** Page 2 **
 

We drank a lot of beer and whiskey at our debates and planning sessions.
We used a lot of gunpowder, tar, feathers and public humiliation
to "convince" the "law-abiding" to throw off
the legitimate government and its institutions, representatives and officials.

In the language of America in 2007,
the American Patriots were in fact, and were deemed in their time,
"extremists", "unlawful combatants", "terrorists", "gangs", "warlords", thieves and criminals.
However, the rebels (and they were in fact, "Rebels"!) prevailed
and their legal government abandoned us to our fate.

In their victory, that small minority who began the insurrection
against their legal government
had no desire to create a replacement of similar kind
for the government they had so forcibly retired.

Although most of their neighbors were content to be "Subjects" to some government,
the "terrorists" of the Revolution had no intention
to form another  uncontrollable government
or to be "Subject" to it.

In the years of argument and consideration
concerning the form our new government was to take,
several principles became iron-like in their universal agreement and purpose.
Each led to the same conclusion - we were not to tolerate a government
which would regulate our lives or tax our substance from Liberty back to Subjection.