IN THE CONSTITUTION:

King George III Aids the American Revolution

On July 9, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read in to George Washington’s troops in New York City’s Bowling Green Park in Lower Manhattan’s waterfront district. A statue of King George stood in the park--4000 pounds of pure lead, painted gold and standing on a marble base surrounded by a cast iron fence. George III sat astride his prancing horse and wore a Roman toga, symbolic of his supposed importance in world history. The unpopular statue had generated an anti-graffiti ordinance to protect it from those who did not wish King George well!

As the late afternoon sun played over the streets of New York City, General Washington’s troops heard the now-famous words: When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected  them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

As the last line was read, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” the crowd erupted into cheers. Within minutes, ropes had been thrown around the statue and it had toppled to the ground in shattered pieces. The intact head was paraded through the streets until it was recovered by Tories and returned to England.

Several women gathered the lead pieces and took them to the smelter in Litchfield, Connecticut, where they were recast into bullets. The smelter owner, General Oliver Wolcott, refused payment for his efforts. He declared, “You own me nothing. It is I who owe you…you have 42,038 musket balls in that wagon…all to be shot back at King George’s red-coated troops. I doubt that King George would much approve of what you did with his statue, but America will not soon forget what you have done for freedom. God speed you on your way.”

Many versions of the toppling of King George’s statue exist. While details vary, it is certain that patriots, fed up with tyranny and oppression, heard the words of the Declaration of Independence with exultation. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of American liberty and kept their word. That day the citizens of New York City stood for freedom as they resourcefully recast their emblem of despotism into tools for liberty.

This story is told in Promises of the Constitution: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, 3.3.  Thanks also to Don Pendleton for his information on this issue