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An American Trinity: Thomas Jefferson, Henry George, Abraham Lincoln

https://books.google.com/books?pg=PA26&id=5VKP3aty_U4C#v=onepage&q&f=false
From The Conservator, April, 1895

from the masthead: "The Conservator is an exponent of the world movement in Ethics.  It is not published in the interest of any sect or party, but of Ethical principle and practice as reflected in all societies and churches and outside of all."  Horace L. Traubel was the publisher, and its offices were with those of architect Will Price, who was a founder of Arden. 

For more about The Conservator, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Traubel

An American Trinity*

*From a speech delivered at the Single Tax banquet in Philadelphia, on Jefferson's birthday, April 2.

Within the century and a little more that we have passed as a nation there have been but two supremely eminent men who have risen to the highest altitude, as to whose exact stature it remains for future generations to decide.

Of these one was a man of aristocratic lineage, inheriting in his blood those traits of caste and class which for centuries underlaid the great distinctions among men, and gave to the recipient a recognition of superiority, with all its allied privileges, prerogatives and immunities; yet a man in whose constitution there glowed a fierce hatred of all shams and enforced supremacies; whose faith in the dignity and uprightness of the common people, and whose trust in their rugged honesty and capabilities, were so great that he brushed aside all the influences of tradition and custom and greeted all men upon a common level; a man who well has been called the high priest of freedom and who swore upon the altar of liberty eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny over the souls of men; philosopher, patriot and sage— Thomas Jefferson.

The other, a man of humble parentage, born of the common stock, bread-winner on land and sea, hater of wrong, lover of right, seeker for truth, defender of the oppressed, comrade of the common people, of whom he is not ashamed; also philosopher, patriot and Sage— Henry George.

These men achieved merited pre-eminence, not by reliance upon credulity and the baser passions, but purely by reason of intellectual force and the appeal to the rigid sense of justice and right; not amid the glamour of war and conquest, but in the peaceful arena of everyday life; not by the instrumentality of carnage, but by the happy and gladsome medium of the understanding.

Jefferson's conception or central thought was that no man had a right to rule over or control another. The domination or censorship of one man over another was abhorrent to his sense of justice, and his whole life's work was to instill into the minds of men the doctrine of equal rights.

George, starting from the same premises as Jefferson, has also given to the world a philosophy from which there is no appeal. But its domain is different. It not only recognizes the equality of men before the statute law, but carries and establishes the principle of equality within the domain of natural law, showing conclusively that what we call political freedom rests upon a greater natural freedom.

So, alongside of Jefferson's conception of equal rights among men in relation to the social state we place George's equal rights among men in relation to the natural media. 

But between the period of Jefferson and that of George there arose another who, because of the momentous and awful panorama in which he was unseekingly made the dominating and controlling factor, and not by reason of any especial distinguishing individuality, must be linked with them; a man also of the common people, whom he loved with all the intensity of his great warm heart— Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln gave the world no new philosophy. For decades the enunciation of Jefferson that “all men are born free and equal” had been silently eating its way into the hearts and minds of men. In Lincoln and his compatriots it reached its culmination, as freedom and equality were then conceived. None of them saw the inner meaning of that great truth as it is seen today.

They accepted Jefferson's dictum of “equal rights.” The ownership of one man by another became so abhorrent that they could not rest until such ownership was overthrown and abolished, at no matter what cost. They did not see, as George saw and as we see, that the real ownership of men rests upon the ownership of the earth, and that to abolish one and not the other is merely to change the form of ownership.

It has been contended, and it may be essentially true, that to others, like Garrison, Phillips and Curtis, belongs greater honor for the overthrow of negro slavery than to Lincoln. Undoubtedly the labors of these men were great and sacred to the memory of man. Their enthusiasm and sacrifices were great. But, like those who, preceding Jefferson, preached the doctrine of political rights, these men were simply forerunners in the wilderness.

In Lincoln all the forces for freedom became focused. He became the great vehicle or instrumentality through which their labors should find expression. He became the crucible in which their identities were merged and lost and from which should come the enactment of their hopes and desires. He became, as it were, their composite, living personality.

Here, then, we have the great American trinity in the cause of liberty: Jefferson, who won for his nation its political freedom; Lincoln, who gave to a race its personal freedom; and George, who has given to the world, though it yet be in transition, its industrial freedom.

William M. Callingham.

Bengough: The Declaration of Independence Vindicated

This appeared in Single Tax Review in Autumn, 1905.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE VINDICATED.
(For the Review.)
By J. W. BENGOUGH.

There are some people in the United States who take the position more or less openly that the Declaration of Independence is an out-worn document; that whatever its practical merits may once have been, it is now no more than a cherished relic having certain spectacular uses on Fourth-of-July occasions. There are other Americans—constituting the vast majority—who regard such sentiments as savoring of blasphemy, but who, nevertheless, are ardent supporters of the prevailing policy of Protection. The real difference between these two classes of citizens is merely this: That the one consciously repudiates the Declaration, and the other virtually does so.

The fundamental doctrine of the Declaration is that "All men are endowed with certain inalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The meaning of this is clear enough. The fathers undoubtedly intended to assert that whatever the duties of men might be in civilized society, however they might differ in mind, body or estate, all alike were entitled to the enjoyment of certain natural rights, which rights were inalienable—that is, could not be justly taken away, curtailed or invaded by any human power, so long as they were exercised by each man with due respect for the similar rights of every other. Amongst these rights three are enumerated: The right to Life, involving necessarily the right of access to food, clothing and shelter, the right to Liberty of mind and body, so that a man’s ownership of himself might be vindicated, and his powers applied to the securing of the things necessary to life; and the right to the pursuit of Happiness, the freedom to move about and to hold such relations with his fellow men as would conduce to the enjoyment of a full and harmonious life.

The writers of the Declaration had but recently experienced the tyrannical power of taxation, and it might almost seem that the weapon of unjust taxation, like Macbeth’s dagger, was floating before their mental vision when the memorable words above quoted were penned. For certainly there is no more effective way in which man’s right to life can be abridged than by levying taxes upon the results of his labor; and his right to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can be abrogated in no way more surely than by means of a system which interferes with his impulse to trade.

"Proputty" --- A Lecturette in Rhyme, by J. W. Bengough

John Wilson Bengough was a skilled artist and cartoonist, but he was also skilled with words.  This appeared in Single Tax Review, Winter 1906.

“PROPUTTY.”
(For the Review.)
A LECTURETTE IN RHYME.

I took up my Tennyson lately and read his dialect verse
Of the sturdy old “Northern Farmer,” whose soul was in his purse;
How he berated Sam, his son, who wanted to marry for “loove,”
And the folly of such a notion sought earnestly to prove.

“ ’Ear my ’erse’s legs,” says he, “as they canters and canters awaay,
Proputty, proputty, proputty—that’s wot I ’ears ’em saay!”
“Proputty, proputty, proputty”—that was the only thing
That to him was of real importance concerning a wedding ring.

Gentleness, truth and sweetness; a pretty figure and face,
These, and a passionate love, are all very well in their place;
But to be of any account in blushing, prospective brides,
“Proputty, proputty, proputty”—that must be there, besides!

Now, to many who read the poem this Northern Farmer seems
A sordid old grasping wretch, who only of riches dreams;
“Proputty, proputty, proputty.”—so runs his one refrain,
“Proputty, proputty, proputty”—hoarding, profit and gain.