Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the peoples of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Happy 4th of July to all. Don’t eat too much.
It is well to reflect on the Declaration of Independence on this day. If you read it in its entirety it is a profoundly revolutionary and incendiary document. I dare say if you were to apply and quote some of the language to today’s politics you might expect a visit from the Secret Service.
Calvin Coolidge had this to say:
[blockquote]About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government–the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that “Democracy is Christ’s government.” The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty. [/blockquote]
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=41
The signers of the Declaration were in agreement that human rights did not come from government. Rights were not a creature of government. Rather they came from a transcendent source independent of government. Because many of the founders were deists they referenced the Creator, but the critical point is that these rights came from no government of man, but from a higher source than human government. That being the case government must be limited and the primary duty of that government was to secure these rights. If the government did not do so it was the duty of free men to alter or abolish that government.
The Declaration provides in familiar language:
[blockquote]We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. [/blockquote]
The full text including the list of grievances against the crown is here: http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/text.html
Today we have cheapened the concept of “transcendent rights”. Too many people have forgotten their basic civics and think that rights come from government; they forget that what government gives government can take away. They forget that our Constitution is in agreement with the broad theory of government outlined in the Declaration and that the Constitution does not grant rights, instead it prohibits the Federal Government from encroaching on pre-existing transcendent rights: either because the Federal Government was not given the power to do so in the first place or by direct limitation in the Constitution itself.
In this time of ever increasing Federal power the Declaration of Independence seems truly revolutionary indeed and a document the government might well want to suppress.