Filed under: Constitution

America's Civic Religion in Light of Congress

Even Congress has recognized that America has a civic religion. 

 

Presidents, as well as many other citizens, attended church services held on Sundays in the United States Capitol building.  President Thomas Jefferson, "during his whole administration, 1801-1809, was a most regular church attendant," documents James H. Hutson in Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.  Ministers of several Christian denominations conducted the services.  Honoring the nonsectarian God of creation in public and on government property is an important manifestation of civic faith.  In addition to attending church services in the Capitol building, Thomas Jefferson made significant financial contributions to that ministry.

 

"After the Civil War, from 1865-1868, the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., permitted the newly organized First Congregational Church of Washington to use its chambers for church and Sunday school services.  During that same time, specifically on June 13, 1866, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment which, according to some later judicial foolishness, forbids religious activities on public property."*

 

Addressing Congress, Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, proclaimed:  "I anticipate nothing but suffering to the human race while the present systems of paganism, deism and atheism prevail in the world."**

 

English language Bibles had to be imported from England until 1782 when Congress authorized Robert Aitken to commence the first American printing of the Bible in English.   Aitken was also the official printer of the Journals of Congress for the United States Congress.  The following year, George Washington wrote a letter of commendation to Robert Aitken for his "Bible of the American Revolution."***

 

On September 25, 1789, Congress requested unanimously that President Washington proclaim a national day of thanksgiving and prayer.  This is the same Congress that on the same day approved the final draft of the First Amendment to protect the people's rights to religious freedom from suppression by government administrators, judges and legislators.  President Washington proclaimed on October 3, 1798:  "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor…  Now, therefore, I do recommend… that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed…  And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions… And to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue."****

 

In 1954, Congress ordered that "a room with facilities for prayer and meditation…" be made available in the United States Capitol.  The seventh edition of The Capitol, an official publication of the United States Congress, describes the stained-glass window of the Congressional Prayer Room:

 

"The history that gives this room its inspirational lift is centered in the stained glass window.  George Washington kneeling in prayer… is the focus of the composition…  Behind Washington a prayer is etched:  'Preserve me, O God, for in Thee I put my trust,' the first verse of the sixteenth Psalm.  There are upper and lower medallions representing the two sides of the Great Seal of the United States.  On these are inscribed the phrases:  annuit coeptis--'God has favored our undertakings'--and novas order seclorum--'A new order of the ages is born.'  Under the upper medallion is the phrase from Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address, 'This Nation under God'…  The two lower corners of the window each show the Holy Scriptures, an open book and a candle, signifying the light from God's law, 'Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path' [Psalm 119:105]."*****

 

A primary duty of government officials and most certainly the duty of professors and teachers whose salaries are funded by taxpayers is to promote the liberating principles of the nonsectarian American civic creed that has been discussed in this and earlier blog posts.

 

1

 

 

*James H. Hutson, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1998, 84.  The entire book is available at lastingsuccessedu.org

**Benjamin Rush, Annals of Congress 1834, vol. I (September 25, 1789), 949-50.

***http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/

and

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/colonial-bibles.html

****http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/GW/gw004.html

*****http://www.wallbuilders.com/downloads/newsletter/H.Res.888.pdf

 

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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

 

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America's Civic Religion in Light of Its Documents

America has a civic religion.  In 1952, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."*  Note that this is different from the personal faith of individuals--their manner of worship, fellowship and practice.  This is civic religion--religion embedded in our government.

 

The natural-law philosophy, our civic religion foundational to the American constitution, is in direct conflict with secular law.  An example of this would be the secular law of open-mindedness required of teachers by Professor John Dewey (John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition, New York: Harper and Row, 1958, 310).  It blindsides students to the horrific differences between good and evil and causes them to go along with the pagan laws of man contrived by liberal judges, legislators and educators.

 

The Declaration of Independence (1776), the Articles of Confederation (drafted 1777, ratified 1781) and the Constitution (ratified 1788) have been classified as the most important American charters.  Collectively they received a total of 143 signatures from 118 people.  By their affirmations, these individuals represented themselves to be believers in the providence of God, and they did so at the risk of being hung by British soldiers.

 

In a letter from Benjamin Rush to John Adams, Rush says of that fateful day when the Declaration of Independence was signed, "Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?  The silence and the gloom of the morning were interrupted, I well recollect, only for a moment by Colonel [Benjamin] Harrison of Virginia, who said to Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry at the table:  'I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing.  From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.'  This speech procured a transient smile, but it was soon succeeded by the solemnity with which the whole business was conducted…"**  Out of the 56 signers of the Declaration, 29 held seminary degrees.***

 

Professor Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston describes a ten-year study during which he and others assembled the writings and deliberations of the American Founding Fathers.****  The study brought into focus important sources that were used when determining priorities for the American constitution.  Aside from quotations from the Bible, the writings of Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke were the sources relied upon most by the Founding Fathers.

 

Montesquieu's best-known work was The Spirit of Laws.  He emphasized the importance of separating personnel and duties for the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.  The purpose of this separation of power was to prevent abuse of the people's rights as sovereigns over government (Isaiah 33:22; Jeremiah 17).  Blackstone emphasized the Law of Nature (man's nature both before and after the fall) and Revealed Law (Scripture).  His Commentaries on the Common Law of England was especially practical for the new nation.  Locke,  born into a Puritan family and son of a lawyer, provided the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" and two treatises "On Civil Government."  His "life, liberty, or property" phrase is in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

 

The chief source for the Founding Fathers' understanding was the Bible.  It was cited three times more often than were these three men combined.  Thirty-four percent of all ideas referred to by the constitutional delegates came directly from the Old and New Testament books.  Furthermore, 60 percent of the references to opinions of Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke were drawn from the Bible.  The most frequently quoted book was the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy.

 

"The fundamental basis of this Nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount.  The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.  I don't think we emphasize that enough these days."*****

Harry S. Truman

 

Governments and authoritarians are not the source of man's rights.  Government is but a tool that should be used to protect man's right to worship creation's God.  This impartial Creator of life ordained and established the unalienable human rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence that demand representative governments to follow the rule of established law, not the arbitrary rule of man.  Legislators, administrators and judges who use laws (the power of government) to establish religious, ideological or employee union monopolies are fascistic.****** 

 

 

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.  I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."*******

John Adams

 

Backoftwo

 

 

*Zorach v. Clauson, Docket 431, citation 343 US 306, 1952.

**http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/rushadams.html

***http://rodchaney2012.org/2012/02/11/a-message-from-rod/

****Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

*****http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13707#axzz1t9qVQzTQ

******Fascism is a word used to identify the enemies of representative governments and governments limited for the protection of the people's freedom to be informed and to choose.

*******http://christianity.about.com/od/independenceday/a/foundingfathers.htm

 

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Old European Secular Philosophy vs Education

There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible

than in any profane history.*

Sir Isaac Newton

 

Backed by the 1947 Supreme Court decision Everson v. Board of Education, militant objectors to American principles and the American creed bullied their way into controlling the atmosphere of American public schools.  Instead of upholding their oath to abide by the Constitution, judges rule by "incalculable and changeable decrees."  Rule by men replaced government by established law.  The reasoning behind their decision reflects the old European secular doctrine of open-mindedness for dumbing the people down and transforming society.  Instead of being umpires, unelected judges are trampling on the sacred rights of the people by legislating superior rights for the enemies of responsible liberty.

 

A report by the nonpartisan Commission on Excellence in Education remains the premier American study of problems in public education.  It states:  "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people… If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."  The report laments "the deconstruct of the moral and spiritual strengths which knit together the very fabric of our society."**

 

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores have declined, and today the United States ranks academically near the bottom of the world's industrialized nations.  College seniors have no better grasp of general cultural knowledge than did high school graduates in the 1950s.  The average correct responses for modern college seniors on a series of questions was 53.5 percent, compared to 54.5 percent of high school graduates in 1955 (survey by Zogby International, April 2002, for the Princeton, New Jersey-based National Association of Scholars, presented by NAS President Stephen H. Balch in December 2002).

 

In the fall of 2005, researchers at the University of Connecticut's National Civic Literacy Board conducted a survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at fifty colleges and universities.  Students were asked sixty multiple-choice questions to measure their knowledge in four subject areas:  American history, government, international relations and market economy.  Seniors, on average, failed all four subjects and their overall average score was 53.2 percent.***

 

The abuse of academic freedom and teacher tenure guarantees is rooted in the old European secular philosophy.  John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy point out that, when Darwinian advocates coupled their "origin and destiny of man" theory with the authoritarianism of "German graduate methods [faculty independence]… academic freedom became a cause celebre [highly controversial]."   According to Darwinian militants, "There is no fixed limit or perfect form of knowledge and, that on the contrary, truth is always tentative" (John S. Brubacher, and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition, New York:  Harper and Row, 1958, 296 and 306).

 

"I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments.  Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God."

Gouverneur Morris

Signer of the Constitution

 

Claybennett

 

 

 

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

**A Nation at Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 26, 1983, http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

***The Coming Crisis in Citizenship:  Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions, 09/26/2006, Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Board Report.  See http://content.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Interco...

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Manipulation of the Constitution

Secular authoritarians insist upon what they call a "living constitution" that has an open-minded disconnect from moral absolutes.  As has been attributed to Dostoevsky among others, "If God is dead, then anything is permitted."  The colossal failure of secularized education flowing from teachers unions and tenure privileges, which subordinates citizen sovereignty, is the damning consequence of atheistic-secular politics.  The Constitution becomes a mere political document for manipulation by authoritarians who show themselves to be enemies of family, human dignity and limited government.

 

Regardless of the arguments advanced by those who reject the intent of the Constitution, the Rule of Law means that the government is limited in all of its actions by the rules fixed and ratified beforehand.  This is the context within which legislation, court decisions and administrative directives at all levels of government must fit.

 

For those who deny the important role of morality, here is its meaning from Merriam-Webster:  "a: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior:  ETHICAL <moral judgments>; b: expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior <a moral poem>; c: conforming to a standard of right behavior; d: sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment <a moral obligation>; e: capable of right and wrong action <a moral agent>.

 

Americans determined to protect liberty reject the "living constitution" because it leaves society vulnerable to political deception.  Constitutional government by "written and permanent law" requires an amendment that is acceptable to the people before a change in its provisions is acceptable.  Faithfulness to this process protects society from political deception and the convolution associated with government by incalculable and changeable decrees.

 

Those who reject the rule of law based upon moral absolutes are like ships without an anchor.

Illusion_of_reality_diagram

This drift is illustrated by judicial decisions that set precedents ignoring and overriding the meaning of the Constitution.  An example of the foolishness of the rule of man rather than the rule of law is the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's ruling on November 2, 2005, that parents' fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children "does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door," and that a government school has the right to provide its students with "whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise" (Fields v. School District, No. 03-56499, D.C. No. CV-03-00457-JVS).  This unconscionable judge-made law further strengthens the arms of union bosses, leftist teachers and radicals, if any, on school boards.

 

American conservatism transcends both the good and evil intentions of today’s adherents to the old European secular philosophy—the religious and political left.  Revisionist morality, supported by the Darwinian theory for life’s origin, meaning, and purpose, represents one of the greatest evils of our time.*  A focus upon the danger to American liberty can be narrowed to those who are at the seat of the problem—secular militarists.

 

American exceptionalism, the tradition of citizen self-reliance, and the liberty that comes with limited government CAN be restored.

 

 

 

*Charles Darwin published his theory for a God-rejecting worldview in the book The Origin of Species, published in 1859.  There is some adaptation within species, but the Herculean efforts of science pretenders to find evolution between species fail.  Sir Arthur Keith, a leading evolutionist has written:  “Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable” (Sir Arthur Keith, as citation in Wallie A. Criswell’s Did Man Just Happen? Grand Rapids MI:  Zondervan, 1972, p. 73; D. M. S. Watson acknowledged the same in Nature, vol. 124, August 10, 1929, pp. 231-234).

 

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Ban the Bible? What For?

The benefits of the Bible to society and governments were recognized by the Founding Fathers.  The Bible was "recommended to American citizens by the Confederation Congress on September 12, 1782" (James H. Hutson, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1998, Preface and pp. 57-58).

 

God's standard for truth is the most fundamental moral category in the universe.  Truth separates traditional American values (theistic belief) from the old European secular philosophy (atheistic belief about life's origin, meaning and purpose).  Abel, who had chosen to follow the God of absolute truth, was slain by Cain, who, abiding by the impulses of the flesh, had chosen to follow his own version of truth.  It is this same war of divergent cultures that is now raging between the "In God We Trust" of Americans and the cultish atheism of old European secular philosophy.

 

During the controversy over the French Revolution, Edmund Burke wrote in response to the question, "What is liberty?"  He stated:  "Mere liberty without other forces working in the sphere that it opens up is only another name for license" (Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790, London: Henry G. Bohn, 1864 extract, 129).

 

The sovereignty of our constitutional government is clearly made subordinate to the sovereignty of certain God-given rights of the citizens who ratified it.  This distinguishes the meaning of liberty for individuals in America.  They can exercise their independence and capacity to make better and differing decisions.  What a contrast from the demands of secular academician with communistic, socialistic and liberal leanings!  They reject the citizen's capacity for self-rule and expect conformity to cultish political correctness based upon changeable decrees.

 

The Bill of Rights law is spiritual in the sense that it upholds the unalienable right of the people to follow God's prescription for happiness without fear of authoritarian reprisals.  The idea is economic as well, because people, having the right to life, also have the right to work and to use the fruits of their labor to sustain life.

 

The God of creation is identified by the Bible as the "Good Shepherd."  It is this same God who gave the Ten Commandments to mankind through Moses.  A good shepherd does not dictate and control.  When a lamb falls and breaks its leg, the shepherd will place a splint on the leg and carry the lamb until it heals.  Then, hoping the lamb has learned a lesson, the shepherd allows it to run again when able.  God admonishes, but unlike those allied with Satan, He will not deceive and seek to by-pass a person's common sense to force worldly compliance (atheistic political correctness).

 

When our government allows, based upon its original constitution, the freedom of Americans to align their lives according to the precepts of God's Word, its citizenry can prosper under the Good Shepherd's protection.  Choosing the benevolent God of the Bible as one's own shepherd of life is, of course, a personal decision; but when that choice is made, the lamb is under God's protection and learns self-control as he follows the Good Shepherd.


Ban-bible

 

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The Paper Trail of Our Constitution IV

On September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, members of the Constitutional Convention signed a draft of the Constitution.  Subject to ratification by nine or more states, America would become a representative republic.  Unalienable rights (man as sovereign under God over government) are to be guarded by separations of power among three branches of the central and state governments.  Constitutional separations of power also help to protect against infringement by hierarchical authoritarians or a misled citizen majority (such as occurs in a pure democracy).

 

Washington, as president of the convention, transmitted the proposed Constitution to the people's representatives, who were then still operating under the Articles of Confederation.  Referring to man's sinful nature and the dangers of collusion by government officials for personal power, Washington wrote: "The great powers to be vested in General Government of the Union and the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men is evident:  hence results the necessity of a different organization."*

 

The ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified the Constitution at its state convention on July 21, 1788.  When Congress was informed, it set March 4, 1789, to be the start for the new government.  On April 30, 1789, George Washington took the oath of office and became the first president of the United States.  Another anxious year passed before that government became fully operational.  Fourteen years after the God-honoring Declaration of Independence was ratified, the benefits of separation from authoritarian elites became a reality.

 

Charles Pinckney, who at the outset of the convention doubted the success of the undertaking, was amazed at the final result: "Nothing less than that superintending hand of Providence, that so miraculously carried us through the war, could have brought it [the Constitution] about so complete, upon the whole."**

 

God raises up nations and He brings nations down according to His will.  In I Samuel 8, Israelites rejected citizenship responsibilities outlined in Scripture and asked to be like other nations and have a king.  God gave them a King--an arrangement that was second best to His own authority alone, but better than anarchy.  "But God is the judge:  He putteth down one, and setteth up another" (Psalm 75:7).  "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase" (Daniel 4:37).

 

In 1791, on July 19, George Washington wrote in a letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham:  "The United States enjoys a scene of prosperity and tranquility under the new government, that could hardly have been hoped for."*** In 1792, on March 11, Washington explained:  "I am sure there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that Agency which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them."****

 

The Constitution of the United States has survived many times longer than any other constitution.  For example, in the last two hundred years, France has gone through seven different government charters, and Italy forty.  "In God Is Our Trust," emblazoned in "The Star-Spangled Banner" (official national anthem of the United States), takes elitists of every stripe out of the authority equation.

 

A century later, William Gladstone, one of Britain's greatest prime ministers, proclaimed the American Constitution to be "the most wonderful work ever struck off by the brain and purpose of man."*****

Pledge4

1789 Inauguration of George Washington

The Bible is open to Deuteronomy 28 at his request.  Washington added his own "So help me God" to seal his oath.******

*William L. Hickey, The Constitution of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Nabu Press, 1851), 188.

**Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, (Philadelphia: Heritage Books, Inc., 1963), 205-206.

***Harry Atwood, The Constitution Explained, 4th ed. (Merrimac, MA: Destiny Publishers, 1992) 5.

****David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion (Aledo, TX: WallBuilder Press), 116. (Citing Washington, Writings 1838, Vol. X 222-223, to John Armstrong on March 11, 1792).

*****Gladstone speech, The North American Review, (September, 1878), http://www.quotes.net/quote/3589

******http://books.google.com/books?id=S1mRh9Zhxa4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=...,+a+biography&hl=en&ei=QXIWTtukHsjd0QGvp5Rf&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=so%20help%20me%20god&f=false

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The Paper Trail of Our Constitution III

In 1777, on November 15, the Articles of Confederation, our nation's first written constitution (which proved to be too weak), was adopted by the Congress.  It was not ratified by the states until near the end of the war, but it served as the procedure for governing throughout the war.  On March 2, 1781--the day after the Articles of Confederation were ratified--the Continental Congress became known as the Confederation of Congress, and the confederacy claimed the title "the United States of America."*

 

On May 14 of 1787, a few statesmen began to assemble in Philadelphia to assess the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.  Their meetings soon became a convention for framing a new constitution.  On May 25, 1787, George Washington was elected president of the Constitutional Convention.  The general outline proposed for the new constitution was presented by Edmund Randolph, Governor of Virginia.  The outline came from consultation with seven men, among whom James Madison was prominent.

 

Their work, spanning almost five months, was an ordeal that required attention to tedious debate and late-hour committee responsibilities with the added discomforts of hot, humid weather and longings for home.  Washington himself, disagreeing with one of the delegates, cautioned that regardless of whether or not the states would adopt a new constitution, popular fallacies must be avoided:  "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God."** Because it was conducted in secret, the public was unaware that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were on the verge of failure.  When opinions came to an impasse during the Constitutional Convention, Franklin called the delegates to their knees in prayer.  

 

"In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?  In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.  Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered…  I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men.  Can an empire rise without his aid?  We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.'  I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel:  We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages."*** The practice of prayer continues today when a session of the United States Senate or House convenes.

 

The Committee of Style and Arrangements, elected by the Constitutional Congress, proceeded to codify what had started out on May 28 as a list of fifteen resolutions presented four months earlier by Edmund Randolph.  Twenty-three resolutions for the Constitution emerged from their debate.  Rearranging them for orderly reading, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania put them together as the Constitution.  It contained seven articles with short subsections and a preamble that starts with the sovereigns under God, "We the People."****

Image_hope_in_me_not_disappointed_in_god_we_trust

*Articles of Confederation, Article 1.

**Harry Atwood, The Constitution Explained, 4th ed. (Merrimac, MA: Destiny Publishers, 1992), 4.

***http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/franklin.html

****http://www.history.army.mil/books/revwar/ss/morrisg.htm


 

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The Paper Trail of Our Constitution II

In 1776, on February 28, George Washington acknowledged a poem written in his honor and sent to him by Phillis Wheatley.  "To His Excellency General Washington"   was the title.  This occurred before the Declaration of Independence was completed and accepted by the Continental Congress.  Who was Phillis Wheatley?  She had been captured in Senegal/Gambia at the age of seven or eight and sold in Boston to John and Susanna Wheatley.  They treated her lovingly as a daughter and taught her to read and write; she even learned Latin.  An accomplished poet, she was an admirer of the minister George Whitefield and a strong supporter of independence from Great Britain.

 

The Northwest Ordinance passed in 1787 by the Continental Congress was helpful as the new constitution was drafted.  It specified the requirements of territories seeking statehood.  The ordinance declared:  "The fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws, and constitutions are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory: to provide also for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the federal councils on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest."*

 

Also known as the Freedom Ordinance, the Northwest Ordinance is a rock-solid example of the nonsectarian religious predicate embraced as constitutional law.  When the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a new constitution, the Northwest Ordinance was passed again and became effective under the Constitution.  George Washington signed the Northwest Ordinance back into law on August 7, 1789.  The ordinance also prohibited slavery in any new state, and Article III specified that "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged."**

 

"During this same period of time (July 17 to August 7, 1789), the same men who had implemented the Northwest Ordinance were writing the First Amendment to the Constitution [prohibiting government officials from interfering with religious freedom, printing press and education competition]."***

 

In 1792, James Madison, in his Essay, Who Are the Keepers of the People's Liberties?, said, "Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race.  Ignorant--they have been cheated; asleep--they have been surprised; divided--the yoke has been forced upon them.  But what is the lesson?  That because the people may betray themselves, they ought to give themselves up, blindfold, to those who have an interest in betraying them?  Rather conclude that the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united."  Madison served as the fourth president of the United States and is considered to be the principal author of the United States Constitution.  In 1788, he wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers, still the most influential commentary on the Constitution.  James Madison wrote the first ten amendments to the Constitution, also known as the Bill of Rights.  

 

The Declaration of Independence condemned slavery, but it took a war to make it enforceable.  On January 1, 1863, near the end of that war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that reversed its momentum.

 

"The consequence is, that happiness of society is the first law of every government.  The people have a right to insist that this rule be observed; and are entitled to demand a moral security that the legislature will observe it.  If they have not the first right, they are slaves; if they have not the second right [moral security], they are, every moment, exposed to slavery" (U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, Lectures, 1790-91).


Phillis_wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

1753? - 1784

 

*Education Resources Information Center website, ED285786.  Teaching about the US Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance.

**http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster

***David Barton, Education and the Founding Fathers (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 1993), 4.

****http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation...

 

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NOTE ~ more information on Wheatley at http://www.enotes.com/his-excellency and http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/whea-phi.htm

 

The Paper Trail of Our Constitution

By far the most consequential document for government throughout all history is the Declaration of Independence.  The hitherto inexperienced benefits that enabled America to become the greatest nation on earth rest entirely upon the justification for displacing the rule of man with rule by impartial, God-honoring law.  The Declaration provided the philosophical basis for prohibiting actions by government officials that would interfere with citizen sovereignty under God.  The people who vote in secret and choose like-minded representatives determine the consensus for government action.  Adherence to "self-evident" truths that men are "endowed by their Creator" with "certain unalienable Rights" unleashed citizen creativity and independence from tyranny and trickery of authoritarians in and out of government.

 

On July 8, 1776, the Declaration was read in public for the first time, outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, accompanied by the ringing of the Liberty Bell.  On August 2, 1776, the members of Congress signed the parchment copy.  It provides the logic and justification for the chain of authority described by Hamilton Albert Long as “man under God over government.”*  The Declaration and citizens' Bill of Rights, added later to the Constitution as the First Amendment, provides the fundamental God-honoring design for government, and the Constitution is the tool for implementing that design.

 

The purpose of government as a tool for, by, and of the people is spelled out in the preamble of the Constitution:  "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare [meaning common needs that do not conflict with the development of work ethic and personal self-reliance] and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

 

One historian points out that the preamble contains seven action words:  form, establish, insure, provide, promote, secure, and ordain.  The Constitution concludes:  "Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present on the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven and of the independence [Declaration of Independence, founded upon the sovereignty of the benevolent God of creation and of the Bible] of the United States of America the twelfth [adopted twelve years earlier].  In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names."

 

Until amended by the people, written law holds firm.  It includes the right of trial by one's own peers and the citizen grand jury.  The divine (God-given) right authorizes the people to petition government officials and, if need be, lawfully punish or remove them from office.  The strict boundaries included "no taxation without representation."

 

From 1775 to 1783, the eight-year War for Independence from authoritarian rule was waged.  Its victory was a monumental achievement granted by the providence of God.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.  Of the fifty-six signers, five were captured by the British as traitors and tortured; twelve had their homes ransacked and burned; two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; and another had two sons captured.  Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships in the Revolutionary War.  In spite of the suffering, not one of the Founding Fathers ever reneged on his commitment to independence.**

J0410154-570x379

 *www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_history.html

**www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

 

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