HENDERSONVILLE — The Henderson County Republican Men’s Club was treated to a presentation by local Revolutionary War re-enactor Don Hendrix during a breakfast meeting on July 12 at American Legion Post 77 here.

Dressed as a 1775 colonial patriot from Charles Town, S.C., wearing a tri-corn hat and what he called a typical uniform of the era, Hendrix spoke of the political situation in the 13 colonies, at the time, and the beliefs of the patriots versus the Tories — and parallels between 1775 and today’s America. He also fielded questions from the crowd.

(“In 1680, the settlement of Charles Town moved to its present-day location on Oyster Point, where it grew into the city known as Charleston,” AI Overview stated. “The name was officially changed to Charleston in 1783.)

About 35 people attended the meeting of the Men’s Club, which sees lower turnouts in the summer because of vacations.

Men’s Club Chairman Bruce Hatfield opened the meeting by calling for the attendees to say a silent prayer “for the folks in Texas.”

(As of midday July 12, news reports stated that cleanup continued from July’s torrential rain storms and flooding in Central Texas that left more than 120 dead )

In an organization update, Hatfield then noted that the Men’s Club has 55 regular (male) members and 25 associate (female) members for a total of 80 members.

He also pointed out that Hendersonville City Councilwoman Jennifer Hensley, a Republican, just announced that she is running in the nonpartisan race for mayor. (Mayor Barbara Volk recently revealed that she will not be running for re-election.)

“If anyone is associated with Jennifer Hensley, we’d love to hear her speak” at an upcoming Men’s Club meeting, Hatfield said.

He added that, “Next month, we should have the four judges running (for area offices) as our speakers” and, “in August, we’ll have Jay Egolf and Sheila Franklin as speakers.” (Egolf and Franklin are members of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners, on which Republicans hold all of the seats.)

Next, Hatfield noted that, with the Fourth of July celebration recently completed and the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding following on the next Fourth of July, he felt compelled to introduce — albeit playfully in the role of a Tory — the colonial patriot Don Hendrix as a “traitor.” With a wink, Hatfield encouraged his fellow Men’s Club members to join him (briefly) as Tories.

As for Hendrix, with a straight face, Hatfield shouted, “Will someone hang this man?” 

After the laughter died down, Hatfield introduced his long-time friend Hendrix, who, besides having spent many years studying the U.S Constitution, also is a Bible scholar and a Revolutionary War-era savant.

Straight-faced, Hendrix gazed warily (albeit playfully) at the (briefly pretending to be menacing) Men’s Club crowd and asserted, “I understand I’m in Tory territory. I appreciate you good folks... Very few of you signed it,” he lamented, in an apparent reference to the Declaration of Independence.

Hendrix quoted ideas from various Bible verses that, paraphased, noted the following:

• It is a human tendency to acquire power.

• Government should reward the righteous and punishes the wicked.

Hendrix questioned the crowd about the origins of the ideas around which the nation was founded and then triggered laughter when he quipped,, “Given that you’re ‘back- country people,’ you don’t have to answer!”

More seriously, Hendrix told the Men’s Club, “We get the ideas of English liberty from the (Five) Books of Moses, which handed down the ideas under law... Ever since Moses, we’ve held the divine right of kings....”

He added, “At Runnymede, in (June) 1215, the king (John) was forced to sign the Magna Carta, wherein the king supposedly had to follow the law... It was put down on paper....”

(Runnymede, a water meadow near the River Thames in southern England, “was chosen as a neutral meeting ground, situated between the royal castle at Windsor and the rebel base at Staines,” AI Overview stated. “The Magna Carta is considered a foundational document in English law and constitutionalism.”)

“All this time, after a while with King Charles I, he forced the English people” to take him before the court, where the king refused to plead either guilty or not guilty, and denied that the court had power over a monarch chosen by God. … And it ended with the killing — in an execution via ax — of King Charles.”

The case established that, “again, the king is under the law. The king cannot be lawless.”

Further, Hendrix said, “At that time (1649), the idea of English liberty was planted at that time.... And we had 13 colonies, all under the king...

“Then we had the French and Indian War (1754-1763), which removed the French threat and it made Britain a world power...

“But still,” while in theory, “the king is under the law we have a collusion with the king and the Parliament... Seeking to raise revenue, they sought to raise money in ways we (the U.S. colonists) opposed.”

Many in the colonies “believed we should not accept a tax from the British Parliament,” Hendrix asserted.

Meanwhile, he noted, the “the Stamp Act in 1765 was the act that we (the colonists) were most opposed to... A year later, they took it way...

‘But at the same time, the Parliament said they could tax us in any way they pleased, so now we had not only the king being a tyrant, but the legislature, too...

‘We happened to be their largest trading market, so if they lost us, they lost a lot...They then put a tax on tea” in 1773 to bail out the East India Company, granting it a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies.

“So when 257 chests of East India Company tea arrived in Charles Town, it was stored there and remains there,” Hendrix said.

(“While the tea was unloaded, Charlestonians protested the Tea Act, refusing to pay the imposed taxes,” AI Overview noted. “After 20 days, the tea was seized and stored in the Exchange Building. This event is known as the Charleston Tea Party, a significant protest against British rule that occurred before the more famous Boston Tea Party, according to Charleston’s historical societies.”)

Hendrix added that, on Dec. 16, 1773, about 12,000 lbs. (342 chests) of British tea were dumped into the Boston, Mass., harbor by the Sons of Liberty Boston Harbor in what was called “The Boston Tea Party.” The event protested taxation without representation — and the act of defiance is credited with being a key event leading to the American revolution.

Speaking in character (as a patriot from Charles Town), Hendrix told the crowd, “In 1775 — this year — there are things that have happened to us in the South Carolina colony...

“July 12 is today, so on Jan. 11 (1776) our first provincial government will meet... They recommend that all inhabitants of the colonies become proficient in the use of arms... On February 17 (1776), it was declared a day of prayer, fasting and humiliation... 

“On April 19 of this year (1775), a packet from the British government to the colonies’ governors.. has fallen into our (the patriots’) hands...” In it, “the king has made it abundantly clear that they (the British) do not want peace here, but rather plan to attack us with the sword” — saying, in essence, “We want to make it abundantly clear that you will not escape a civil war.”

The phrase “that America would have to recourse with arms never was our original intention” reflects a sentiment expressed by many of America’s founders, especially in the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Hendrix noted.

Also, the catch-phrase, “To leave the king never was our original intention,” was popular among the patriots, he said.

Eventually. “The first blood being shed” was from the American colonists — “we were attacked, so we declared the right of self-defense” as the Revolutionary War started, Hendrix stated.

“On May 1, we were informed that George Washington was elevated to commanding general, following the attack at the port of Boston... Following that were the battles of Lexington and Boston….” 

During a question-and-answer session that followed Hendrix’s presentation, he told an unidentified man that... South Carolina as well as Western North Carolina  were “very highly Tory,” as they were populated with “lots of Germans” — and others — who favored staying loyal to the British crown.

(“South Carolina had a larger Loyalist (Tory) population than most other colonies, with the exception of New York,” AI Overview stated.)

He added that “the (British) king was saying the colonists are in ‘a state of rebellion’ — and he’s already talking to the German mercenaries, Scotch-Irish” and others to fight to keep the American colonies under British rule.

“If the French had not gotten involved on our side in the war, we (the patriots) would have lost,” Hendrix said, noting that the colonies had little or no army, navy or other conventional defense forces.

Arms and ammunition were in short supply, due to British restrictions, so “we (the patriots) were having to make our own black powder at the time,” Hendrix said.

As other questioners continued to ask just “who the Tories” were in the colonies, Hendrix reiterated that “the Tories were the people who supported the king... The Tories were very quiet...”

Further, Hendrix said, “The British were under the belief that two-thirds of South Carolina (citizens) were Tories. But it was more like 50-50. And John Adams, a prominent critic of the British king, said that, overall, in the colonies, “it was more like one-third for freedom, one-third for king and one-third to be ‘left alone.’”

As for the Battle of Kings Mountain, it actually had its beginnings in New Jersey, Hendrix said. In late 1760s, there was Burlington, N.C., which he said  was known as  “The Little New Jersey of North Carolina.”

He also said the British made life hard for the colonists by imposing mercantilism on them. Under mercantilism, “you had to pay these things (British taxes) with hard money — hard cash, or gold or silver... Take gold in, but never let it go out....

“Because of that, they could not get gold and silver into the colonies. As a result, you can’t pay your land tax. What do you do? You lose your mule or donkey. The sheriff takes it.”        

“He got a thousand men in Burlington… (Former North Carolina) Governor William Tryon gave them one hour to lay down their weapons and pledge their allegiance to the king.... Tryon (then) went to all the villages and burned their houses — killed about 30 of the men.... 

“King George III gave all of the land to the west to the Indians. So the settlers moved over their to get away from the British... So all of the men in the British force — except two leaders — were from the colonies... 

“The patriots meet at Cowpens and they go after British Major Patrick Ferguson’s army. So one-third of Cornwalis’ army is gone (after the defeat of Ferguson), just as he was getting ready to invade North Carolina.”

At that point, Hendrix asked the Men’s Club crowd, rhetorically, “What they were going through, how does that have any semblance to what we’re going through today?”

One man prompted laughter from the program attendees when he answered, “Taxation without representation!”

With smile, Hendrix said that a British man once asked an American economist about America’s freedom, to which the economist quipped, “Well, what do you think about taxation with representation?”

Hendrix emphasized that “the Founders saw that they had a small window of opportunity” to become independent from Great Britain.

Regarding recent anti-ICE protests and riots in Los Angeles, Calif., Hendrix lamented, ‘We have people throwing rocks at the.police and their vehicles.” (ICE is an acronym for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.)

He added, “Economically, the Founders said paper money is bad. Anybody can make it. It’s inflationary. It has to be — or it doesn’t work.”

Prior to the Revolutionary War, “the states could accept only gold and silver in payment,” Hendrix noted. “They tried to put the kibosh on paper money.”

Another phrase he hears now is “Abolish the IRS,” adding that “I have no problem with that... Congress is really a do-nothing thing... Taxes need to be local, the Founders believed.... At the time of the founding, we were the least-taxed people...”

Greg Beam, chairman of the Henderson County Republican Party, asked, “What did the British people think about us (the America colonists) at the founding?” 

Hendrix answered, “Some were supportive... Ultimately, they thought we were nuts, as the British Army and Navy (then) were (by far) the strongest in the world.”

An unidentified man asserted, “The republic (the United States of America) is working relatively well right now.”

Hendrix replied by saying that he agreed.

In closing, Hendrix said he “someone told me” that “the foundational principles of America also are found in Buddhism, Hinduism” and other belief systems.

To that assertion, Hendrix said he asked — but has yet to receive an answer: “Where is the Amrican Buddhist country? Where is the American Hindu country?”