The Times That Try Men’s Souls

Curtis Coleman

Curtis Coleman, Contributing Author: The dream was dead. At least so many thought.

For six months, Gen. George Washington and his Continental Army lost every single battle. No victories. Only horrible, heart-breaking, morale-decimating defeats.

On November 16, 1776 Gen. Washington watched as more than 2,800 of his soldiers were lost in the fall of New York's Fort Washington, many of them slaughtered by Hessian troops as they tried to surrender. He was so shattered by the event that he wept "with the tenderness of a child."

For the next 40 days he led his haggard troops on a desperate retreat, first across the Hudson River into New Jersey, then south through Hackensack, Newark, Brunswick and Princeton, finally crossing the Delaware River near Trenton, relentlessly pursued by battle-hardened British regulars and their rented German army.

His army was in miserable condition and had lost all but about 3,500 of its original force of approximately 30,000 volunteers. Washington observed that "many of 'em [were] entirely naked and more so thinly clad as to be unfit for service." In Quaker Burlington, one "peaceable man" watched American troops march by and observed that "if the War is continued thro the Winter, the British troops will be scared at the sight of our Men, for they had never fought with Naked Men."[1]

At such a moribund moment of this incipient struggle for freedom and liberty, one of the first war correspondents in American history "continued writing at every place we stopt" as he marched with Washington's army on its anxious retreat. He scribbled these words by firelight in makeshifts camps along the road while exhausted soldiers slept around him[2]:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

These were the first lines of Thomas Paine's pamphlet, The American Crisis, the catalyst for an American revival of hope and commitment that would start before Washington's history-altering victories at Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown.

"This great revival grew from defeat, not from victory," wrote David Hacker Fischer.[3] "The awakening was a response to a disaster. Doctor Benjamin Rush, who had a major role in the event, believed that this was the way a free republic would always work, and the American republic in particular. He thought it was a national habit of the American people (maybe all free people) not to deal with a difficult problem until it was nearly impossible. 'Our republics cannot exist long in prosperity,' Rush wrote. 'We require adversity and appear to possess most of the republican spirit when most depressed.'"

Today's TEA Party, the resurgence of conservatives in the Republican Party, among independents and even among some Democrats, is a 21st century awakening in "response to a disaster." It is a revival growing "from defeat, not from victory." Its passion for liberty and freedom and for a government that enables its people rather than indentures them is what makes this election different from the Republican Party victories of 1994.

To the lament and confusion of progressives and liberals, this awakening leaves no middle ground. As in 1776, the time for compromise has past. As in 1776, there is either victory and liberty or defeat and despotism. Today's battle is not being fought with bullets, bayonets, and bloody feet, but with powerfully articulated principles, unmatched passion and an indefatigable commitment to the same dream that drove Washington and his haggard troops through dark icy nights on bootless feet to fight for liberty and freedom.

As our forefathers 234 years ago, we stand at the precipice of a new chapter in American history. Not as spectators, but as vital participants in the most critical decisions to be made in our lifetime. What we do - or fail to do - will doubtlessly determine the future of freedom for this and future generations of yet-to-be born Americans.
We have been shoved to the edge of the cliff of socialism and we are staring down into the dry gulch of tyranny and despotism. We will not be pushed any farther down this cliff.

Some are being called bigots, racists and uneducated extremists because they believe in smaller government, the principles of the Constitution, personal responsibility, freedom, liberty and loving God with all of their heart, soul and mind and their neighbors as themselves.

We will not be intimidated. We will not be discouraged nor deterred. We will see the return of this country to its faith in God. We will see the restoration of this country's government to the fundamentals of its Constitution, understanding full well that ours may be a no lesser sacrifice than George Washington's tattered soldiers' in 1776.

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[1] David Hacker Fischer, Washington's Crossing, 155   [2] Ibid.,140   [3] Ibid.,143
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Curtis Coleman is the President of The Curtis Coleman Institute for Constitutional Policyand contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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