Thoughts for the 4th of July

I have never read the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence. That may come as no sur­prise to you if you know me well enough — I’ve not read many things which I should have by now. So today, I am read­ing the Dec­la­ra­tion, and I am shar­ing it here for you as well, giv­ing you the oppor­tu­nity to read it if you have not.

In read­ing it, I have not only learned what “con­san­guin­ity” means, but I have seen that belief in God really is part of our Amer­i­can her­itage; in the Dec­la­ra­tion He is referred to a num­ber of times in ways which can only be asserted by theists.

These men, who staked their lives on their free­dom and who include such men as Ben­jamin Franklin & Thomas Jef­fer­son, in affirm­ing their inde­pen­dence did so by invok­ing a most per­sonal God. A God who…

• is the God of nature who enti­tles men to just government,
• is the Cre­ator who enti­tles men to unalien­able rights,
• is the Supreme Judge of the world, and
• is the exer­ciser of Divine Prov­i­dence upon which the Found­ing Fathers relied.

In essence, in declar­ing their inde­pen­dence from Great Britain, these men declared their depen­dence upon God, from whom proper gov­ern­men­tal author­ity is derived.

Today, this depen­dence upon God is being chal­lenged every­where in Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment. As the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment for­gets its roots and for­gets upon whom they depend, we will increas­ingly see abuses of power and dete­ri­o­ra­tion of free­doms within Amer­ica, just as is hap­pen­ing even now with our neigh­bor Canada.

I guess it could be pointed out that our gov­ern­ment isn’t based upon the Dec­la­ra­tion but rather upon the Con­sti­tu­tion. Fair enough. You could also say that the Con­sti­tu­tion isn’t as bla­tantly the­ist as the Dec­la­ra­tion is. Also, fair enough. But to make the leap, then, that Amer­ica doesn’t have Chris­t­ian roots is some­thing I do not believe is pos­si­ble. If any­thing, the Dec­la­ra­tion reveals the mind set of early Amer­i­cans to be that gov­ern­ment is sub­ject to God in a very real way. I do not believe they could have com­pletely ignored such con­vic­tions while writ­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion lest they have come up with some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent than what they did. Frankly, sec­u­lar­ism does not breed free­dom, par­tic­u­larly of reli­gion or expres­sion. Again, just check out what’s hap­pen­ing in Canada.

Any­way, at the very least, today we cel­e­brate the inde­pen­dence of Amer­ica, an inde­pen­dence which was declared via a doc­u­ment which at the least was the­ist if not wholly Judeo-Christian.

Read through the Dec­la­ra­tion and be reminded of just what sorts of things the founders of Amer­ica con­sid­ered to be usurpa­tions of proper gov­ern­men­tal author­ity. Some of the acts, as writ­ten, remind me of cer­tain ele­ments tak­ing place today in our government.

“He has erected a mul­ti­tude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Offi­cers to harass our peo­ple and eat out their sub­stance.” — The founders advo­cated for a very lim­ited fed­eral gov­ern­ment, which is just the sort of gov­ern­ment we today don’t find in Amer­ica. We do, how­ever, find all sorts of new offices being estab­lished by the government.

“He has com­bined with oth­ers to sub­ject us to a juris­dic­tion for­eign to our con­sti­tu­tion, and unac­knowl­edged by our laws; giv­ing his Assent to their Acts of pre­tended Leg­is­la­tion.” — The founders believed in the sov­er­eignty of a nation and would not sub­ject Amer­i­cans to pow­ers for­eign to our own con­sti­tu­tion. Today, the head­quar­ters of the United Nations resides on Amer­i­can soil and far too few politi­cians (such as Ron Paul and Chuck Bald­win) are call­ing for America’s com­plete inde­pen­dence of such uncon­sti­tu­tional pow­ers over Amer­i­can citizens.

The Unan­i­mous Dec­la­ra­tion of the Thir­teen United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes nec­es­sary for one peo­ple to dis­solve the polit­i­cal bands which have con­nected them with another and to assume among the pow­ers of the earth, the sep­a­rate and equal sta­tion to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God enti­tle them, a decent respect to the opin­ions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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 of 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 shewn 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. To prove this, let Facts be sub­mit­ted to a can­did world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most whole­some and nec­es­sary for the pub­lic good.

He has for­bid­den his Gov­er­nors to pass Laws of imme­di­ate and press­ing impor­tance, unless sus­pended in their oper­a­tion till his Assent should be obtained; and when so sus­pended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accom­mo­da­tion of large dis­tricts of peo­ple, unless those peo­ple would relin­quish the right of Rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Leg­is­la­ture, a right ines­timable to them and for­mi­da­ble to tyrants only.

He has called together leg­isla­tive bod­ies at places unusual, uncom­fort­able, and dis­tant from the depos­i­tory of their Pub­lic Records, for the sole pur­pose of fatigu­ing them into com­pli­ance with his measures.

He has dis­solved Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Houses repeat­edly, for oppos­ing with manly firm­ness his inva­sions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dis­so­lu­tions, to cause oth­ers to be elected, whereby the Leg­isla­tive Pow­ers, inca­pable of Anni­hi­la­tion, have returned to the Peo­ple at large for their exer­cise; the State remain­ing in the mean time exposed to all the dan­gers of inva­sion from with­out, and con­vul­sions within.

He has endeav­oured to pre­vent the pop­u­la­tion of these States; for that pur­pose obstruct­ing the Laws for Nat­u­ral­iza­tion of For­eign­ers; refus­ing to pass oth­ers to encour­age their migra­tions hither, and rais­ing the con­di­tions of new Appro­pri­a­tions of Lands.

He has obstructed the Admin­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice by refus­ing his Assent to Laws for estab­lish­ing Judi­ciary Powers.

He has made Judges depen­dent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and pay­ment of their salaries.

He has erected a mul­ti­tude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Offi­cers to harass our peo­ple and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Stand­ing Armies with­out the Con­sent of our legislatures.

He has affected to ren­der the Mil­i­tary inde­pen­dent of and supe­rior to the Civil Power.

He has com­bined with oth­ers to sub­ject us to a juris­dic­tion for­eign to our con­sti­tu­tion, and unac­knowl­edged by our laws; giv­ing his Assent to their Acts of pre­tended Legislation:

For quar­ter­ing large bod­ies of armed troops among us:

For pro­tect­ing them, by a mock Trial from pun­ish­ment for any Mur­ders which they should com­mit on the Inhab­i­tants of these States:

For cut­ting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For impos­ing Taxes on us with­out our Consent:

For depriv­ing us in many cases, of the ben­e­fit of Trial by Jury:

For trans­port­ing us beyond Seas to be tried for pre­tended offences:

For abol­ish­ing the free Sys­tem of Eng­lish Laws in a neigh­bour­ing Province, estab­lish­ing therein an Arbi­trary gov­ern­ment, and enlarg­ing its Bound­aries so as to ren­der it at once an exam­ple and fit instru­ment for intro­duc­ing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For tak­ing away our Char­ters, abol­ish­ing our most valu­able Laws and alter­ing fun­da­men­tally the Forms of our Governments:

For sus­pend­ing our own Leg­is­la­tures, and declar­ing them­selves invested with power to leg­is­late for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdi­cated Gov­ern­ment here, by declar­ing us out of his Pro­tec­tion and wag­ing War against us.

He has plun­dered our seas, rav­aged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time trans­port­ing large Armies of for­eign Mer­ce­nar­ies to com­pleat the works of death, des­o­la­tion, and tyranny, already begun with cir­cum­stances of Cru­elty & Per­fidy scarcely par­al­leled in the most bar­barous ages, and totally unwor­thy the Head of a civ­i­lized nation.

He has con­strained our fel­low Cit­i­zens taken Cap­tive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Coun­try, to become the exe­cu­tion­ers of their friends and Brethren, or to fall them­selves by their Hands.

He has excited domes­tic insur­rec­tions amongst us, and has endeav­oured to bring on the inhab­i­tants of our fron­tiers, the mer­ci­less Indian Sav­ages whose known rule of war­fare, is an undis­tin­guished destruc­tion of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppres­sions We have Peti­tioned for Redress in the most hum­ble terms: Our repeated Peti­tions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose char­ac­ter is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been want­ing in atten­tions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their leg­is­la­ture to extend an unwar­rantable juris­dic­tion over us. We have reminded them of the cir­cum­stances of our emi­gra­tion and set­tle­ment here. We have appealed to their native jus­tice and mag­na­nim­ity, and we have con­jured them by the ties of our com­mon kin­dred to dis­avow these usurpa­tions, which would inevitably inter­rupt our con­nec­tions and cor­re­spon­dence. They too have been deaf to the voice of jus­tice and of con­san­guin­ity. We must, there­fore, acqui­esce in the neces­sity, which denounces our Sep­a­ra­tion, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Ene­mies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, there­fore, the Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the united States of Amer­ica, in Gen­eral Con­gress, Assem­bled, appeal­ing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rec­ti­tude of our inten­tions, do, in the Name, and by Author­ity of the good Peo­ple of these Colonies, solemnly pub­lish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Inde­pen­dent States, that they are Absolved from all Alle­giance to the British Crown, and that all polit­i­cal con­nec­tion between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dis­solved; and that as Free and Inde­pen­dent States, they have full Power to levy War, con­clude Peace, con­tract Alliances, estab­lish Com­merce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Inde­pen­dent States may of right do. — And for the sup­port of this Dec­la­ra­tion, with a firm reliance on the pro­tec­tion of Divine Prov­i­dence, we mutu­ally pledge to each other our Lives, our For­tunes, and our sacred Honor.

Today we, as Amer­i­cans, cel­e­brate our Inde­pen­dence Day, but may we do so remem­ber­ing that the preser­va­tion of the Repub­lic and of con­sti­tu­tional gov­ern­ment is not some­thing which ended 232 years ago. If we value our free­doms and the ideals of the Founders, we must con­tin­u­ally strive for them. That is why what Ron Paul has advo­cated for has been called a “rev­o­lu­tion”; it is a cast­ing off of so much of what Amer­i­cans have been all but forced to accept and a re-prioritation of gov­ern­men­tal pow­ers to bet­ter resem­ble what was so care­fully crafted cen­turies ago.

And if you are a Chris­t­ian read­ing this and do not feel it nec­es­sary for a Chris­t­ian to con­cern him­self with such things, I must beg to dif­fer and, in doing so, rec­om­mend Fran­cis Schaeffer’s A Chris­t­ian Man­i­festo, which explains the Ref­or­ma­tion ori­gins of the Amer­i­can repub­lic form of gov­ern­ment as well as the Christian’s duty in regards to gov­ern­men­tal pow­ers and abuses thereof. Cer­tainly, we can­not neglect evan­ge­lism as the pri­mary mis­sion of the church, but we can­not sim­ply accept the dimin­ish­ing free­doms asso­ci­ated there­with in America.

Whether you agree with the above sen­ti­ments or not, I hope you have a great Inde­pen­dence Day week­end as we express to the Supreme Judge of the world our grat­i­tude for not liv­ing under a tyran­ni­cal monar­chy… and as we express our com­plete depen­dence upon the Cre­ator for our life, our lib­erty, and our hap­pi­ness. Praise God from whom all bless­ings flow.