On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain.
In 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, doused himself with gasoline and set himself aflame in a busy Saigon intersection as a protest against South Vietnam’s lack of religious freedom.
Apple shipped the first Apple II computer on June 10, 1977.
Born on this day: historian, jazz critic and civil libertarian Nat Hentoff (1925); children’s writer Maurice Sendak (1929); scientist and pioneer of “sociobiology,” E. O. Wilson (1929).
[T]he hope of evading such taxes by smuggling gives frequent occasion to forfeitures and other penalties, which entirely ruin the smuggler, a person who, though no doubt highly blameable for violating the laws of his country, is frequently incapable of violating those of natural justice, and would have been, in every respect, an excellent citizen, had not the laws of his country made that a crime which nature never meant to be so.
Adam Smith, The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), referring to luxury taxes.
Roman Emperor Nero committed suicide on this day in June, 68 AD, ending Rome’s Julio-Claudian Dynasty, later written about with verve by Suetonius and Robert Graves.
Also on June 9, James Oglethorpe received a charter from the British crown to start the Georgia colony (1732); William Jennings Bryan resigned his position as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, disgusted over the handling of the sinking of the Lusitania (1915); philosopher John Hospers — who would go on to run as a Libertarian candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1972 — was born in 1918 on the ninth of June.
Hospers was famous for his work in ethics and aesthetics, but his most-read book was probably his Introduction to Philosophical Analysis.
To promote the little interest of one little order of men in one country, it hurts the interest of all other orders of men in that country, and of all men in all other countries.
Adam Smith, The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), on colonialism, his own country’s participation in which Smith judged quite negatively: “Great Britain derives nothing but loss from the dominion which she assumes over her colonies.”
The initiation of violence at the Donald Trump rallies foreshadows the force to come when socialism — an ideology of force — continues to gain ground in what was once the land of individual liberty, private property, freedom of association and freedom of speech.
Michael J. Hurd, “Why Violence Against Trump Supporters, But Not Sanders/Clinton Supporters?” June 4, 2016.
On June 8, 1949, George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published.
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee presented the “Lee Resolution” to the Continental Congress. The motion was seconded by John Adams, but was tabled for several weeks. The motion was finally passed on July 2, 1776.
During the 1916 Republican National Convention (June 7 – 10), Senator Warren G. Harding used the phrase “Founding Fathers” in his keynote address . . . and would go on using it in speeches thereafter. It caught on, referring to folks such as Thomas Jefferson and, yes, Richard Henry Lee, who orchestrated the American colonies’ break from England’s monarchy.
The truest mark of having been born with great qualities is to have been born without envy.
La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales, (1665, 1678), 433rd maxim.
June 6 marks major life events of two eminent British philosophers, Jeremy Bentham’s death (1832) and Isaiah Berlin’s birth (1909).
Bentham was known as a “philosophical radical” and a major influence on the British utilitarian tradition. He authored numerous books, including Defence of Usury (1787) and An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).
Berlin was best known for several dozen brilliant essays, including the famous, much-quoted “Two Concepts of Liberty.”