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America's
Government has become Illegitimate on its
own Terms
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The government of the U.S.A. has become
illegitimate on its own terms
In
drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson
made the strongest argument the colonists had: Britain's
government had become illegitimate on its own terms. The
Declaration, like a number of pamphlets of the time and
similar declarations issued by individual colonial
legislatures, recited the basis of English law and liberty
and then showed how Britain's government had violated those
principles.
Where did
Jefferson find the ideas that create liberty? We don't have
to guess, because on March 4, 1825, while a member of the
Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia - the
university Jefferson founded - he caused a resolution to be
passed that specified the texts to be used in classes on the
principles of government at both the university and its law
school.
The
resolution provides, in part:
Whereas,
it is the duty of this Board...to pay special
attention to the principles of government which
shall be inculcated therein, and to provide that
none shall be inculcated which are incompatible
with those on which the Constitutions of this state
and of the United States were genuinely based...it
may be necessary to point out specially where these
principles are to be found legitimately
developed:
Resolved
that:
It
is the opinion of this Board that as to the general
principles of liberty and the rights of man, in
nature and in society, the doctrines of Locke, in
his "Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and
End of Civil Government," and of Sidney in his
"Discourses
on Government,"
may be considered as those generally approved by
our fellow citizens of this, and the United
States.
The Sidney
the resolution refers to is Algernon Sidney, who was
executed in 1683 for writing his Discourses, because he
argued that men established governments for their own good
and, thus, citizens owed no obedience to governments that
enforce evil rather than good.
Sidney
argued from English history to show that the idea that kings
ruled by divine right was a new invention not supported by
English law. Sidney showed that kings were made by the law,
and that the basis of English law and liberty were God's
moral laws in the Bible.
Citing St.
Paul from Romans 13, Sidney said:
He
therefore is only the minister of God, who is not a
terror to good works, but to evil; who executes
wrath upon those that do evil, and is a praise to
those that do well....
All
princes therefore that have power are not to be
esteemed equally the ministers of God. They that
are so, must receive their dignity from a title
that is not common to all, even from a just
employment of their power to the encouragement of
virtue, and to the discouragement of vice. He that
pretends to the veneration and obedience due to the
ministers of God, must by his actions manifest that
he is so....
I
am inclined to believe that the same rule, which
obliges us to yield obedience to the good
magistrate who is the minister of God and assures
us that in obeying him we obey God, does equally
oblige us not to obey those who make themselves the
ministers f the Devil, lest in obeying them we obey
the Devil, whose works they do.
Jefferson
explicitly referenced Sidney's idea in the Declaration of
Independence, when he based America's claim to liberty on
"the
Laws of Nature and of Nature's
God,"
an English legal term of art that means the "eternal
immutable principles of right and wrong to which the Creator
himself conforms...found only in the Holy
Scripture."
Unfortunately,
the government of the United States no longer holds any
allegiance to God's moral laws. Our government has steadily
abandoned these principles over a long period of time
beginning in 1867 when the first law was passed that
violated the Constitution's General Welfare clause by taking
property from one citizen to give it to another.
Since
1867, our government has steadily abrogated God's laws.
While God says that man is responsible for his own welfare,
we have made legalized theft and wealth redistribution the
basis of innumerable policies from Social Security to
prescription drug give-aways. While God says that all men
are created equal we have legalized discrimination through
Affirmative Action. The Bible says God forms us in the womb,
but we have legalized abortion. Where God says that His laws
are given for man's good, we have made it a crime - enforced
by private citizens through lawsuits - to teach the Bible in
school.
On June
26, 2003, the Supreme Court cut the last tie to the
philosophy of Jefferson and Sidney by rewriting the
Declaration of Independence. In legalizing homosexuality,
the Court said that what is right and wrong is not defined
by God's moral rules but simply by whatever two people agree
to. The Court said the basis of morality is simply
consent.
How could
this happen?
It
happened because the character of government always reflects
the character of the people, and most of America's people do
not know or care about God's moral rules, nor understand how
these rules alone create human rights and
liberty.
If we want
to restore the ideas that create our freedom we have only
one course open to us. We must be available to the Holy
Spirit to witness to our fellow citizens and bring them to a
relationship with God through the Bible and Jesus Christ.
Only citizens who know God will agree that His rules of
right and wrong are true and form the only valid basis for
law.
The price
of freedom in war is paid in blood, and the price of freedom
in peacetime is no less dear. Our government has become
illegitimate and must no longer be obeyed in those areas
where it departs from God's law. |
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