July 4th is the day we celebrate our nation’s birthday. It’s the day the Continental Congress held the first reading of The Declaration of Independence, the document that birthed our country. By the time it was read, the first pitched battles of the revolution were already under way. The country’s mood was somber and the Colonists were worried. A year earlier, the Continental Congress had adopted the Olive Branch Petition, sending it to King George by Richard Penn. The King had refused both. Then Thomas Paine published his Common Sense. The Olive Branch Petition had referred to Colonists as subjects of the King, and citizens of England. Common Sense repudiated both.
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"The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of America, our birth certificate as it were, declaring our complete and utter separation from tyranny. There is no greater document than The Declaration of Independence for without it there would be no Constitution." |
Common Sense fired up the Colonists, helping them realize that King George was no longer their benefactor but their enemy, no longer a father but a dictator. Common Sense is the philosophical and philological transition between the Olive Branch Petition and the Declaration. The Declaration of Independence declares a complete national break with England. The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of America, our birth certificate as it were, declaring our complete and utter separation from tyranny. There is no greater document than The Declaration of Independence for without it there would be no Constitution. So, let me take a few minutes of your time to share with you some important information about The Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration is a timeless document, which can never become impotent. Tyranny is an all-pervasive threat. A few among us remember the experience of World War Two while the rest must rely on historical accounts. The void left by the death of Fascism was filled, as all voids are, by the great tyranny of the USSR. Again, the free peoples of the world banded together and with great sacrifice withstood the USSR until its collapse in 1991. That void today is, as you read this, being filled by the fascism of radical Islam.
King George was the great tyrant of the 1700s. It has been speculated that King George suffered from some neurological issues nevertheless, the Parliament, which did not, certainly took advantage of the situation. They declared the Colonists were no longer English citizens, could not use English courts for their grievances and were in fact, slaves of the Empire. Two-thirds of The Declaration of Independence lists, as religious and civic law then demanded, the evidence that King George was tyrannical because he was attempting to strip the Colonists of their unalienable rights. What the Declaration documents is the lawless pattern of every tyrant, from Caesar to Hitler and Stalin. Therefore, the principles of the Declaration will live forever.
The Declaration of Independence is one of two documents that make up the fundamental law of the land. The Declaration is both a political and legal document. Interestingly, most of the scholars who research the Declaration fail to connect the dots between the philosophical basis of the Declaration’s language and the Christian natural law tradition exemplified by Judge Blackstone, John Locke, Cooke, Hooker, Calvin and many others. In fact, some seem to go to great extremes to obscure these dots, imposing their own dots trying to connect the Declaration’s language to that of the Romans and Greeks. The Declaration, so they declare, is a secular document. Not!
The Declaration is also a human document for it lays out the basis of all human freedom. The Declaration’s basis of human rights is not a human construct but rather the unalienable rights bestowed upon us by our Creator. This Creator is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By either creation or fiat God has endowed us with certain rights which we cannot give away, because they are not ours to give, nor can they be taken because they are from God. The only possible way that any human can limit these unalienable rights to take away our “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
But is the Declaration the law of the land? Absolutely. Skeptics may claim otherwise, but I have yet to read a single objection to this view that provides any substantial evidence. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Declaration is a Constitutional document in one of the Slaughter-House Cases (1884) and in Gray v. Sanders (1963). Justice Thomas argues that the only way to understand the Constitution originally is to understand the Declaration of Independence. This is a must read.
Thomas explains that to correctly interpret the Constitution, to understand it’s original intent we must understand “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” The Declaration provides the only real lens by which to correctly interpret the Constitution, and the proper foundation for The Declaration is Judeo-Christian principles. Here, then, are some ways to think about the Declaration.
The Declaration is the declaration of our new sovereignty, while the Constitution is the legal structure of this new sovereignty.
The Declaration is the Charter while the Constitution is the by-laws.
The Declaration is the moral lens of interpretation while the Constitution is the document which is to be interpreted.
The committee which designed the Declaration founded that charter upon Judeo-Christian epistemology. So many people have wasted hundreds of gallons of ink as well as millions of man-hours trying to prove that the Founders’ epistemology is Deistic and secular. It can’t be done! Why?
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"The phrase “Laws of Nature” refers to the natural law (Law of the heart) which God placed into mankind. The “Laws of…Nature’s God” refers to the Scripture. The two are different sides of the same coin. These two phrases cannot be traced back to the Romans or the Greeks! The Declaration committee drew on the Bible as an integral part of America’s Constitutional system." |
The phrase “ the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” historically stretches back hundreds of years from Jefferson’s pen to the writings of Locke, Blackstone, Coke, Aquinas, and ultimately to the Apostle Paul. The phrase “Laws of Nature” refers to the natural law (Law of the heart) which God placed into mankind. The “Laws of…Nature’s God” refers to the Scripture. The two are different sides of the same coin. These two phrases cannot be traced back to the Romans or the Greeks! The Declaration committee drew on the Bible as an integral part of America’s Constitutional system.
The term “self-evident” is a phrase which believers have used since about the eighth century and became prominent in theological discussions around the twelfth century. The term is also found in Romans 2. Self-evident refers to knowledge (first principles) which are self-evidently known because God has placed this information in our hearts to guide us. We call this guide natural Law.
The Declaration mentions the Creator and Supreme Judge throughout. The Declaration’s Creator is the God of the Bible according to the Founders! The Greeks and Romans did not have a deity who actually created the world because the pagan world, past the Romans back to the Classical Greeks, believed in a childish form of evolution. The vast majority of the founders believed in Biblical creationism!
The Declaration of Independence is our nation’s document of freedom, not the Constitution. In the recent movie, National TreasureNicolas Cage (as Benjamin Franklin Gates) is deciding whether to steal or not to steal the Declaration, to keep it out the hands of his archenemy. As Cage is looking at the Declaration he says,
“Of all the ideas that became the United States there is a line here that is at the heart of all the others, ‘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.’”
This phrase is one reason Progressives do not want the American people to realize that the Declaration is part of the law of their land. Combine the Declaration and second amendment and you have the legal precedent and ability to protect yourself from a rogue government.
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"The American Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States are not of equal importance. The Declaration is the greater document because (1) it is the nation’s founding document, (2) it provides the nation’s moral foundation and (3) it made the Constitution possible. This is not to degrade the importance and power of the Constitution, but merely, to put the two into the right perspective." |
There is one difference between the Declaration and Constitution, which I have mentioned already, that we often do not think about. The Declaration declares all men are free from tyranny. The Constitution does not free people instead it chains people as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently stated. The Declaration references all people. The Constitution is designed to put limits on government. The Declaration is concerned with humanity. The Constitution is concerned with elected officials who are human. It is possible, someone might argue, that if the Constitution restricts the government that restriction provides freedom for We the People. Maybe. But think of it this way. The Colonists were already free prior to the Constitution under the Articles of Confederation. While the Constitution replaced the impotent Articles, The Declaration of Independence has never been replaced.
The people who penned the Constitution were already free and designed the Constitution to limit the power of the few elected officials they were entrusting with government power. The Constitution therefore does not provide freedom, rather it provides limitations What happens if the elected officials become tyrants? The declaration gives the American people the legal right as free people to change the government and by force if necessary. The Declaration warns that governments are not to be changed for light and transient reasons. Agreed. Nevertheless, it is the legal right, the legal duty of every free American to be willing to stand side-by-side to oppose a tyrant or tyrannical government. This is what freedom expects! Demands!
The American Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States are not of equal importance. The Declaration is the greater document because (1) it is the nation’s founding document, (2) it provides the nation’s moral foundation and (3) it made the Constitution possible. This is not to degrade the importance and power of the Constitution, but merely, to put the two into the right perspective.
For God, Freedom and Country.
Bo Perrin is minister of a congregation in Uniontown Ohio. He may be reached atThe American Heritage Project.
