Freedom, Liberty, Justice and the Right to Incorporate |
Review The Declaration of Independence
Washington, DC: Re-read the entire document just one more time. These are the words of those who struggled with what it means to be a free and sovereign people. Our work to understand the first principles that guide us as individuals and as the human family is never-ending. It is as important today as it ever was.
On those occasions when the people of USA celebrate these documents and their history, the entire human family is invited to examine the foundations of freedom and justice, and the self-evident and deep-seated truths about the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
What is the hope of the future? We profoundly believe it has a lot to do with having a dream about how we can this world a better place and building a business around it. All businesses start as a small business. All businesses start with individual initiative, an idea, courage and tenacity. On this website, we simply open the dialogue so we can all chart a better course for our life, for our country, and for this little world.
When you read the Declaration of Independence, read it as if you were one of the the signers. Click here.
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The roots of this American Revolution date back to 1636.
Massachusetts: Deep within the roots of the American revolution is a little-known fact
— the colonists could not charter or incorporate a business without the approval of the crown which, of course, was the King of England. The significance of this fact has eluded many historians. It is rarely taught in high school history classes.
At the time of the American revolution, the need to create new businesses was pent up; there was a backlog. People often subverted an application for a charter to the King of England. Without question, "incorporation" was a spark within the gun powder on Lexington Green.
The prequel, or the first act of in independence, was over 100 years earlier in 1636 when a group of learned colonists wrote their own charter to start Harvard University. Fourteen years later, on June 9, 1650, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts actually approved that charter submitted by the first presdient, Henry Dunster. Called "The Harvard Corporation," it is the first and the oldest corporation in North America. Dunster and his gang turned their backs on King Charles I. And, after Charles was beheaded, the leaders of the Bay Colony made it formal, turning their backs on Oliver Cromwell and the English Parliament.
Oscar Handlin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, reveals within 10 pages that starting a business is in our blood; it's part of the way we define ourselves. Within ten pages you will begin to realize why we are who we are.
The Corporation: A Theological Inquiry, editors, Michael Novak & John Cooper, AEI, Chapter 1: The Development of the Corporation(opens in a new window)
By 1775 the need for corporations had become so pent up, it was the "shot that was heard around the world." King George III, 1738 - 1820, lost the colonies in America because he did not understand their need to create businesses.
In Handlin's words, this story is quite remarkable: "In 1800 the United States was only beginning its history as an independent nation. It was an under-developed country, primarily agricultural, with a population of perhaps 4 or 5 million along the Atlantic coast. Already, however, the United States had more corporations, and more explicitly business corporations, than all of Europe put together..." More...
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