by David Barton
George Mason, the Father of the Bill of Rights, reminded the delegates at the Constitutional Convention:
As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities.9 (emphasis added)
At the same Convention, delegate Luther Martin echoed those sentiments:
It was said, it ought to be considered, that national crimes can only be, and frequently are, punished in this world by national punishments.10 (emphasis added)
Speaking before the Massachusetts legislature in 1791, Chandler Robbins similarly declared:
The Supreme Governor of the World rewards or punishes nations and civil communities only in this life…. Political bodies are but the creatures of time. They have no existence as such but in the present state; consequently, are incapable of punishments or rewards in a future. We can conceive no way in which the Divine Being shall therefore manifest the purity of his nature … towards such societies but by rewarding or punishing them here, according to their public conduct.11 (emphasis added)
President George Washington summarized this same principle in his “Inaugural Address” when he reminded the nation:
[T]he propitious [favorable] smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.12
It was understood that our political acts cause God to respond either as an ally or as an adversary. The widespread knowledge of this principle required that proposed laws and policies be judged with full cognizance of their spiritual implications. As Benjamin Franklin reminded the delegates at the Constitutional Convention:
And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? … [W]ithout His concurring aid … we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages.13
And Thomas Jefferson similarly cautioned:
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever.14
Of course, considering the spiritual implications of a policy is important only if there is a God, only if He has established transcendent rights and wrongs, and only if He responds on that basis. However, if one accepts these “ifs,” then public policy must be analyzed accordingly.
To help evaluate proposed policies, learn to ask, “Will this act violate God’s clear standards, thus inviting Divine wrath (Thomas Jefferson) and ‘national calamity’ (George Mason), or will it rather produce ‘the propitious smiles of Heaven’ (George Washington) and God’s ‘concurring aid’ (Benjamin Franklin)?”
A second question useful for judging a public policy is, “Is this act consistent with our form of government?”
This is a simple question; yet the answer may often be in error since many citizens today have been misled about our form of government. We have grown accustomed to hearing that we are a democracy; such was never the intent. The form of government entrusted to us by our Founders was a republic, not a democracy.15
Our Founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America and chose not to. In fact, the Founders made clear that we were not – and were never to become – a democracy:
[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.16 JAMES MADISON
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.17 JOHN ADAMS
A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.18 The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.19 FISHER AMES, AUTHOR OF THE HOUSE LANGUAGE FOR THE FIRST AMENDMENT
We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate … as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism…. Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.20 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, SIGNER AND PENMAN OF THE CONSTITUTION
[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.21 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
A simple democracy … is one of the greatest of evils.22 BENJAMIN RUSH, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION
In democracy … there are commonly tumults and disorders…. Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.23 NOAH WEBSTER
Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.24 JOHN WITHERSPOON, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION
It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.25 ZEPHANIAH SWIFT, AUTHOR OF AMERICA’S FIRST LEGAL TEXT
Many Americans today seem to be unable to define the difference between the two, but there is a difference – a big difference. That difference rests in the source of authority.
A pure democracy operates by direct majority vote of the people. When an issue is to be decided, the entire population votes on it; the majority wins and rules. A republic differs in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. A democracy is rule by majority feeling (what the Founders described as a “mobocracy”26); a republic is rule by law.
If the source of law for a democracy is the popular feeling of the people, then what is the source of law for the American republic? According to Founder Noah Webster:
[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.27
The transcendent values of Biblical natural law were the foundation of the American republic. Consider the stability this provides: in our republic, murder will always be a crime, for it is always a crime according to the Word of God. However, in a democracy, if a majority of the people decide that murder is no longer a crime, murder will no longer be a crime.
America’s immutable principles of right and wrong were not based on the rapidly fluctuating feelings and emotions of the people but rather on what Montesquieu identified as the principles that do not change.28 Benjamin Rush similarly observed:
[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.29
In the American republic, the principles which did not change and which were “certain and universal in their operation upon all the members of the community” were the principles of Biblical natural law. In fact, so firmly were these principles ensconced in the American republic that early law books taught that government was free to set its own policy only if God had not ruled in an area. For example, Blackstone’s Commentaries explained:
To instance in the case of murder: this is expressly forbidden by the Divine…. If any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law…. But, with regard to matters that are … not commanded or forbidden by those superior laws such, for instance, as exporting of wool into foreign countries; here the … legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose.30
The Founders echoed that theme:
All [laws], however, may be arranged in two different classes. 1) Divine. 2) Human…. But it should always be remembered that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same Divine source: it is the law of God…. Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine.31 JAMES WILSON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE
[T]he law … dictated by God Himself is, of cou
rse, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.32 ALEXANDER HAMILTON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION
[T]he … law established by the Creator … extends over the whole globe, is everywhere and at all times binding upon mankind…. [This] is the law of God by which he makes his way known to man and is paramount to all human control.33 RUFUS KING, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION
The Founders understood that Biblical values formed the basis of the republic and that the republic would be destroyed if the people’s knowledge of those values should ever be lost.
A republic is the highest form of government devised by man, but it also requires the greatest amount of human care and maintenance. If neglected, it can deteriorate into a variety of lesser forms, including a democracy (a government conducted by popular feeling); anarchy (a system in which each person determines his own rules and standards); oligarchy (a government run by a small council or a group of elite individuals); or dictatorship (a government run by a single individual). As John Adams explained:
[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.34
Understanding the foundation of the American republic is a vital key toward protecting it. Therefore, in analyzing public policy, remember to ask, “Is this act consistent with our form of government?” and support or oppose the policy on that basis.
Since history forms the basis for the creation of many public policies, a policy may be ill-founded unless we train ourselves to determine whether that policy is being built on a sound basis or on a flawed and erroneous historical assumption. Therefore, a third useful question for identifying sound policy is, “Is the information undergirding this policy verifiable in primary sources or is it the product of revisionism?”
It is unfortunate that our citizens today rarely consult original sources. The extent of this national weakness is documented in a Department of Education report; it states that currently less than five percent of high school juniors and seniors have the skills necessary to comprehend a primary source historical document.35
The failure to delve into primary sources leads to widespread gullibility and is one of the reasons that the media has become a powerful political and societal force in America. The consequences resulting from such naiveté were accurately described in this 1830s educational maxim:
A demagogue would like a people half educated; enough to read what he says, but not enough to know whether it is true or not.36
As citizens, we should train ourselves to investigate the rhetorical basis of policies in order to affirm truth or to expose error. As Thomas Jefferson warned:
If a nation expects to be ignorant – and free – in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.37
John Adams expounded on this principle, declaring:
We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands: we have a check upon two branches of the legislature…. It becomes necessary to every subject [citizen], then, to be in some degree a statesman and to examine and judge for himself … [the] political principles and measures. Let us examine them with a sober … Christian spirit.38
Since citizens are entrusted with the responsibility to judge for themselves “the political principles and measures,” the first and primary standard for measurement is the Constitution. As Chief Justice John Jay explained:
Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country…. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.39
Each citizen must become familiar not only with the Constitution but also with the standards expounded in America’s other blueprint documents. Samuel Huntington, signer of the Declaration and Governor of Connecticut, observed:
While the great body of freeholders are acquainted with the duties which they owe to their God, to themselves, and to men, they will remain free. But if ignorance and depravity should prevail, they will inevitably lead to slavery and ruin.40
Previous generations maintained an unwavering belief that the preservation of our liberties was inseparable from a thorough familiarity with our fundamental governing documents. Consequently, educational laws – even as late as the turn of the twentieth century – required students to read the Declaration of Independence, the U. S. Constitution, the State constitution (and other important documents), and to take a written exam on them once a year for the first eight years of school.41
It is a tragedy that today the U. S. Constitution is rarely seriously examined in schools. As one prominent national figure has noted:
I spent three years getting my law degree at Yale Law School. From the moment I enrolled, I was assigned huge, leather-bound editions of legal cases to study and discuss. I read what lawyers and judges, professors and historians said about the Constitution. But never once was I assigned the task of reading the Constitution itself…. Over the last decade, however, I have become a student of the Constitution, searching each line for its meaning and intent…. It is amazing how much more you will learn when you quit studying about it and pick it up to read it for yourself.42 (emphasis added)
Once you have read the Constitution and the Declaration (copies of which are provided in the Appendix), then read a copy of The Federalist Papers (authored by James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton to explain the purpose of the Constitution); the Anti-Federalist Papers (the discussions of Founders like George Mason and Patrick Henry on the importance of limiting federal powers and the purpose of the Bill of Rights); George Washington’s “Farewell Address” (setting forth national guiding principles); and continue your study in this manner by investigating other foundational works still widely available today. Learning to return to the original sources will help clear the 200 years of haze and speculation which now seem to cloud the Constitution.
Beyond individual self-education in primary sources, it is vital that these same materials be studied in the collective education process. For far too long, large numbers of citizens have been complacent and uninvolved in the nation’s schools. This has allowed many unproductive and unhealthy philosophies to flourish in students’ texts and classrooms.
Citizens should heed Noah Webster’s succinct warning that:
The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. [I]t is much easier to introduce and establish an effectual system … than to correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system…. The education of youth … lays the foundations on which both law and gospel rest for success.43
The fundamental precept of any sound education – whether individual or collective – is that it be founded upon the pursuit of accuracy and truth. That pursuit can be greatly facilitated by asking, “Is the information and rhetoric undergirding this policy consistent with primary sources, or is this revisionist subterfuge?”
The fourth and most important practice vital to the creation of sound government policy is the election of leaders with moral and religious integrity.† This entails much more than just voting; it presupposes a thorough investigation of the private life and personal beliefs of a candidate.
A justification for investigating the private life of a candidate was given by William Penn, who explained:
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good and the government cannot be bad…. But if men be bad, let the government b
e never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn. I know some say, “Let us have good laws and no matter for the men that execute them [that is, if you have good laws, it does not matter who is in office].” But let them consider that though good laws do well, good men do better; for good laws may want [lack] good men and be abolished or invaded by ill men; but good men will never want good laws nor suffer [allow] ill ones.45
Amplifying the truth of this principle, William Paterson, a signer of the Constitution and a Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court, would remind juries46 of the following Scripture:
When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan. PROVERBS 29:2
The quality of government in our republic depends more upon the quality and character of our leaders than upon our laws. Lax or incompetent individuals rarely enforce good laws, and a superb constitution is an inadequate guarantee for good government without competent and reliable leaders. For this reason, Noah Webster instructed students:
When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.47
