Episode
An Age of Revolution Returns
- Published
- Jun 29, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 353
- Processing state
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- https://gregreese.substack.com/p/an-age-of-revolution-returns
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Summary
The most radical political prose ever written into a founding document of a nation is found in the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson; “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” He went further, and wrote that when a government pursues a “long train of abuses and usurpations” it’s the people’s duty to “throw off such government.” In a 1787 letter to James Madison, Jefferson wrote, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing... It prevents the degeneracy of government.” In another letter he wrote, “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” In a letter to William Stephens Smith he wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Thomas Jefferson was not the only radical poet of individual freedom. The words of James Madison, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, and others, lit the flames for the Age of Revolution. Starting in 1775 with the American Revolution, which inspired the French Revolution in 1789, the Haitian revolution in 1791. And the Latin American revolutions that began in 1810. This entire age of revolutions unfolded in just 50 years, but according to history, it cannot be described as grassroots rebellions. Freemasonry and the Illuminati were heavily involved. Freemasonry has been, and still is, closely related to the British Crown. The first American Masonic lodge was established in Philadelphia in 1730, with Benjamin Franklin as a founding member. Benjamin Franklin was the Grand Master of the Pennsylvania Masons as well as a member of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters in Paris, where he recruited French support for th…