Philadelphia Inquirer – April 4, 2011
Today’s tea partyers are not the first to invoke the 1773 protest in their objections to expanding federal power. As one of my students (Liza Bergmann ’12) learned from old newspaper articles, the opponents of Prohibition also made reference to the Boston Tea Party.
In 1920, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution went into effect, outlawing “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” The Volstead Act laid out the specifics.
Mentions of the colonial era dumping of tea in Boston Harbor turn up in this context as early as 1921, when a New York City resident was quoted as saying, “We’re planning to have another sort of Boston Tea Party.” He had advertised for volunteers for a march against the Volstead Act, and, according to the article, more than 40,000 “men and boys” responded.
As the decade wore on, the tea-party rhetoric heated up. “Our family has in its possession the original cup in which the blacking was mixed for the faces of the ‘Indians’ of the Boston Tea Party,” one anti-Prohibition editorial writer claimed in 1929. His direct tie to the original tea partyers (some of whom dressed up as Mohawks) thus established, he went on to note that “the Republic was founded on defiance of obnoxious law.”
The anti-Prohibition activists, or “wets,” didn’t call themselves tea partyers, but they shared with their 21st-century counterparts a contempt for federal encroachment on states’ and individuals’ rights. Limited government and free markets are among the basic tenets of the modern Tea Party Patriots, whose assertion that “a free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty” would have warmed the wets’ hearts.
Referring to the day’s illegal bars, one eloquent anti-Prohibition commentator wrote, “The patrons of the speakeasies are models of the patriots who, in 1773, threw cargoes of tea overboard in Boston Harbor. I am a constitutionalist. I want my rights as a citizen, as did my forebears of the Boston Tea Party. It was not with them a question of tea or no tea, but of citizen or vassal.” Today’s tea partyers would agree.
In other important ways, however, the groups differ. The 1920s variety – at least those represented in the press – tended to be from the North. They often belonged to the educated establishment and were relatively secular.
They were not populists in the Jacksonian, anti-Eastern, anti-intellectual sense. That description better fit Prohibition supporters – the “drys” – much as it does today’s tea party.
The wets-vs.-drys struggle seemed at times to pit North against South in a repeat of their 19th-century faceoff over the fugitive slave laws. Some Northerners were outraged at Southerners for, as one observer put it, “thumbing their noses at the equally sacred 14th and 15th amendments” – guaranteeing blacks equal protection and the vote – “while howling for the strict enforcement of the 18th,” that is, Prohibition.
As is often the case in our history, both sides attempted to portray themselves as the true patriots and defenders of our liberties. And each exhibited a characteristically American willingness to trust a higher sense of what was right, even when it conflicted with the Constitution.
It was the Depression, not the 1920s tea partyers, that finally brought an end to Prohibition, though it also led to a radical increase in federal spending and authority. Likewise, whether we move toward more limited and frugal government in the next decade will probably have more to do with the health of the global economy than with the efforts of todays tea partyers.
With regards to “America’s never-ending tea party(Commentary, April 18)”,
there IS one respect that today’s Tea Party people are like a great many
retardationists (reactionaries) in that they are WHINERS! Reactionaries DO
often whine about social advances and social reform; today’s Tea Party people
are like that. SO– the most accurate way to describe the current Tea Party
movement is old WHINE in new bottles! Tea Partyers are not true
conservatives because they are neither realistic nor practical. For that matter,
neither were the Prohibitionists. Outlawing alcoholic beverages completely
proved to be unrealistic and impractical! (THAT led to repeal of Prohibition as
much as did the Depression!) A lot of what Tea Party people scream for
(privatizing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid et al, banning ALL
abortions, etc.) is ALSO unrealisitc and impractical. Yet, the Tea Party people go
on whining about the way that things are, so old WHINE in new bottles is
fitting description. It might be added that Tea Party-ers LET themselves be
mere PAWNS of corporate chieftains who want corporations to come first
instead of people (which is un-American!) I am Presbyterian, active in
Peacemaking.
George –
Thank you for the note.
You’re right that there certainly is a “whiny” aspect to the tea partyers.
You say that the impracticality of Prohibition led to its repeal as much as the Depression. I would say look at our current drug laws. In addition to being totally impractical as a way of stemming Americans’ drug use, they are contributing to disastrous fallout for several Latin American countries, and still we cling to them.
The relationship between the tea partyers and the corporations is puzzling.
I am part of a group of concerned citizens who are starting a monthly non-profit Newspaper – “Main Street Voice” here in Binghamton, New York.
I would like to obtain permission to reprint your article (opinion) – “America’s never-ending tea party” in our printed version and on our on-line version.
PS I really like your article (opinion) because of its context in history and the fact that “tea party” movements are not unique. The only thing I struggle with is the “And each exhibited a characteristically American willingness to trust a higher sense of what was right, even when it conflicted with the Constitution.” This is an area which troubles me because if as US Citizens we paid more attention to the constructs of the Constitution we would avoid mistakes the Founding Fathers knew we would make. Would you be willing to modify this portion of your article?
As far as the line about Americans’ willingness to trust to a higher sense of what is right, I wasn’t making any judgement about whether this approach is right or wrong, just observing that Americans do it.
It was difficult to justify Prohibition as a constitutional measure, so they changed the Constitution to include it (and then thought better of it).
Our current drug laws are also difficult to justify constitutionally, not to mention the horrendous damage they are contributing to in Latin American countries, but we continue to think that make sense in some extra-constitutional way.
If you want to reprint my piece and remove that single line – “And each exhibited a characteristically American willingness to trust a higher sense of what was right, even when it conflicted with the Constitution.” – it’s fine with me.
Good luck with the paper.
No law that takes away a right or a freedom will ever survive in a COnstitutional Republic like ours.
But we are a growing nation. We added Alaska and Hawaii to our flag in the late 50’s. Our population keeps expanding along with our need for energy. We need some regulations to keep our food supply safe, our air pure and our streams from becoming contaminated. We need laws and structures that protect our health and our safety in other areas. The trust funds of Medicare and Social Security are two of those structures.
Remember FDR’s list of four freedoms:
Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear
All of them need good government to protect them and us. Being rugged individuals sometimes is not enough.
Two out of four ain’t bad, Magistra. The first two are from our founding documents and are therefore lawful. The last two are fabrications of a big government progressive.
How about this founding principal instead.
The purpose of government is guarantee equal opportunity NOT equal outcomes.
Never underestimate the power of ‘want’ or ‘fear’. It teaches people life lessons they not otherwise learn if they were constantly bailed out by the government. Both life situation are motivators for you to get off your a** and do something to help yourself.
As long as the taxpayer feed people fish instead of teaching them to fish for themselves, our debts will continue to grow, the consumer class will overwhelm the producing class, and no life lessons will ever be learned.
— taxmancometh