Posted on Thursday, March 6, 2025

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by Outside Contributor

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“Fiddler on the Roof,” which opened in 1964 and became the first Broadway show to surpass 3,000 performances, is one of the most successful plays in the history of “The Great White Way” (or “The Great Bright Way,” as Whoopi Goldberg prefers).

Its theme is “tradition!” It’s also about change. Tradition provides stability, order and peace. Ignoring, or deliberately debasing, tradition is dangerous and should not be done lightly.

Two hundred fifty years ago, the American colonies and the British government were racing toward war and contemplating overthrowing the long tradition of British rule. For more than a decade, tensions had been building, and lives had been lost. However, in March 1775, war had not yet broken out.

That would change

While wars may start suddenly, they rarely happen without preparation (at least by one party), and preparation itself can cause (see World War I). In March 1775, the question was whether to take such preparations to the next level.

On March 23, the Second Virginia Convention met in Richmond to decide whether and how to prepare for war. Delegates knew that war would become more likely if they made such preparations. Many were hesitant. The tradition of British rule was strong.

Then, Patrick Henry rose to declare that war was inevitable. It was time to act.

Either turn to arms, he argued, and defend “those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending” or be enslaved by the “accumulation of navies and armies” that the British would use to suppress the rebellious Americans. The British were no longer interested in talking. He argued that the choice was not war or peace but freedom or slavery. He ended with the words that every American elementary student used to memorize, “Give me liberty or give me death.” That became the rallying cry for the American Revolution.

Americans are, and always have been, traditionalists and revolutionaries. For much of the time leading up to the Revolution, they sought representation in British decision-making, not separation and independence. They viewed themselves as loyal subjects of the Crown, not revolutionaries.

As Henry spoke in Richmond, however, they recognized that more was at stake. They were beginning to realize that they did not merely want to trade British rule for home rule but, more important, create a new model for a government based, as Alexander Hamilton put it in “The Federalist Papers,” on “reflection and choice.”

Until 1775, they sought to restore the traditions of English liberty. After 1775, they aspired to change who was in charge and also to reconceptualize the role and function of government, an effort that continued long after independence.

In March 1792, for instance, James Madison, who would later serve as America’s fourth president (1809-17), wrote an essay in which he connected “Property” to the idea of rights more generally: “As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may equally be said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.”

Madison explained that “arbitrary (government) restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to citizens the free use of their faculties and the free choice of their occupations.”

“What must be the spirit of legislation,” he wondered, “where a manufacturer of linen is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth …”

Despite Madison’s warnings 250 years ago, such rules and regulations abound today. While there have been many efforts to reform government, by Democrats and Republicans, perhaps the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, by ignoring the traditional failed ways, can bring about the needed revolutionary changes. Much is at stake.

Tevye, the father in “Fiddler on the Roof,” eventually realizes that some traditions could be bent and broken. At the end of the play, he sets off with his family for America in hopes of a better life where tradition and revolution can coexist. The American revolutionaries did the same.

This article was written by Frederic J. Hansen, and was originally published by DC Journal here.