Filed under: Alexander Hamilton

America's Civic Religion in Light of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln understood that America has a civic religion.  As previously noted, this civic religion is different than the personal faith of individuals--their manner of worship, fellowship and practice.  Religion is embedded in the foundation of our government.

 

George Washington, so immersed in the entire process of the founding of this nation, praised the effectiveness of critics for insisting upon the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, and he complimented both James Madison and Alexander Hamilton for their work in writing the Federalist Papers saying,  they "have thrown new light upon the science of government; they have given the rights of man a full and fair discussion, and explained them in so clear and forcible a manner as cannot fail to make a lasting impression."

 

During the swearing-in ceremony for President Washington, he placed his hand on an open Bible at Genesis, chapter 49..  Of his own volition, he took the oath of office concluding with the precedent-setting foundation, "So help me God."  Immediately the new president bent down and kissed the sacred book (Peter A. Lillback with Jerry Newcombe, George Washington's Sacred Fire, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Dickson Press, 2006, 224).

 

In his Farewell Address of 1796, Washington reminded Americans that:  "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.  The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.  A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.  Let it simply be asked:  Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?  And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.  Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."*

 

Contemporary liberals insist that the Declaration of Independence has no relevance to the Constitution.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  That was the argument used by Stephen A. Douglas in the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates.  Douglas, who practiced constitutional revisionism, rejected Abraham Lincoln's insistence that moral judgment applies to situations calling for decision.  Lincoln quoted from the Declaration of Independence to affirm the moral predicate of constitutional law.

 

The following is from Lincoln's Peoria speech, October 16, 1854:  "I have quoted so much [of the Declaration] at this time to show that according to our ancient faith, the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed.  Now the relation of masters and slaves is, pro tanto, a total violation of this principle.  The master not only governs the slave without his consent:  but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those he prescribes for himself.  Allow all the governed an equal voice in their government, and that, and that only, is self-government."  Harry V. Jaffa, reviewing Lincoln's speech, added, "Aristotle, in his only reference to piety in the Nicomachean Ethics, says that virtue requires us to honor truth before our friends.  That is because we would not otherwise be worth having as friends."**

 

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man."

Abraham Lincoln

 

Presidents-day

 

 

*George Washington, Farewell Address, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=15

**Harry V. Jaffa, "In Defense of Political Philosophy," National Review, January 22, 1982, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/6068362/defense-political-philosophy

 

Image from http://aillschristianchurch.com/tag/lanny/

 

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Old European Secular Philosophy vs God

The old European secular philosophy includes secular humanists and other atheistic sects, such as the followers of Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Professor John Dewey and Fabian socialist John Maynard Keynes. Their agenda is obvious.  It is the elimination of God as well as a moral foundation for law.    

 

Their belief is expressed in the Humanist Manifesto:  "No deity will save us; we must save ourselves."  The first Humanist Manifesto, written in 1933, was published with thirty-four signatories including the educator John Dewey (Paul Kurtz, tenured radical professor, State University of New York at Buffalo, Humanist Manifesto II, 2).

 

Without exception, rejection of creation's God and freedom

for religious competition over the broad spectrum

of private and public life gives rise to moral revisionism.

 

The religious presupposition for the secular humanist mind-set comes from Charles Darwin's book Origin of the Species.  Those who adopted Darwin's God-rejecting assumption about the origin, meaning and purpose of life have no dependable standards upon which to establish human equality, morality or representative government.  Truth, for them, is what man himself chooses at any given time and circumstance.  Standards are based on wishes, perceptions and mortal goals rather than on established knowledge, objective facts or principles.

 

According to Darwinian militants, "There is no fixed limit or perfect form of knowledge and, that on the contrary, truth is always tentative."*

 

The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors.**

W. E. Gladstone

 

"The attempt by the rulers of a nation [France] to destroy all religious opinion, and to pervert a whole nation to atheism … [and] to establish atheism on the ruins of Christianity [is] to deprive mankind of its best consolations and most animating hopes, and to make a gloomy desert of the universe" (James D. Richardson, citing Alexander Hamilton from October 3, 1789, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, published by Congress, 1899, Vol. I, 64).

Abrahamlincolnibelieve

 

*John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 306.

**Halley's Bible Handbook authored by Henry H. Halley and published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI (republished since 1924).


For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

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American Principle Thirteen: Government Power and Taxes Must Be Limited For Liberty's Sake

 

"… imposing Taxes on us without our Consent …"

Declaration of Independence

 

Low taxes and limited government are indispensable supports for property ownership and liberty.  "He [the King] has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance" (Declaration of Independence).

 

Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist No. 17* emphasizes that taxes should not be imposed at the federal level that enable the federal government to do things that go beyond their enumerated powers. That would take money from the people that should be available for state and local government needs (in effect, enabling federal usurpers to prevent the function of government that is closest to the people). 

 

Government debt that exceeds income cripples nations in the same devastating way that it cripples individuals, families and corporations.  "Indeed, we cannot too often inculcate upon you our desires, that all extraordinary grants and expensive measures may, upon all occasions, as much as possible, be avoided.  The public money of this country is the toil and labor of the people …" (written by representatives of the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, to their legislative representative, Braintree Records, 1765-66).

Image_tax_revenue

A full discussion of these vital American Principles can be found in my book, Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.

 

For more information or to purchase the book:

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http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

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*http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/fed/blfed17.htm

 

American Principle Two: God Is the Source of Unalienable Rights

“All men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Declaration of Independence

 

“We The People Of The State Of Iowa, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of those blessings, do ordain and establish a free and independent government, by the name of the State of Iowa …”

Preamble, Constitution of Iowa, adopted in 1846—

seventy years after the Declaration of Independence

Image_patch

Belief in a Higher Authority also believes in the opposite side of the coin:  that man does not originate law, God does.  Legislators articulate this pre-existing law and give it particular applications to changing circumstances.

 

During the 1765 crisis caused by the king's Stamp Act, John Adams, when writing the Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, August 12, 1765, the Boston Gazette, pointed out that liberty was not man's creation or something radically new to the world, but rights "derived from our Maker," rights "indisputable, unalienable," "inherent," "essential," "divine" and even acknowledged since the Middle Ages by British law.

 

"We further recommend the most clear and explicit assertion and vindication of our rights and liberties to be entered on the public records, that the world may know, in present and all future generations, that we have a clear knowledge and a just sense of them, and, with submission to Divine Providence that we never can be slaves" (John Adams, pictured below, adopted on October 14, 1765, by the town meeting of Braintree, Massachusetts, and sent to their representatives in the Massachusetts state legislature).

 

Those who reject God's authority and proceed to fix the rights of others are, by definition, false gods and, in practice, become tyrants.  Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist, No. 78, says:  "A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law."  When a particular statute violates the meaning of the Constitution, it is the duty of judicial tribunals to disregard it and adhere to the Constitution.  

 

"The sacred Rights of mankind are not to be rummaged from among old parchments or musty records.  They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or voided or obscured by mortal power" (teachingamericanhistory.org, Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775).

 

Education in America today is energizing the enemies of the family, self-rule, prosperity and liberty because it does not emphasize that man’s unalienable rights are the gift of God.

Inalienable_rights

A full discussion of these vital American Principles can be found in my book, Restoring Education Central to American Greatness.  For more information or to purchase the book:

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