The Legacy of the Declaration of Independence

This Sunday, July 4th, we will once again celebrate our nation’s founding, marking the day in 1776 that the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence.


The Declaration of Independence was intended to be an official statement explaining why the 13 American colonies had declared their independence from Great Britain. In the years following its passage, however, this statement of principles about the rights of man grew to mean much more.

America became the only country in history founded, as Leo Strauss explained, “in explicit opposition to Machiavellian principles,” by which he meant crass, power politics. Instead, America was founded on a set of clearly expressed “self-evident” truths. Thomas Jefferson said the Declaration was “intended to be an expression of the American mind,” and indeed, no document since has so succinctly and so eloquently spelled out the spirit of America.

Our country has evolved out of the timeless truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence to develop a distinct character and set of values that distinguishes us from even other Western democracies.

This holiday, it is worth taking a look at how several key phrases from the Declaration of Independence have served as definitional statements about the aspirations of America, and how those words of our Founding Fathers’ have affected America in the 234 years since they were written.

“…all men are created equal”
The Founding Fathers who authored the Declaration were the first people in the history of the world ever to express our natural equality as a principle of government in such an unqualified way. Though neither the Constitution that followed nor the Founders personally quite fulfilled the promise of those words, it has since been the project of our country to accomplish them.
America came though to recognize that we are not all literally equal—we are born with different capabilities and attributes, and to different stations in life—the words of the founders capture the truth that we must treat each other as equals. We are “created equal” in the sense that all men (and, we now recognize, all women) have the same natural rights, granted to them by God. We are all the same under the law.
This powerful statement of universal rights was used by abolitionists as a moral cudgel to rid the United States of slavery, an institution explicitly at odds with the truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln consistently evoked the phrase in his famous Peoria speech against the Kansas-Nebraska Act and later during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. As President, Lincoln again included the phrase in the Gettysburg Address as the moral underpinning by which the union should be rededicated. Later, during the women’s suffrage movement and civil rights struggles of the 1960s, leaders such as Martin Luther King used the powerful phrase as a reminder to America that separate (treating people differently under the law based on their race) was not equal.

Leaders such as Lincoln and King believed that as America’s founding political document, the Declaration of Independence is our moral guide with which to interpret the Constitution. They saw that we cannot divorce the law from the moral underpinnings that legitimize it.

But by what authority does that moral underpinning exist?

“…endowed by their Creator”

The core contention of the Declaration of Independence and the principle of natural rights upon which America was founded is that there is a higher moral order upon which the laws of man must be based. The Declaration asserts the existence of “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” which had a clear meaning in 18th Century England and America. It referred to the will of God as displayed by the natural order of the world.

John Locke, who was widely read by the leaders of colonial America, wrote in his Second Treatise on Government: “Thus the law of nature stands as an eternal rule of all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men’s actions, must ... be conformable to the law of nature, i.e., to the will of God.”

William Blackstone, who was arguably the single greatest influence on the creation of the American legal system, wrote in Commentaries on the Laws of England, “As man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should at all points conform to his maker’s will.”

America’s founding was heavily influenced by the English and Scottish enlightenment, which specifically included a space for God and religion in its conceptions of rights, freedom and human reason. This gave the American Revolution a distinctly different character than the French Revolution, which in its most radical phase sought freedom by casting off all authority and remnants of the existing order -- especially God.

In the American formulation as declared by our founders, man’s rights come from God, not from man’s ability to “reason” them into existence. Man does not depend on government to grant him rights through a bureaucratic process, but instead to secure those rights that have been granted to him by God.

In other words, power comes from God, to you, which is then loaned to government.

Thus, the Declaration states, “That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The English and Scottish enlightenment’s conscious inclusion of a space for God and religion had another key influence on the American system of government. Whereas the French Revolution believed it could create a “new man” through government education and indoctrination, the American Founding Fathers had a profound sense of the fallen nature of man. Thus, they created a system of checks and balances that would serve as a restraint on those in power.

“…the pursuit of happiness”

Here again we see the influence of the English and Scottish enlightenment on the Founding Fathers. For writers such as John Locke and Francis Hutcheson, the term “happiness” meant something close to “wisdom and virtue.” It did not mean hedonism or other shallow pleasures as the term is too often confused to mean today.

It is also essential to note that the Declaration does not say that we have a right to have happiness provided to us. It says we have the right to pursue happiness – an active verb. As I point out in jest to audiences in my speeches, the Declaration says nothing about a right to redistribution of happiness. It says nothing about happiness stamps. It does not say some people can be too happy and that government should make them less happy out of a sense of fairness.
The Founding Fathers understood that government could not give people happiness, that it was instead up to government to create an environment where the people could best work to achieve their dreams. As AEI’s Arthur Brooks has pointed out, polls of wealthy and successful people show that the harder one works for that success, the greater happiness one derives from it.

America is a land where through hard work, determination, and entrepreneurialism, people can achieve their big dreams. The right of “the pursuit of happiness” spelled out in the Declaration is a definitional statement about the nature of America that has attracted people from all over the world to come here to pursue those dreams.

Who We Are This July 4th

A bedrock belief of American conservatism is a respect for the established traditions and values of American culture. Conservatives believe from the time the first colonists landed in Jamestown, America took on a unique culture and set of values that have set us apart from our European cousins: a belief in natural rights, strong religious faith and values, the importance of the work ethic, and a spirit of community that manifests itself in a belief in limited government and strong civic participation. It is this set of beliefs – truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence – that have made America so successful, and they deserve to be protected.

The modern Left – what I describe in my book To Save America as a “secular-socialist machine” – is using every lever of power at its disposal to dismantle our unique American civilization and replace it with a secular, bureaucratic culture in which government is big, citizens are small, and our rights are defined by the state rather than endowed by our Creator. Equality under the law is being discarded in favor of equality of results; consent of the governed is being subverted by an increasingly overbearing federal bureaucracy and imperial judiciary; and the pursuit of happiness is being undermined by a redistributive welfare state that kills the can-do, entrepreneurial spirit of America.
This July 4th, I hope you will take time to read the Declaration of Independence and consider the truths about our rights and freedoms contained within. I hope you will take time to appreciate the sacrifices made by the founding generation and generations since to secure our liberty.
But most of all, I hope you will take time to appreciate the greatness of America and how hard we must be willing to work to preserve that which makes it so special.
Happy Independence Day.
 
WRITTEN BY: Newt Gingrich and original article available by clicking on the title of this blog entry

'LOST' No More

In the single biggest plot-revealing episode, and one of the best overall, in the long and entertaining history of the TV show 'LOST', last night showed that the writers and producers have indeed taken it's huge audience on a worthy morality trip.

For those who do not watch the show, the references to the story line herein will be over your head, but you can still understand the direction this article will take. For those many who, like me, are already strongly addicted, you might even find yourself farther along than these thoughts will travel.

For the unwashed, 'LOST' is a program on the ABC network that is now running it's 6th and final highly-rated and award-winning season. It's story began with the crash of an airliner just off the coast of an island in the South Pacific, and the efforts of the survivors to, well, survive on that island in the aftermath of the crash. That has been even more difficult than it might sound.

It would take me forever to lead anyone who has not watched through the various characters and story lines, so I won't even try, but suffice it to say that there have always been a number of underlying mysteries to the plot line, not the least of which has been that the island has some type of mysterious, mystical quality to it. So what indeed is this island supposed to be, or represent?

There is also a character named Richard Alpert who, despite flashbacks to the island's past and flash forwards to it's future, always remains the same age whether the show is taking place in the present day, or in the 1950's, or in the 1970's, or a few years into the future. Who is Alpert, and how is it that he never ages?

There are a number of characters that have died during the course of the show's run, and yet somehow turn up either 'alive' again or as apparitions, appearing to various other characters at pivotal moments, often with important advice or messages. Who is really dead, who is alive, who is an apparition, who is really who they appear to be?

Even the main characters of the program such as Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Locke, Sayid and more all seem to have multiple elements to their personal backgrounds and human characters that defy definition. Who are these people really? Why are they here on the island? What is their individual, specific role in the ultimate story line?

Most importantly perhaps has been that ultimate story line. What indeed is 'LOST' really all about? Early on it appeared to be a 'survivor' type program. Some people survived a plane crash and had to learn to live on a deserted island while hoping for a rescue. Then it became apparent that the island was in fact not deserted, and their survival became even more difficult and deadly as they banded together to overcome the new and ever more mysterious challenges.

But as the show has moved along and the story line has progressed through the years, the plot line has revealed that the program is, in fact, about something much bigger than a 'stranded on an island trying to survive' story. 'LOST', it turns out, is about the ultimate struggle of good against evil. And not in some generic idea sense, but in the very nature and origin of good and evil.

As was revealed last night (disclaimer alert for those fans who have not watched), the island actually represents the very 'cap' or wall that separates hell from the earth. The character Jacob is apparently a sort-of angelic 'protector' of the island who has been bestowed with power to keep the island safe. He is, however, not immortal and if Jacob were to be killed the island could cease to protect the earth from the evils of hell spilling out directly on to the earth.

That evil, of course, comes in it's most dramatic form from the devil. The shows 'Man in Black' who can take on the form of a 'Smoke Monster' and who has now taken on the form of the deceased character John Locke is in fact Satan himself. With Jacob out of the way, the devil is free to escape from the island and loose hell on earth.

The devil, unfortunately for him, cannot directly kill Jacob himself. He must get some human to step up and do it willingly. For centuries, Jacob has been luring men and women to the island via shipwreck and plane crash as a sort of test for humanity. He believes that men will ultimately prove to be of a 'good' nature, but appears thus far to have been disappointed. He begins to sense that one day soon, the devil may make good on his long-standing threat to "find a loophole", finally have Jacob killed, and make his escape from the island to earth.

This was the reason for the crash of Oceanic flight 815, the plane crash that brought most of the main characters to the island. Jacob had been scouting for years for someone to ultimately take his place should the devil actually succeed in having him killed. Jacob has ultimately found six candidates to replace him, and directed all of their lives towards the point that placed them on that doomed flight. All six are now on the island, though the actual successor has yet to be revealed, perhaps not even yet been actually and finally selected.

As was already seen in the show, perhaps the single most conflicted character in it's history, Benjamin Linus, is finally deceived by the devil to kill Jacob. At the current time, the devil is preparing to make his exit from the island. What might try to stand in his way ultimately, who will become a 'successor' to Jacob, and how that battle plays out will make up the rest of the story line, in all likelihood.

But the important point in all of this is that 'LOST' has come out of the closet. It recognizes publicly that there is indeed good and evil in the world. It recognizes that there is indeed a real place called hell, and a real devil that means real harm to the world. It recognizes that the only way to overcome that evil power is for good men to recognize those facts and to be willing to stand up and fight against it.

Richard Alpert was a man driven by complete love and devotion to his wife, a woman whom he lost in her youth before they could really even begin their lives together. At his lowest point, he was drawn to the island by Jacob, who touched him with the ability to live forever and bestowed on him the role of 'messenger' and 'guide' to those others who would be drawn to the island for their own test.

Alpert himself finds that after generations of service to Jacob, who promised him a pivotal role in some earthly epic, that with Jacob now dead his life appears to have been lived in vain. He believes that he has strived and worked all this time for no reason, and he abandons his faith and prepares to instead turn himself over to the devil, who he now believes may have the actual ultimate answers and truth.

It is at this low point in last night's episode that Richard is finally comforted by the soul and spirit of his deceased wife, through the translated words of the character Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes acting as an intermediary. Alpert appears to have been pulled back from the abyss, and last night left us with at least the impression that he would now refocus himself on his work towards ultimate good that Jacob assigned to him.

The show 'LOST' has never been simple, and there have been many opportunities to question the outlandishness of some of it's basic premises and plot lines. But as the last few seasons have wound down towards what should be a dramatic ultimate conclusion, most of those questions are indeed becoming answered.

'LOST' fans should no longer be lost. The show has clearly defined it's basic premise of good against evil. Both fans of the show and those who have never watched would be wise to understand that it's basic premise is indeed true. There is a devil, there is a hell, and he does want both to bring hell to earth and to capture your immortal soul for eternity.

It is a part of the job of every one of us during our lives here on earth to recognize that evil, to open ourselves to God's love for us, to embrace Jesus Christ as did Alpert and his wife, to love one another and find inspiration to go on in the most difficult of moments, and to overcome or at least to willingly fight against evil whenever we are faced with it. Like the direction that the show finally revealed last night, this will leave you lost no more.

NOTE: as always, the title of this article at the original www.mattveasey.com website is actually a link to further information on the topic. This time it links you to the official site for 'LOST' at which you can view all episodes, including last night's highlighted herein.