Filed under: limited government

Government by Written and Permanent Law: Republic vs Regime

The American system of government is a Federal Republic, meaning a confederation of many--a central government and state governments.  James Madison describes the American system as "a Republic--a federation, or combination, of central and state republics--under which: the different governments will control each other…" (Federalist No. 51).

 

The powers are divided between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government which remain subject to the sovereignty of the people (electorate) under creation's God per the Declaration of Independence.  "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence" (Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution).

 

The federal and state governments are Republics which are distinguished by the fact that they are representative and limited in their power by written constitutions (Federalist No. 45).  The citizen electorate adopts the constitutions, and they are only changeable from the original through amendment by the people.  


The law has been defined as "a set of rules for conduct prescribed by a controlling authority and having binding legal force" (Black's Law Dictionary).*  The overriding concern is: What are the beliefs of the controlling authority?  Sadly, some public servants, including some law professors, do not respect the fact that government gets its power from the sovereigns, the taxpayers who created the government and pay their salaries.

 

In Europe, kings, popes, academician elites and others claimed to be supreme.  This is comparable to what self-indulgent judges are now doing in America.  Rejecting the meaning and intent of the Constitution, they seek to impose societal values of their own choosing.  When federal laws dealing with local concerns descend downward, they become oppressive and often harmful to society.  

 

What sets the American constitution apart from those of so many other nations is that its use is rooted in the Higher Authority Judeo-Christian tradition for civil order.  The Constitution is a tool composed of directives, checks and obstacles.  When the principles of the Creator-based Declaration articulated in the Bill of Rights are upheld, the obstacles built into the Constitution become morally effective, and it becomes difficult for government employees to empower a partisan political agenda or line their pockets with taxpayers' money.

 

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.

Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

George Washington

 

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 *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black's_Law_Dictionary

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Government by Written and Permanent Law: Liberty vs Oppression

"Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions, a government of FORCE [arbitrary and changeable decrees imposed by authoritarians], and a government of LAWS [governments that derive 'their just powers from the consent of the governed']; the first is the definition of despotism--the last Liberty" (Alexander Hamilton, Tully Papers, 1794).

 

In the words of Chief Justice John Roberts:  "Governments in world history have so often abused the power, and people have suffered because of it.  The framers decided they were going to lay down some rules to try to keep that from happening--that's what the Constitution is.  Of all the major written constitutions in history, it is the shortest.  It's not an elaborate code.  They were laying down basic principles that they wanted to endure and it is timeless… our Constitution is different from a lot of others.  Many countries that have constitutions--they're really just political documents."**

 

Corruption is limited when the development of law comes from the people unless, of course, they become estranged from God and the moral certainties of creation's nature.  When this happens the people become vulnerable to exploitation and paternalistic authoritarians.

 

"In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Thomas Jefferson

 

The American Principles One through Fifteen, Chapter 1, in the Restoring Education Central To American Greatness book that we have listed in previous blogs are changeless, practical and appropriate for government "by written and permanent law."  That "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

George Washington reminded future generations that they cannot neglect the personal responsibility for upholding the moral predicate for law:  "It is easy to foresee, that from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth ('keep alive the spirit of Liberty'); as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively directed.*

 

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*Chief Justice John Roberts, discussing the role of Constitutional American politics with C-Span host Lamb on August 5, 2006.

**George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799, published by the authority of Congress, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, vol. 35, 214-38.

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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

 

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*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 America

"We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."*

Justice William O. Douglas, 1952

 

"America has freed more human beings from the clutches of evil than any [other] nation on earth, and we are a relatively young country.  Even though continental Europe, in its posture of pseudo-sophistication, might consider us the country cousin of the family of nations, when these same Europeans needed to be rescued--often from themselves--we were there to rescue them.  We have done it many times and in many ways around the world.  At enormous costs to ourselves, we have gone into (and out of) dozens of nations in order to make the world a better place--even those nations that were our deadliest enemies, like Germany and Japan after World War II.  What MacArthur did in Japan, and what the Marshall Plan accomplished in Europe, are without historical equal, and they indicate what we think our high calling on the planet really is!  They also indicate the American penchant for forgiveness and generosity, which surpasses all others" (Dr. Jack Wheeler, The Ugly Liberal American, page 4, quoted by The Schwarz Report, May 2008, Vol 48, number 5).

 

It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.**

George Washington

 

George Weigel, highly respected author, said at a Seattle Pacific University symposium regarding the departure from representative citizen control over government policies:  "It not only seemed to me an act of infidelity toward the past, it seemed to imply a program for the future, namely, state-enforced secularism."  In an interview with Kathleen Braden, Weigel laments political decisions made bureaucratically rather than according to the popular will, and trumpets the need for spiritual revival in America and for citizen action as "salt and light" (George Weigel, author of The Cube and the Cathedral, "A Conversation With George Weigel," Response Magazine, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington, Autumn 2007, 18-20).

 

Supremacist judges, liberals (progressives) in education and their converts in the media have deceived millions of people into believing that privacy rights, social justice and diversity require public acceptance of evil life practices, homosexuality and baby genocide.  The loss of American values arises directly from unelected liberal judges-turned-legislators and the ensuing defilement of traditional American jurisprudence. (from p. 56).

 

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?**

Thomas Jefferson

 

"Truth [when communicated] is great and will prevail if left to herself … she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them" (Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty, 1786, cited by Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, Philadelphia:  Heritage Books Inc., 1963. xxii).

 

Without a vibrant and vital Christianity, America is doomed, and without America, the west is doomed.  Which is why I, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, devoted to Jewish survival, the Torah, and Israel am so terrified of Christianity caving in.***

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

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

**Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, (Philadelphia:  Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVIII, 237, MS-176. 

***http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/christian-nation.htm

 

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Socialism = Old European Secular Philosophy

The old European secular philosophy is the reflection of a hope in a fantasy world.  


Marxists used socialist slogans, such as "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."  The Soviet Socialist Union lasted but a whiff in time in spite of their great universities, KGB (secret police), a worldwide propaganda machine and military aggression (1917-91).

 

Liberals in present-day America justify socialism by saying that we are a wealthy nation.  Some in America, who budget wisely and have a good income, do have wealth, but the truth is that the American government is broke.  The Soviets not only funded their government by an excessive tax on the Russian people, but they also extracted a tax from over a dozen captive countries--and they still went broke. 

 

Liberal politicians create a supportive voting block by promising them wealth redistribution.  This comes by stealing from Americans (excessive tax), stealing from future generations (debt obligation) and the added tax of interest on the debt.  When government officials are allowed to continue imposing high taxes, the incentive of the people to work hard and save is greatly diminished and the base for taxation is gradually destroyed.  Also, the ability of the people to support churches and to assist the poor is greatly diminished.  The national debt is over 14 trillion dollars.  The revenue left after funding excessive government is not enough to pay the interest, so the shortage must be added to the principal indebtedness.

 

Monopoly unions are also used by the champions of old European philosophy to consolidate political power.  When legislators succumbed to handouts from leftist National Education Association unions, laws began to turn against traditional American law and citizen self-government.  The nonpartisan Iowa Family Policy Center Newsletter, March, 2008, reports that "Iowa Democrats have accepted $440,000 from out-of-state homosexual activists, with $170,000 going directly to Democrat legislators facing hotly contested races [Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure]."  Seeing the involvement of at least $40 million nationwide in 2008, we understand that the financial and political influence of NEA leftists is immense (Education Reporter, #272, Eagle Forum, St. Louis, MO).

 

 

 

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

 

~ Winston Churchill

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The Dearth of Freedom in Public Education

Continued reliance on the promise of reforms made by government education professionals simply give tenured radicals more time to dumb down our most precious resource and engineer the "transformation of society."

 

Milton and Rose Friedman pointed out in their book Free to Choose, published in 1980, that "The education, or rather the uneducation, of [all children in public schools but most harmfully] black children from low income families … [is a] disaster area in education and its most devastating failure."  The Friedmans continue:  "More than four decades ago Walter Lippmann diagnosed it as 'the sickness of an over-governed society,' … the exercise of un-limited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt, … that there are no limits to a man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limits ought to be imposed upon government …  For schools, this has taken the form of denying many parents control over the kind of schooling their children receive.*

 

The radical minority boastfully proclaims their authoritarian credentials and warns opponents that "Sixty-seven countries' national academy of sciences (including the US National Academy of Science) signed the Inter-academy Panel's Statement on the Teaching of Evolution."  The truth is that it was a radical minority in those countries that have "signed" the document.**

 

Albert Einsten (1879-1955) was not stamped by the Darwinian craze.  He is thought to be among the most highly revered scientists of the twentieth century.  Although not a Christian, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe.  The Encyclopedia Britannica says of Einstein:  "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in 'Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists.'  He once remarked to a young physicist:  'I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element.  I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.'  Einstein's famous epithet on the 'uncertainty principle' was 'God does not play dice.'  A famous saying of his was 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" (for more details search Famous Scientists Who Believed in God).

 

The pseudoscience of evolution rests on Darwin's book Origin of the Species.  Darwin's theory about the origin of life is both unprovable and illogical.  Dr. Soren Lovtrup, a non-Biblicist scientist and author, declares:  "Believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science."***

 

Adam Sedgwick, one of Charles Darwin's professors at Cambridge University, took immediate issue with Darwin's book Origin of the Species.  Sedgwick told his former student that it "greatly shocked my moral taste" and elaborated in a passage that proved prophetic:  "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical.  A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly.  'Tis the crown and glory of organic sciences that it does thro' final cause, link material to moral; …  You have ignored this link; and, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant clauses to break it.  Were it possible, which, thank God, it is not, to break it, humanity in my mind would suffer a damage that might brutalize it--and the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written record tells us of its history."****

 

When collective bargaining unions had a monopoly for supplying railroad industry workers, the opportunity for truckers to compete by hauling freight gave the public an option and stopped costly exploitation by railroad employee unions.  Also, employee unions dominated the auto industry and cars were poorly made.  It was competition from the manufacturers of foreign-made cars that restored quality to automobiles made by American auto manufacturers.  And now at least two American auto manufacturers have been forced into bankruptcy or government takeover because of government-established unions that demand unreasonable wages for autoworkers.

 

When Medieval European religious authoritarians achieved control of education in the Roman Catholic Church, it was competition sparked by the martyrs (the offended protesters were themselves Catholics) that brought about the great Reformation and gave the masses freedom from the despotic education monopoly.

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*Milton and Rose Friedman, Free To Choose (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 151.

**State of Washington, Kitsap Herald, July 22, 2006, A4.

***Dr. Soren Lovtrup, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (New York: Croom Helm, 1987), 422.

****Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/sedgwick.html

 

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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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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

Image from http://logosresourcepages.org/OurTimes/pledge.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...

 

Image from http://evolutionofpaper.blogspot.com/2010/02/african-american-literary-firsts...

 

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

 

Biblical Government

When the early Americans searched their Bibles to learn about government, what did they find?

 

The first level of government is individual self-government.  Lasting success comes by giving attention to God's standards, the laws of creation's nature that were the norm before man's rebellion opened the door for Satan's influence (Exodus 20:1-17, Romans 13:13-14).  Big government, the abundance of police, prisons, and hospitals are the consequences of sinful life practices.  When man restrains his own selfish impulses and desires, the tyranny and exploitation of big government can be avoided.

 

The second level of government is the family.  From the beginning, it has been the holy commitment of one man and one woman in marriage that has defeated the will of Satan in his war against civilization (Genesis 2:18-24).  God instituted marriage to facilitate companionship and the nurturing of children in the truth.  The husband cares for his wife in a loving way and she respects him (Ephesians 5:22-23).  Parents are responsible for the education of their children.  By learning to honor and obey their parents, children also learn to honor the lordship of God and become responsible citizens (Ephesians 6:1-4, Proverbs 15:5).  The Bible makes it clear that property ownership and wealth come through labor, while laziness produces poverty (Proverbs 10:4-5).  Recognition of this aspect of the laws of creation's nature benefits families (1 Timothy 5:8, Proverbs 31:13-27).

 

The third level of government is the voluntary union of people belonging to a church, churches of different denominations to edify citizens through biblical principles for faith and community (1 Timothy 5:17) and discipline (Matthew 18:16-19).  Churches also have the biblical mandate to be societal caregivers (1 John 3:17).  Families and churches are united in the promotion of citizen self-reliance and limited civil governments.

 

The fourth level of government is civil government on local, regional and national levels.  Its prime function is to protect the citizens from criminals inside and outside government and from external aggression (Romans 13:1-4, 1 Peter 2:13-14).

 

Detailed in Chapter 4 of Restoring Education Central to American Greatness, these guidelines for government were applied by America's Founding Fathers.

Tencommandments

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