COLUMN: Eternal vigilance: It's really a good idea... no matter who said it

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

You’ve probably heard that saying somewhere along the way and nodded your head in consent. You probably had no idea where the quote came from and probably didn’t care. It was the sentiment that mattered and not the source.

The truth of the saying is what gives it value, not the pedigree of its originator.

Alas, some left-wing lampooners are hard at work trying to use quotes like this not to edify the populace but to eradicate their enemies.

Case in point: Sen. Rand Paul has recently been accused by a variety of blogs and websites of using fake quotes from our Founding Fathers in several books, speeches and other publications. One of those quotes is the aforementioned “price of liberty” quote.

Now, in general, I am not a proponent of the junior Republican senator from Kentucky, considering that his policies would put us in just as much danger as the policies of the current Democratic administration, but on the other hand I consider it my duty to assist anyone under attack by highwaymen, whether on the road to Jericho or the World Wide Web.

The first story I ran across attacking Paul’s use of quotes was in the BuzzFeed News, which proclaimed “Many of the quotes attributed to the Founding Fathers in two of Rand Paul’s books are either fake, misquoted, or taken entirely out of context.”

The very first example used was “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” a variant of the more common phrasing, which BuzzFeed News reporter Andrew Kaczynski claims that Paul wrongly attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

Now, if you should do any research, you would discover that this quote has been frequently attributed to Jefferson since the 19th century, but without explanation. However, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (at monticello.org) confirms that the earliest known use of the phrase was in the [Bennington] Vermont Gazette on July 8, 1817: “...let your motto be ‘eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty.’”

Prior to that no record exists, but the saying could be based on a 1790 speech by Irish orator John Philpot Curran, who wrote, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

In either case, Thomas Jefferson did not invent it, so Sen. Paul would be wrong if he had said so.

But unfortunately for Andrew Kaczynski, Paul did not say anything of the sort, at least not in the paragraph cited by Kaczynski. Indeed, it appears to be Kaczynski who is creating quotes that are “either fake, misquoted or taken entirely out of context.”

What Paul wrote in the final lines of his book, “The Tea Party Goes to Washington,” was this:

“The Constitution is very clear about it. The Tea Party’s job is to keep making things clearer, and this is only the beginning. It is not a job that will be finished overnight or even in an election cycle. Thomas Jefferson believed that the price of liberty was eternal vigilance — and now the Tea Party must prove it.”

Kaczynski declares that the last sentence “is a fake sentiment attributed to Jefferson,” and quotes the Thomas Jefferson Foundation as saying “We currently have no evidence that Thomas Jefferson ever said or wrote” this phrase. That may well be true, but we have quite overwhelming evidence that he “believed” it — which is what Rand Paul actually asserted.

On first glance, this no doubt seems like a trivial matter, one unworthy of so much attention, but it is important for a very simple reason: The ultimate goal of these left-wing attacks is to challenge the authenticity of politicians like Paul who quote the Founding Fathers admiringly. Rather than attack the substance of the quotes, they try to convince readers that the quotes have no value if we don’t know where they originated.

That’s just flim-flammery at its worst. Anyone who lives in a democracy or a republican form of government who doesn’t pay attention with “eternal vigilance” to the wielders of political power is a plain fool.

The first president who did warn the people about the dangers of the political class using this dictum about “eternal vigilance” was Andrew Jackson, considered by historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to be the father of modern American liberalism.

It’s possible that modern Democrats could be accused of a failure to be “vigilant” in not noticing that the founder of their party was a slave owner, slavery promoter, and states’ rights advocate who had killed a man in cold blood in a duel and had ordered numerous Indian tribes to be forcibly removed from their homelands. On the other hand, the days of Jackson being held up by Democrats as a model of statesmanship may soon be over, thanks to the war on the Confederacy that kicked off in June. Indeed, some Democrats (cracking open their history books for the first time?) are demanding that the party stop holding Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners because of our seventh president’s role in slavery.

Political correctness aside, Andrew Jackson was a fascinating president and substantial man who helped shape our nation in ways too numerous to mention. Perhaps most notably, he put a bullet through the heart of the Bank of the United States. Should anyone still wish to learn from “Old Hickory,” a good place to start would be his Farewell Address to the nation, dated March 4, 1837, in which he stated specifically, “you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.”

I would encourage Rand Paul and others to brave the attacks of the Andrew Kaczynskis of the world and quote generously from the Farewell Address. It is the substance that matters, not the source. Jackson’s warning to his own generation resonates just as loudly today, and should be heeded by both Democrats and Republicans:

 “It behooves you... to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government. The power which the moneyed interest can exercise, when concentrated under a single head and with our present system of currency, was sufficiently demonstrated in the struggle made by the Bank of the United States. Defeated in the General Government, the same class of intriguers and politicians will now resort to the States and endeavor to obtain there the same organization which they failed to perpetuate in the Union.”

Jackson also strongly warned against any state or the federal government dictating to other states what is right and wrong. “But each State has the unquestionable right to regulate its own internal concerns according to its own pleasure, and while it does not interfere with the rights of the people of other States or the rights of the Union, every State must be the sole judge of the measures proper to secure the safety of its citizens and promote their happiness.” Sadly, with the collapse of federalism, that warning has turned to a dismal prophecy of what Jackson called “usurpation and oppression on the part of the Government.”

At the end of his address, he noted to his fellow citizens, that they “have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad,” but again warned them to have “sleepless vigilance”:

“It is from within, among yourselves — from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power — that factions will be formed and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you have especially to guard yourselves.”

That thirst for power has led to a swollen bureaucracy and a reckless disregard for the Constitution over the past 100 years that would make Andrew Jackson roll over in his grave. What bothers Rand Paul’s Democratic critics isn’t really his failure to be a literary historian; it is his insistence that the people must tame the corrupt federal government that has endangered liberty.

 Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake. If you don’t like his opinion, stop by the office and he will gladly refund your two cents.  E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com