By BILL CHAISSON
A lot of people who are not from New Hampshire are somewhat taken aback by the state motto: “Live free or die.” Compared to that of Vermont — “Freedom and unity” — or Nebraska — “Equality before the law” — or Wisconsin — Forward” — the New Hampshire motto is pretty confrontational.
Interestingly, North Dakota chose to quote Daniel Webster on their state seal: “Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.” It comes in second among state mottos for forthrightness, which figures, as the Massachusetts senator was born in New Hampshire.
When I looked up the origin of “live free or die,” it was unexpectedly easy to find out the proximal source of the phrase. Gen. John Stark sent it in an 1809 communication to his fellow veterans of the Battle of Bennington. Stark was 81 and could not travel to the site of his victory 32 years before. He sent the toast: “Live free or die. Death is not worst of evils.”
Stark was a charismatic man. As a teenager he was captured by the Abenaki, but according to his own report, was adopted by the tribe after he fought back rather than run a gauntlet of warriors.
He fought in the French and Indian War as part of the legendary Rogers’ Rangers. Early in the American Revolution he served under Washington, but resigned his commission in disgust when someone he thought a coward was promoted over him.
He returned to service as commander of the New Hampshire militia under the stipulation that he not have to obey the orders of Continental Army generals.
If death is not the worst of evils, then what did Stark think was the worse of evils. Knowing this would perhaps make clear what “Live free or die” really means. What does it mean to “live free”?
Earlier in his letter to the veterans he wrote of his soldiers: “They were men that had not learned the art of submission, nor had they been trained to the art of war. But our ‘astonishing success’ taught the enemies of liberty, that undisciplined freemen are superior to veteran slaves. And I fear we shall have to teach this lesson anew to that perifidious nation.”
Stark refused to submit to the authority of the Continental Army because they rewarded people without courage. According to soldier and historian Mark Boatner, “As a commander of New England militia Stark had one rare and priceless quality: he knew the limitations of his men. They were innocent of military training, undisciplined, and unenthusiastic about getting shot. With these men he killed over 200 of Europe’s vaunted regulars with a loss of 14 Americans killed.”
By Stark’s lights, the worst of all evils would seem to be blind obedience to authority because that made you into a slave. Stark did not obey figures of authority because they were figures of authority. His obedience had conditions. He obeyed a leader he believed to be wise and just. And he was prepared to risk death to live that way.
Unlike many other Revolutionary War generals, Stark truly beat his sword into a plowshare and retired from public life after Yorktown.
He lived to be 93 years old and so saw his prediction of 1809 — that the U.S. would have to fight England again — come true in the form of the War of 1812.
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