The Tea Party happened in Boston, but it's come to Williamsburg

The Washington Post has a great article this morning on the influx of Tea Partiers into Colonial Williamsburg. For those of you who weren't aware, this is of special interest to me because I attended the College of William and Mary as an undergraduate. I spent my freshman year living in (and met my future wife in) Monroe Hall, which was right across the street from Colonial Williamsburg. That part of campus itself is in many ways an extension of Colonial Williamsburg, with the Wren Building - the oldest continually operating academic building in the country - not far from Monroe Hall (the Wren was also the building I was married in). You can still see Civil War bullet holes and fire damage on this building, where Jefferson himself studied.

Anyway, now I'm starting to reminisce and wax poetic, which I suppose just goes to show how important this place is to me. It's also important to the Tea Partiers who are increasingly frequenting the tourist destination, often in colonial garb. The reasons are obvious, of course. Colonial Williamsburg does a fantastic job recreating the history of the revolutionary era, with founding fathers roaming the streets and interacting with tourists. The Post article highlights this point:

"General, when is it appropriate to resort to arms to fight for our liberty?" asked a tourist on a recent weekday during "A Conversation with George Washington," a hugely popular dialogue between actor and audience in the shaded backyard of Charlton's Coffeehouse.

Standing on a simple wooden stage before a crowd of about 100, the man portraying Washington replied: "Only when all peaceful remedies have been exhausted. Or if we are forced to do so in our own self-defense."

The tourist, a self-described conservative activist named Ismael Nieves from Elmer, N.J., nodded thoughtfully. Afterward, he said this was his fifth visit to Colonial Williamsburg.

"We live in a very dangerous time," Nieves said. "People are looking for leadership, looking for what to do. They're looking to Washington, Jefferson, Madison."

Sometimes, they didn't get the leadership they were expecting:

"Sometimes, the activists appear surprised when the Founding Fathers don't always provide the "give 'em hell" response they seem to be looking for.

When a tourist asked George Washington a question about what should be done to those colonists who remain loyal to the tyrannical British king, Washington interjected: "I hope that we're all loyal, sir" -- a reminder that Washington, far from being an early agitator against the throne, was among those who sought to avoid revolution until the very end.

When another audience member asked the general to reflect on the role of prayer and religion in politics, he said: "Prayers, sir, are a man's private concern. They are not a matter of public interest. And nor should they be. There is nothing so personal as a man's relationship with his creator."

And when another asked whether the Boston Tea Party had helped rally the patriots, Washington disagreed with force: The tea party "should never have occurred," he said. "It's hurt our cause, sir.""

The organizers of Colonial Williamsburg have embraced the Tea Partiers enthusiastically. It's good for business, obviously. That's an important reason. But they also feel the dialogue is important:

""If people . . . can recognize that subjects such as war and taxation, religion and race, were really at the heart of the situation in the 18th century, and there is some connection between what was going on then and what's going on now, that's all to the good," said Colin Campbell, president and chairman of Colonial Williamsburg. "What happened in the 18th century here required engagement, and what's required to preserve democracy in the 21st century is engagement. That is really our message."

...Campbell's hope is that such visitors come away having learned something about the nuance and messiness of history -- a theme that runs through all of Colonial Williamsburg's programming."

One thing I wish the Tea Partiers would appreciate more is that the history of our founding does not provide an unequivocal stamp of approval on their modern political outlook and ambitions. I'm not saying "the founders would have disagreed with the Tea Party". Probably many of them would have agreed, and many of them would have disagreed. But this attitude that people have "forgotten the founding" because they disagree with the Tea Party is extremely condescending (someone more disposed towards populism than I might even call it "elitist"). History is complex, particularly the history of the founding, and as Marshall once said "nothing is gained in the long run by pretending it is simple and reducing it to a series of elementary propositions".