729. Samuel Gorton: The Radical Defender of Liberty Before America Existed

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works. So as I've been talking about a lot, it is America 250, which for American history nerds, like me, people who love the founding, probably all of you as well, this is like our year. Our year has come because even though title twins readers and listeners at this podcast, we celebrate the founders all the time because we understand how important they were to helping

us move the needle a little closer to individual liberty. We understand that. But now the whole focus, a lot of people, even people who aren't interested in this, they're starting to celebrate or at least learn more about the founding. You know, you even had like Ken Burns, who I think is kind of a boring documentarian, but he's a real famous documentarian.

Some of his other stuff is good. I thought his American Revolution, it's like an eight part series that came out this year on PBS. You can watch it for free. I only made it through two episodes. I thought it was a little boring.

The reason I'm bringing it up is this person is not somebody who runs in individual liberty circles, but even he is jumping on the bandwagon, I guess, of America 250. So it's kind of a broad discussion as a country right now, so I'll be good at some of it bad. But obviously we love the founding here. So part of what I've been doing this year is I have been taking on this behemoth of a book conceived in Liberty by Marie Rothbard.

And this is, Marie Rothbard was the economist that the book Fade of the Future, the title twins book, is modeled after some of his writings. So I'm not suggesting that you guys sit down as a family and try to read this book, but that's why I'm here. I'm going to read it and I'm going to share with you some of the things I learned. Parents, if you want to pick it up, it is so good.

I am learning so much about the founding that I just never knew before, including some of the people who aren't considered founding fathers, but I think they kind of are because without the people who were really big in spreading individual liberty in the 1600s, we would not have had the founders who were so heavily influenced by this concept. So I want to talk about one of those people today. His name was Samuel Gorton, and he is going to be very influential in the founding of the

Rhode Island colony. So one thing that's really interesting about this Marie Rothbard book that I'm reading is it starts at the very beginning. This book starts in the 1400s explaining why people were even coming to America, what was happening in Europe to make them want to come to America. And it's also talking about every colony and how it got started.

The interesting thing about Massachusetts, so we did an episode celebrating the anniversary of the Mayflower Compact, which was absolutely important. You had the pilgrims coming to Plymouth Rock and deciding, hey, we want religious liberty. And you know, all of us on the boat actually aren't the same religion, even though some of us are, and we came here for religious freedom. And we think, oh my gosh, this is my gosh, my gosh, this is great.

Because this is like the beginning of religious freedom in our country. But you know what happened? And I talked about this in an earlier episode about Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, which is also about religious freedom in Massachusetts. But something kind of interesting happened shortly after the Mayflower Compact was signed and after people were getting settled, religious liberty became not just not a priority, but

it became honestly almost out of sight, out of mind. They just stopped, they stopped even thinking about that as a concept. So what happened in Massachusetts is you started getting a theocracy for a government. And a theocracy is a form of government, but it's centered on religion, a specific religion. And so it's the opposite of church separation of church and state. So what you started happening is you had politicians who were not just jailing, not just physically

punishing, like whipping, but sometimes killing people for breaking moral rules, you know. And this could be, there was a story of a lady who was whipped for smiling in church. People who, it was so ridiculous what could get you in trouble with this religious government. So this starts happening more and more. And so you have these figures stepping up who were like, hold on, this is not what we came here to do.

And Samuel Gordon is one of those people. So like all the good people from, you know, the founding era and before, Samuel Gordon is going to believe in natural law. He is going to realize and understand that that rules don't come from kings, they don't come from parliaments, they don't come from colonies. No, they come from from human nature, from conscious, from, you know, this idea that

we are all morally equal. We talked about this with John Locke and Thomas Jefferson saying all men are created equal in this belief. And so Samuel Gordon, he's going to be one of these people. And because he believed that Samuel Gordon is actually going to be a renegade, he's going to be ahead of his time because he's also going to be very anti slavery.

And he's going to say, hold on a second. There's no way that slavery is compatible with liberty because humans are not property. You can't own another human that goes against natural law. And he's actually going to push for the first abolitionist, the first anti slavery law in the American colonies, which is so cool. I did not know this until he read the book.

Now the law is not going to go anywhere, but that goes into a whole other thing between, you know, Massachusetts was really trying to stifle Samuel Gordon's voice because he was a threat to them. He was a threat. He was talking about liberty in a environment where they wanted to again, persecute people for smiling in church.

So he's not going to be received well, but the fact that the first anti slavery law is going to come this far back in history, this is the 1600s. This is incredible. And Samuel Gordon is going to be the man leading that charge. And again, he's going to cause a really big problem for the local government because he does not believe that these local leaders have the right to take his rights away.

I don't think they can just cancel liberty when it's not convenient to them. And he's making sure, you know, he's trying to tell the people you should not surrender to this. This is immoral. And because the government and government, this is Massachusetts at the time because they are forcing people to live by these just extreme and immoral laws, Gordon is going to say, like,

this is not a legitimate government. Okay, this is, this is that government by consent, you know, state of mind. And so he's going to say, no, no, no, no, this isn't happening. This is not a legitimate government. Absolutely not. And he's going to gain a lot of followers.

And what do you think the government thought about that? They didn't love it. They did not love it because one voice speaking out against them is scary enough. But when that one voice turns into two and then 10 and then 20, it gets very, very scary for a government that wants to cling to power. So Massachusetts government, they are trying everything to stop and spend.

They are jailing him. They are whipping him. They are banishing him. They are sending him out of the, the, the bounds of Massachusetts. They are doing everything to squash this man because that's how dangerous he was. So banishment was pretty common, especially if you remember from the Ann Hutchinson and

Roger Williams episode, they were, they were banished to. And so Gordon, Samuel Gordon is going to join the ranks of, you know, people who supported religious freedom believed in a moral, natural law centered government. He's also going to be banished and he's actually going to go meet up with Roger Williams in what we now know is Rhode Island. And so they're going to turn Rhode Island into this really just this haven for religious

liberty and for individual liberty. However, it has a rough start getting, getting going. Now, while Samuel Gordon keeps getting banished, they keep pushing him like further and further out of what is known as the Massachusetts colony, right? So every time he goes a little bit further and then they see he's still a threat. They kick him out further.

They kick him out further and it's kind of ridiculous. So obviously he needs a new place to go. Now, one really interesting thing that we see with Samuel Gordon is he believed that you could, that you needed to take land by consent or pay for your land. And this is unheard of at the time. So he actually goes to, you know, the Native Americans who were there and he wants to

purchase the land that they want to live on. So, so that is again, crazy at the time people didn't do that. They just took the land. And so this is going to show you how Liberty Center key is even in a time when other people who were Liberty Center still weren't believing in this idea of consent. But for Gordon, you know, he believes in property rights.

He believes in that being a staple of natural law and he believes in voluntary exchange. This guy is like OG Liberty centric. He knows what's up. So this land he buys this new place he's settling with his followers is called Warwick. And again, buys it fair and square from the natives. He, it's outside of Massachusetts rule.

It's great. Perfect solution, right? Not so much because Massachusetts decides, no, this is actually under our jurisdiction. So sorry, you didn't go far enough. We, we actually are going to come over here and we're going to take over this land and you're still going to have to abide by our rules.

So this is obviously a setback. So what does Gordon do? I love this part. He travels back to England. Okay, he goes to England. He starts appealing to higher authorities.

He starts telling people who have some power over there, like listen, this colony, which was later going to be Rhode Island, like we deserve to self govern. Look at what we've done, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so he goes back to the American colonies, goes back to this place and Massachusetts is once again, like, no, no, sorry, like this is under our jurisdiction. And he pulls out a piece of paper that's like, Oh, really?

By, you know, royal decree or whatever. It said this is this, this area. Warwick is allowed to be self governing. You don't have any jurisdiction over it. And let me tell you the Massachusetts people were mad. And I really love the lesson that that Gordon teaches us, not just that you need

to stick to your guns and stick to your principles and do what you know is right. But that is to not give up. I mean, Massachusetts was again, he was throwing him in jail or whipping him or banishing him. And every time they did that, he continued to fight for liberty. He continued to set up a new, you know, community he didn't give up.

Every time they stopped him, he came back bigger and better. And there's this really cool idea that's like criticized by creating or, you know, exit and build. I've heard it put different ways. But what that kind of means is if you're living in a society that refuses to honor individual liberty, leave that society and start your own.

You know, think about it. I think about like entrepreneurship is kind of that way. If you're working for a business that you don't think is living by your principles or making the most out of what the market has to offer, you start your own, right? It's a very entrepreneurial way of thinking about how cities, communities, you know, colonies are born.

And so I think that's so exciting. I also think, and I hope, no, people from Rhode Island don't get mad at me for saying this, I think Rhode Island, we don't give it enough attention because it is often lumped in with Massachusetts because it's so close. And obviously we know so much about Massachusetts because Boston is, you know, the cradle of liberty.

We get Sam Adams, we get John Adams. You've got a lot of really important people coming out of Massachusetts. And you hear about other, you know, you hear about Virginia locks. You got George Washington, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson. But Rhode Island, I think sometimes gets forgotten. And so when I was reading this book and I, you know, I'm reading about the founding

of Rhode Island, I'm thinking, this is so cool because this is taking what, you know, these men are taking in their followers. These men are taking what Massachusetts was pretending to do in the beginning when they had, you know, the, the compact and they were, they were trying to, in, you know, encourage religious liberty, but they really weren't. You're going to have an exit and build situation.

You're going to have Samuel Gordon and Roger Williams and and Hutchinson. And you're going to have these people being exiled and then trying against, you're trying to set up these communities. And I also think maybe it's a little spiteful, but I really love the Samuel Gordon was like, all right, well, I'm going to go back to England. If you're going to keep doing this and I'm going to get permission, he was

almost like gaming assistant that was against him. Did they love, you know, that the British had rule over them? No, but at this time you have to remember that the crown was really leaving everybody alone. So there wasn't as much animosity at this point for, for Gordon and for, you know, Williams, Massachusetts is going to be causing a way bigger problem than the crown

is. So really fun story on a, maybe we'll call them a pre-founding father, really fun story about somebody you don't hear about a lot, really great story about how deep the roots of natural law go in, in the, the founding of this country or before the founding of this country and really cool lesson on religious freedom, you know, because this, this all came down to Massachusetts trying to rule by their very strict, pure, botanical religious beliefs and Samuel

Gordon and these others coming along and saying, no, I don't think this is moral. I should not have to live by your religion just because I live here. That's not why I'm here. So something to remember, I really encourage you guys this year to celebrate American 250 is to find these, these lesser known founders to, to really learn more about them because again, they're going to set the foundation and lay the,

lay the foundation and create the climate that makes the founders ready to take on the crown and to declare independence. So we will leave it there. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast. And until next time, I will talk to you later.