Jul 4, 2011 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
It always amazes me when otherwise intelligent people are unable to find evidence of God in our governing documents. The Declaration of Independence, the signing of which we commemorate July 4th, alone has five references to God—two in the first paragraph, one in the middle, and two in the last.
“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.” Who is responsible for “the laws of nature” but God—certainly not man nor nature itself? From the “laws of nature” sprang an awareness of natural law (sometimes called common sense), understood by early philosophers to be a source of higher law that never changes. This was best explained by Cicero, a Roman politician, as early as the 1st Century B. C. —even predating the existence of Christianity when he wrote: “Nor may any other law override it, nor may it be repealed as a whole or in part… Nor is it one thing at Rome and another at Athens, one thing today and another tomorrow, but one eternal and unalterable law, that binds all nations forever.” Of “Nature’s God,” the second reference to deity is, of course, more explicit and needs no explanation.
The third reference to God is the word “creator” found in the second paragraph. “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.” This boldly identified our base for at least three unalienable rights as God, and the Founders identified this truth as self-evident. Any person endowed with common sense or reason would/could come to this conclusion.
So passionate were they with respect to these three “God-given rights” that such was identified as the purpose of government. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Moreover, their right of revolution hinged upon the denial of these “God-given rights.” “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… But when a long train of abuses and usurpations… 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.” Once again, an appeal to natural law, which emanates from God, was noted and the loss of which always justifies revolution.
The fourth and fifth references to God are found in the last paragraph. The rightness of our cause was left to God as judge. “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…”
The fifth and last reference to God asks for his divine protection in our revolutionary course of action. “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.”
There was no dissent noted with respect to these references to God and their placement or emphasis in this document by any of the participants then, nor should there be now.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College
Dec 27, 2010 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
For nearly six thousand years of recorded history man has been dominated by governments best described as regimental in nature. Only for a few fleeting moments in the past has individual man had anything to say concerning the restrictions leveled against him. Under an occasional benevolent monarchy or an unconcerned king man has, in rare instances, been left to himself. Even more rare were the instances when the people effectively, sometimes through persuasion and often by force, instituted monumental changes allowing individual freedom to flourish for a brief time. Such was the case in Athens, Rome, and Runnymede.
Freedom can be likened to a butterfly landing for a time here and there for a season as it passes through the centuries. It has been only the most cautious and perceptive peoples who have permitted it to remain with them long: hence their greatness. Until 1787 man did not know how to hold the butterfly, enticing it to remain with its miraculous gifts. The U.S. Constitution successfully caged the creature. Now its wonders are everywhere apparent, magnificent material things, plenty of food and unheard leisure, etc. No society upon the earth has been more greatly blessed. The last hundred years has brought such gifts to mankind that only the insane would have supposed possible 200 years ago. Truly America has become the land of kings and queens. This is the significance of the American Constitution: the capture of the fleeting butterfly, or individual liberty. But the creature remains ever able and willing to fly away at a moments notice should a thoughtless and non-appreciative generation open the door to its cage, no longer sensitive to the miraculous gifts its presence bestows. The one message the present generation has not seemed to grasp is that freedom can be lost. It does not remain with this society because it is obliged to do so or out of a sense of fondness or duty. It has no allegiance to any people or place. If unleashed it will flutter off to yonder destinations as easily as it touched down in our own. And the generation unleashing it will be left to deal with the consequences.
When Benjamin Franklin walked out of the Convention Hall, after having assisted in the formulation of the new U.S. Constitution, a woman reportedly approached him with the question, “What form of government have you left us?” His answer is one of the monumental statements in history: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Of necessity, the weight of the continuance of any republic rests with the people.
As mentioned, for six thousand years of recorded history man has been ruled by some form of regimentation. (A king, pharaoh, caesar, czar, emperor, fuhrer, dictator, etc. ruled more or less supreme.) His powers were basically unlimited. If you wished to change the government it must be accomplished by force, which followed a general formula. Individual A is king and finds, as most do, that there are those unhappy with his leadership. He views them as a serious threat. As individual B, who represents the opposing forces, becomes stronger, the king works to minimize his efforts, primarily by restricting his ability to get his message the people (media control) and his ability to acquire the means for resistance (weapon control). Regimentation increases proportionally to the perceived need for it. Ultimately the king is forced to deal directly with individual B as a confrontation is unavoidable. Individual B is defeated and ultimately liquidated. Individual C who now represents the opposing forces is much more cautious, he has witnessed the strength of the king and his methods. He gathers the remnants of individual B’s defeated army and adds them to his growing following. The people, tired of the increased regimentation, respond even more favorably to him. He bides his time, then strikes! Individual C becomes king, and power remains with him or his posterity until the process is repeated. The form of government remains the same, only the name of the ruler changes. The only choice the people had was not in what form of government they wished, but in the name of the individual they were to remain servile to.
Even in our own revolution the tendency to do the same certainly existed. Imagine the temptation to George Washington, the undisputed leader of the American army. His rejection of the throne, which many wished him to take, must have been a rarity in the pages of history. How many leaders of major rebellions in the past have, once the throne was within grasp, rejected it and sent their armies home to their farms and families? Could we not suppose it more natural for a man in such position to have at least used his army to influence the transition, positioning them on the outskirts of town should he have cause to use them? Especially since the form of government envisioned was a strange phenomenon, doomed to failure by the greatest political prognosticators of Europe. Likewise, could we not also assume that the natural man would have viewed with suspicion the activities of his counterparts, realizing that they themselves might work an undue influence upon the government or make an all-out grab for complete power should times get rough? “That sneaky Jefferson! I know he is planning something. And Hamilton, he has been entertaining former British officers; certainly I’d better keep an eye on him. James Madison appears to be attracting quite a following, he may make a bid for it all at the end, I’d better move first.” Such suspicion and behavior is characteristic of revolutions since the beginning of time, but seems not to have played any role in our own. The whole ordeal appears to have run completely counter to the natural tendencies of man.
What the Founding Fathers did was quite unnatural in a number of respects. And that leads us to our major point. Power by nature tends to flow away from the people, not conversely. Let us represent this concept by the use of a triangle with the apex at the top being the seat of government, the ruling elite. The wavy lines moving upward within the triangle represent the natural, inevitable tendency of decision-making power to flow away from the people to the ruling elite.
Power flows away from the people for primarily two reasons. One, the ruling elite reach downward in a conscious effort to pull it toward themselves. They view themselves more capable than the masses to make “intelligent” decisions. When problems arise, they simply attempt to enforce decisions regardless of the fact that the authority to do so may be in question. Two, as the people become apathetic, indifferent and unwilling to assume the responsibilities which accompany individual freedom they pass that portion of decision-making power upward to a higher body. For example, “My mother-in-law is now old and feebleminded, a nuisance to say the least. I no longer wish to provide and care for her: let the government do so.” Or, “I do not have time to study the 14 issues on the ballot this election year: let someone else make the decisions.” Or, “I have neither the time nor the interest to study regional government or land-use planning, certainly the government has done so and will rule fairly on these matters.” Or, “The Constitution! Why should I study it? My congressional leaders have my interests at heart and would not do anything to undermine it.” When we are confronted with someone in genuine need our response is not to offer him work or a gift of money to help him along, but rather to give him the address of the nearest welfare department and inform him of the myriad of new government programs tailor made for him. Our response to most problems is, “What is the government doing about it?” Rather than, “What can I do about it?” In one breath we shirk our individual responsibility and trust that portion of the decision-making power upward to the ruling elite. We almost force them to take our unwanted responsibility. They respond by creating another government bureaucracy, which makes mountains of rules and regulations, and, of course, legislates a tax increase to handle the problem. The transfer of power to the governing elite automatically reduces the amount retained by the people; the natural consequence is the loss of freedom.
The two forces mentioned act as magnets pulling power from the people: robbing them of individual decision-making power. They are natural, inevitable, and work their destructive influence in every government on earth regardless of its form. The process is more readily apparent in lands of liberty, as there is more power to flow upward. But the process is natural and with time will occur in any society unless carefully watched and rigorously guarded against.
The significance of Franklin’s statement, “A republic, if you can keep it,” becomes readily apparent. If the people, themselves, did not provide the magnet or force equal to the pull away from freedom described, the experiment in liberty would be doomed. The Founding Fathers gave us the opportunity to resist the forces against freedom, but they were not at all certain the masses could handle it. The people are the only variable in the formula as the forces opposing freedom are constant.
Individual man is the key. Should he fail, and slavery again be his lot, he can blame only himself. Government, which has always been the victor in every confrontation with liberty, would once again claim her throne, and in all probability an experiment such as we are participating in would never occur again. In the first place you would need another group of men able and willing to forego their own natural tendencies and self-interest to reestablish such an order. Next, the chances of having the combination of the elements and environment necessary to repeat the experiment would be infinitesimal. Future founding fathers may not be so apt to undertake the venture knowing that the previous experiment, our own, had failed; confirming in their minds the possibility that man cannot resist the flow of power from himself and thus is incapable of self rule.
If we can assume, for illustrative purposes, that the two triangles are originally of equal size and shape we can illustrate the loss of freedom, over a period of time, by expanding one at the expense of the other. As either the power of the government or of the people increases in size we can assume a decrease in the size of the other. If government were the factor increasing in size the direction would be toward the same type of government as has characterized the ages; a core of elite assume a majority of the decision-making power.
We also observe that as government power increases the power of the two natural forces ascribed to it increase proportionally, while the forces opposing it decrease. Thus the task of restoring more decision-making power to the people becomes increasingly more difficult. Dates have been affixed to the drawings to illustrate the possible shift of power upward we have experienced. In any case, the end result is a form of government characterized by regimentation and hostile to individual freedom. Call it a republic, democracy or socialism the result is the same — the people have little to say concerning the order of things.
But the Founding Fathers did not leave us without a method of resisting the flow of power upwards which had spelled doom to freedom elsewhere. The program they envisioned would have the individual assume responsibility for himself. Should the problem besetting him be too big his family should tackle it. Should it involve the community the city should use its time and money to provide a solution. If no smaller unit of government could deal with it the county should undertake it and finally the state, but under no circumstances was it to go to the Federal Government unless NO SMALLER UNIT OF GOVERNMENT COULD DEAL WITH IT, and then the transfer of power was to be accompanied by an amendment to the constitution legitimizing the transfer. These men realized, and history has shown, that power transferred to the federal government is seldom returned.
Today when we are beset by a problem we immediately respond with, “What is the federal government doing about it?” The secret to liberty is to keep decision-making to its lowest level. The individual has more control over decisions made closer to home and they are usually solved less expensively and more judiciously. Imagine the result if we followed this program today. Most welfare cases, for example, could be handled on the individual or family level. The county could quite readily handle the few genuine cases remaining, perhaps even the state, but certainly not a higher level of government. Imagine the reduction in taxes!
Returning to our original thought, the fleeting butterfly of individual freedom landed in our midst and the Founding Fathers ingeniously found and implemented the secret of enticing it to remain with us as long as we desired it. Yet there are natural forces at work ready to undermine its influence and chase it from our midst. Individual and mass man find themselves in the never-ending tug-of-war with these forces to retain the benefits of the prized creature. As they lose strength the enemy gains it. Only eternal vigilance will sustain the cause. Our forefathers seemed to sense the enormous tragedy to the concept: of liberty should the forces of regimentation win again. Mankind waited so long for this moment; can he now hold it?
Daniel Webster, in his eulogy of George Washington, best described the great catastrophe to human kind should the people prove unable to resist the flow of power from them. He wrote:
… If disastrous wars should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvest. If were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these may be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skillful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful and melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Greciean art; for they will be monuments of a more glorious edifice of constitutional American liberty. (Two Worlds: The story of man and the major influences on his life, Flick-Reedy Education Enterprises, 1966, pp. 97-98)
But this need not be man’s fate this time! The Statue of Liberty and the Jefferson Memorial do not have to symbolize a dead experiment as does the Coliseum and the Parthenon. Rome and Athens died because they failed to understand the bitter consequences of their neglect of natural law. We have their experience plus our own to help us steer a straight course. Surely this time man is equal to the task besetting him.
Then how does he rebound? First, and most importantly, man must realize that freedom can be lost, that in this respect his civilization is no different from those preceding it. To the “now generation” that has never experienced anything else, that in itself would be a major break-through. Born in a land of plenty with comparatively few restraints upon decision-making powers, it is too easy to assume that such has always been the case. Most Americans have no concept whatsoever of freedom’s rarity in the pages of history. Man must not only realize that individual liberty can be lost, but most importantly, he must not be caught up in the euphoria that because this civilization is so much superior to those which have preceded it that the rules no longer apply.
This accomplished, man must become cognizant of the forces that drive him, such that he can consciously repel those that do not better him. The realization that power has the tendency to flow upward and that the forces causing this transfer of decision-making power exist in every form of government inevitably leading to increased regimentation, enables man, conscious of this fact, to marshal his forces in opposition. With no knowledge of these unseen forces he simply reacts to them, and the governing system reverts back to the age old master servant relationship that has characterized the ages. To resist he must stop passing decision-making power upward, and to do this he must become individually involved.
Likewise politicians who insist they represent us must resist the urge to pull decision-making power to themselves, to think of themselves as the only answer to man’s every dilemma. Each must resist the impulse to think of himself as competent to run every service station, beauty parlor, donut shop, oil company, farm, factory, pharmacy, airline, dry cleaners, fast-foods outlet, dairy, or baby-sitting service in America. Such an all knowing perspective is ludicrous, yet mountains of legislation are annually heaped upon these and other business ventures by a mere 535 men and women who could not possibly know as much in any one of these ventures as the thousands thus involved on a daily basis. The governing elite must resist the inclination to set themselves above mankind to arrange, organize, and regulate according to their fancy. The Founding Fathers had the formula if we only had the sense to follow it — KEEP DECISION-MAKING POWER AS CLOSE TO THE INDIVIDUAL AS POSSIBLE. But the politicians, in general, amid loud acclamations of praise upon the Founders, violate the very success formula that made them and this country great.
But it is in the understanding of natural law that man will be able to ward off the destructive forces most effectively. Even if we get the people to resist the flow of power upward by becoming more involved and if our elected officials were persuaded to resist the impulse to assume the position of “all knowing”, these are only temporary measures. Any permanent deferent must have its basis in societies’ study, understanding and implementation of natural law. At the present time man is hardly cognizant of this aspect of his existence. Man’s surest guardian is not in defying the laws of nature, but in working with them. There is more truth to the cliché, “You can’t fool mother nature”, than we had supposed.
Though we have entered into the age of the atom and the electron and we cite these and other accomplishments as the height of civilization and sit back and marvel at our great advance, man himself, his natural tendencies and inclinations, have remained about the same as centuries before. The fact is that he has seemingly not improved morally and ethically at all. And though he now understands a great deal with respect to natural law and cause and effect relationships in the physical sciences he has not yet accepted the possibility that such absolutes also exist in the less precise sciences and in all areas of human experience. Is there a cause and effect relationship in everything in existence? If man does something that undermines the laws of nature, is there ultimately a consequence — a price which is mandated? Only recently has man finally admitted that there is a natural consequence for eating junk food — less healthy bodies.
We readily recognize such absolutes in the physical sciences. If two men jump off a high mountain the result is the same at the bottom though one may have been intimately acquainted with the law of gravity and the other ignorant of the principle. Nature does not excuse one and punish the other. The bones of both are broken. Many recall the instant death of three astronauts Jan. 27, 1967 as they sat in their space capsule awaiting lift-off. Each was burned to a crisp in a split second because one law of nature was forgotten or ignored.
Though the consequences are not so immediate and readily apparent, the same cause and effect relationship manifests itself with respect to human nature. Within limits it is predictable, and any government formed or practiced that disregards natural law must endure a consequence. We have already cited two such natural laws in government. One, as the people become more apathetic and indifferent they inevitably pass decision-making power to a higher body away from themselves. Two, all governments have the tendency to draw decision-making power to themselves. We can add others. Government unrestrained ultimately rises to its maximum level. It is the nature of government to extract maximum authority and power from any activity in which it has a hand. Monetary debauchery begets inflation. The more decision-making power residing at the top of the political structure, the less there is at the bottom. The tax burden is directly proportional to the amount of decision-making power residing at the top. As it increases so does the tax load. Better stated, the more social legislation there is, the higher the taxes are. And finally, “mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” (Declaration of Independence)
Consider the following natural laws hypothesized by the great French philosopher Frederic Bastiat. “Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims.” (Frederic Bastiat, The Law, The Foundation For Economic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, p. 11). When he can, man prefers to “live and prosper at the expense of others.” This is a derivative of a higher natural law that postulates that man’s “instincts impel him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.” (Ibid., pp. 9-10). When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. Consequently the “safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable.” (Ibid. p. 12) When the function of government changes from protecting property to violating it “then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.” In which case, “political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing.” (Ibid., p. 18) Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent. (Ibid., p. 29) The law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice. (Ibid., p. 28) “Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in.” (Ibid., pp. 30-31)
Though obviously space constraints do not permit our giving detail to these natural laws as we did the first two and, of course, one may not see these consequences or reactions quite as neatly as I have portrayed them (especially in the absence of an objective presentation of them), it never-the-less remains that there exists a cause and effect relationship in matters of governance which is, with some limitations, predictable and that is precisely what is not understood and taught in our history, civics, and political science classes today. Nor will it ever be until it is understood. And the academic world must not only accept a large portion of the blame for its neglect, but assume the responsibility for its insertion into the body politic in the future. No student of history should graduate oblivious to them. All forms of government and governmental matters ought to be molded around the concepts of natural law, and human nature. They cannot be avoided nor defied without a natural consequence. As it now stands, and has for much of the six thousand years of recorded history, matters of government are structured or enacted oblivious to them.
If man is to rebound we must set our greatest minds to the task of understanding natural law in this area just as fervently as it is studied in the physical sciences. Such laws have been discovered here and there throughout history, but as far as is known, with the exception of one time, there has never been a concerted attempt on the part of the academic community or governing elite to study and implement them.
An in depth study of the writing of the Founding Fathers justifies the statement that they collectively had a much greater understanding of human nature and cause and effect relations than has any group ever assembled in the past or present. Yet the Constitution and their writings are hardly considered today. We have lost an awareness of the importance of this understanding. The inevitable consequence of this neglect will be the fluttering away of the fleeting butterfly of individual liberty.
While our greatest minds are set to this task the rest of us could benefit greatly by a thorough study of the writings of the Founding Fathers with any eve to how they structured the government to deal with man’s natural tendencies and cause and effect. Once taught in the schools, mass man might be best served to minimize oratory and party in his voting practices and maximize his understanding of natural law and cause and effect. The natural effect of this, and the aforementioned activities, will be the republic restored and preserved and man will once again leap into the future with magnificent material blessings as never before.
