Time to Regulate the Regulators

Armed government thugs confiscating and destroying private property; corrupt judges and officers of the court jackbooting the citizenry under the pretence of law; eastern elites thumbing their noses at the downtrodden all the while enjoying their ill-gotten gains.  Sounds a lot like what’s happening in America today, doesn’t it?  What I described happened in the 1760’s in North Carolina’s Piedmont region.

Pioneers began to settle this area in the 1740’s & 50’s.  These hearty, industrious, and religious settlers scratched out a living as farmers in what then was a frontier.  Soon thereafter, the predators showed up.  Land agents for the Crown and a lord proprietor, who refused to sell back his interest to the king, were sent to survey and force these squatters to pay for their farms and subsequent taxes, which included the improvements they made on the land.

Hard currency was in short supply.  The only people who had money were government officials, or those who had already established their wealth in other colonies.  Many of these officials were paid by fees they collected. Eventually, these functionaries discovered it was more profitable to confiscate farms and sell it to their friends and/or, force these debtors to work their lands.

Eventually, these farmers had enough.  They named themselves Regulators and began a rebellion.  They beat judges, sheriffs, and their lawyer hirelings.  The most offensive ones had their houses burned to the ground.

East coast North Carolinians were frightened that these angry farmers would eventually march on the capitol, which at that time was New Bern.  They hurriedly passed laws that addressed the grievances of these pissed off, backwoods ruffians.  It was too late.  These folks had lost all confidence in the rule of law, especially when the Regulators sent one of their own to represent them in the General Assembly, only to have him drummed out and arrested on trumped up charges of libel.  Armed conflict was inevitable.

Governor Tryon, along with North Carolina elites, assembled the militia and marched to Hillsborough.  They suppressed the rebellion; hung the leaders they captured; confiscated weapons; burned down known Regulator farms, and forced thousands to swear loyalty oaths.

Here is the irony:  those same elites who brutally suppressed the Regulators later became revolutionaries in the War for Independence.  Apparently, it was alright for agents of government to violate the inalienable rights of the great unwashed, but when the Crown abused them, it was time to throw off the shackles.

We are basically witnessing the same kind of abuses in today’s America.  Even though we haven’t seen mass armed rebellion against the political elites and their army of bureaucrats, we, however, are witnessing a suppression of Tea Party dissent. 

We can expect change in Washington D.C. when the federal bureaucracy turns on the elites.  We are already witnessing federal bureaucrats disrespect our elected representatives.  Someday they will have had enough and they too will rebel.