Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Two hundred thirty-six years ago this Fourth of July, 57
men signed the document that created the American republic. They represented a
people of about 3 million grouped in a series of 13 colonies along the eastern
seaboard of the United States. They were all wanted men, sought by the
commander of the British forces in North America for sedition and treason. He
had behind him the resources of the greatest military power on earth. They had
behind them the bare beginnings of a government, hardly anything of an army,
but something mighty in the way of an idea.
This nation had
therefore a desperate beginning. Who but the boldest could believe that the
signers of the Declaration of Independence were laying the foundation of the
greatest constitutional republic in history? Now that republic has spread
across the continent, and its influence reaches around the world. Its
population has increased a hundredfold. Its Constitution has provided
government to a free people constantly growing in size and territory, each new
state joining the union as an equal, its citizens never subjects, its people
ever free. There is no story close to it in the history of man.
Statesmen and
thinkers have attributed the strength and goodness of the nation to the
principles in the Declaration. Many others have denied this. Statesmen and thinkers
have proclaimed the Constitution a just and beautiful implementation of the
principles of the Declaration. Many others have denied this. These denials are
more common in times of crisis in our country. They are very common now.
[...]
Because we have come so far from the founding institutions, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves what they are. This anniversary of the Declaration of Independence provides a splendid occasion, because both the principles of the nation and its institutions are summarized beautifully in its 1,300 words. Let us then read it for a moment.
Notice first of all how remarkable it is that the
document should begin universally. The authors were obviously mindful of the
fact they were wanted men. They conclude the Declaration with a solemn promise,
made to each other in the mood of soldiers facing battle: “In support of this
Declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our
sacred honor” (emphasis added). The particularity of this commitment, each man
speaking for himself in promise to the others in the room, is what one might
expect of legislation passed on the eve of a war, legislation that is itself a
written act of treason.
If these men were in a situation urgent unto death, how
can we account for the abstract and universal nature of the beginning of the
Declaration? It begins with an “absolute truth” (to use the president’s term)
expressed in words that have rung around the world: “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 …” (emphasis added).
Notice that this quotation refers to no particular time,
but to any time in the course of human events. Notice that it refers not to the
American people, but to “one people,” meaning any people. It is a very absolute
and universal way of talking. It issues immediately a proclamation of truth:
“We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Just as the Founders did, so may anyone look for his
rights under these “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” Anyone whose rights
are denied will feel their weight. The Jew rounded up by the Nazis, the black
slave held in Mississippi in 1840, may both look to this document as the
charter by which he can advance. Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, was aware of
this and wrote that indeed, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just.” These principles place every man and woman deprived of their rights
in the same place that the Founders occupied on July 4, 1776: they may appeal
to an absolute truth, written in the nature of man and in the nature of things,
against any power that will offend their rights. Perhaps they cannot find the
strength to overcome their oppression. Never mind: their cause is still the
just one. They will see, and even in moments of clarity their oppressors will
see, that the great self-evident truth that all men are created equal means
nothing more nor less than that all men are men. It means nothing less than
that no one may rightly govern another except by his consent. It means that the
purpose of government is to “secure these rights”: “life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.”
These are the principles of the United States. The fact
that they were announced at the onset of its revolution, and the fact that the
revolution proceeded in their name, seals them in the blood and the history of
this land.
The Declaration is not only about principles; it also
describes institutions, the kind of institutions best adapted to protect the
rights of a people. These institutions are expressed in the middle section of
the document, the section in which the specific crimes and injustices of the
king of England are described. The three broad constitutional principles that
he violated form the backbone of the later Constitution of the United States.
The first step in understanding that Constitution is not to learn its details,
although they are relatively few. The first step is to understand the grand
arrangements of government necessary to constitutional rule.
The first of these three principles is representation.
The king is said to have interfered with the representatives of the people in
their attempt to pass laws “most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
The Declaration recognizes that human beings are made to live under law, and they
have a right for those laws to be passed by people who represent them. This
right is not to be interfered with by any force. Any force doing so interferes
with the consent of the governed and cannot rightfully claim obedience.
Violation of the representative principle is, by itself, cause for revolution.
The second of these principles is separation of powers.
At the outset of the American Revolution, the king and his governors were the
executive branch. By interfering with the legislature, the king violated not
only the right of the people to representative government but also the
necessity for separation of powers. He violated this necessity also by making
“judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the
amount and payment of their salaries.” God is named four times in the Declaration,
once as each of the three branches of government, and once as a founder. The
lesson is simple: God may well be the maker of the laws of nature and of
nature’s God, and He may well be at the same time the Supreme Judge of the
world, and He may also be Divine Providence. But no man or small group of men
may rightly combine in their own hands all the powers of government. That is
for God alone.
Finally, the Declaration calls for a limited government.
The king was taxing America’s forefathers without their consent, and he was
using the money, among other things, to pay for a hired army to oppress them.
He sent many officials to make sure that his will was followed on all
occasions, whatever the commoners may wish. The Declaration charges him with
erecting “a multitude of new offices, and [sending] hither swarms of officers
to harass our people and eat out their substance.” In other words, the king
offended against the principle of limited government. He was building a
structure too strong for the people to manage.
[...]
This Fourth of July, we might well remind ourselves of
the beauty, the greatness and the long serviceability of our constitutional
institutions and of the principles from which they flow. This Fourth of July is
a great time to recall these things, because the Declaration gives the
Constitution its cause and also its basic form and function. We Americans may
choose to discard this legacy and give up our birthright. Let us at least know
what we are doing.
Celebrate the Declaration, and also remember its meaning.
It is what a citizen does on the Fourth of July.
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