The Declaration of Independence
A time sensitive announcement:
“Obamacare Announcement
FLEMING to make MAJOR Obamacare Announcement TOMORROW—Tuesday July 5th
Dear Friends,
I will be announcing an important effort: TOMORROW—Tuesday July 5—regarding the repeal of Obamacare and its pending consideration before Supreme Court of the United States.
Here are the details:
When: Tuesday July 5, 2011
Time: 10pm EST (9pm Central)
FOX BUSINESS NETWORK
Host: Eric Bolling
Show: Follow The Money
To find Fox Business in your area go to:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/channel_finder.html
Please spread the word and tune in!
Sincerely,
JOHN FLEMING, M.D.
Member of Congress
P.S. For the latest on my efforts to repeal Obamacare, please take a minute to visit my website at http://www.fleming.house.gov/ or follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/repjohnfleming or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/repfleming”
NEW POST:
WATCH this video! http://vimeo.com/15571221
Taking Back America Music Video from Norvell Rose on Vimeo.
WATCH this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC18F9mOhsY
From: Tea Party Nation
“Happy Independence Day!
Posted by Lloyd Marcus on July 4, 2011 at 12:52am
Patriots, some folks are extremely uncomfortable embracing an ‘us against them’ mindset. However, the cold reality is there are those who love freedom, liberty and America and those who do not. Moses cried out, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come to me’.
On this Independence Day, I salute the Patriot Guard Riders, the good guys. They obviously chose the Lord’s side by defending military families and the funerals of their loved ones against evil nut case fanatics. http://bit.ly/gpXR6D
Gold Star mom, Debbie Lee, in honor of her decorated son, Marc Alan Lee, is also supporting the families of fallen soldiers with her wonderful organization, AmericasMightyWarriors.org
http://americasmightywarriors.org/
Conservative musicians across America donated their recorded songs (40 selected) to Tea Are The World with 100% of the proceeds going to AmericasMightyWarriors.org
Music Video http://vimeo.com/15571221
Please visit and purchase. I promise the music will bless you and your purchase will bless many.
Happy Independence Day!
God bless,
Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated America”
From: Tea Party Nation
“The Fourth of July
Posted by Judson Phillips on July 4, 2011 at 9:16am
Happy Fourth of July!
Today we celebrate what may be the most momentous event of the last millennia. Fifty-six men gathered in Philadelphia. What they did not only changed the course of a nation but changed the course of the world.
What did they do?
Simply put, they signed a document.
More to the point, they shook the political world to its core.
By signing the Declaration, they threw out tyranny. By signing, they rebuked oppression and declared liberty. By signing, they said God gave rights, not a fickle tyrant. If God gave us rights, no man could take them away.
By signing, they launched a Copernican revolution. Man did not belong to the state. Man did not live to serve the state. The state exists to serve man. The state exists for the benefit of man. The state exists to protect its citizens, not to exploit them for a ruling class.
By declaring life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable rights; the rulers of man were reduced to being the servants of the people.
By declaring freedom, tyranny was thrown down. By declaring independence, man’s better nature was allowed to achieve greatness and the depravity of man was cast out of the public square.
By declaring our emancipation, we declared that all men truly are created equal and no man has the right to be our master by virtue of birth or because of the arrogance of power and the narcissism of authority.
By declaring liberty, they had the audacity to believe they could and would change the world. Their hope was in God and not in men. Their hope was not in the power of government to force change on people but the power of people to change government from an oppressive master to a meek and humble servant.
This day we celebrate our freedom. This day we celebrate our liberty. This day we celebrate our independence. As our founding fathers had to fight to establish liberty, on this date we must fight to restore it.
Let us fight so that we will live up to the expectations of those who made our freedoms possible and not live down to those who would make government again our master and who would trade our freedoms for chains.
Today let us celebrate freedom!
Happy Independence Day from all of us here at Tea Party Nation.”
From: Tea Party Nation
“One Nation Over God, Divisible
Posted by Ron Miller on July 4, 2011 at 2:27am
This is the 51st Independence Day celebration in my lifetime and, as I watched the fireworks over the Chesapeake Bay from a friend’s house, I found myself wondering how many more of these we will celebrate as the United States of America.
It has been my great honor over the past few years to be part of a grass-roots movement that took the nation by surprise, and has revived our institutional memory of what it truly means to be American. Long-forgotten words like liberty, faith and family are being spoken from lecterns at outdoor rallies, public libraries, churches, exhibition halls, gymnasiums or wherever Tea Party groups gather.
I have been invited to and welcomed with open arms to these gatherings, and I have broken bread and had meaningful fellowship with people all over the country who are bound by their devotion to the American ideal as it once existed. I have been blessed by their hospitality as they have opened their homes to me, given me a place to rest, and fed me from their bounty before I went on my way to the next destination.
And yet, I feel despair, and I feel anger.
I read about people who have been kissed by fame, and have used their blessing to disparage the people who have shown me such kindness. I read of Janeane Garofalo and Keith Olbermann, still professing to know the hearts of tens of millions of people they’ve neither met nor bothered to meet, with Garofalo declaring:
‘I do not enjoy when people don’t like me … I would prefer to be well liked in any and all situations. And I also feel it’s quite unjust to be punished for calling racism ‘racism.’’
No, Ms. Garofalo, the injustice is finding people who are NOT racists guilty of racism, and THAT is why people don’t like you. I have been overwhelmed by the love of white strangers who cared not about the color of my skin, but that I shared the same ideals they did. They honor my service to my country, in which I proudly wore the uniform here and abroad to defend your liberty, and that of your self-important media friend, to say utterly indefensible and evil things about good, decent people.
How. dare. you.
I watch my president who, by the nature of the position to which we have elevated him, should be a statesman and a leader in this time of great crisis. Many of the men who preceded him summoned in troubled times a strength of spirit and a commitment to unity that brought the nation together to meet its greatest challenges.
Not so the campaigner-in-chief occupying the White House.
He stirs the pot of covetousness and envy, blaming people who have worked hard to make a living, and been successful at it, for all the ills those who suffer are facing. He paints a stark picture of corporate fat cats versus starving children and sick seniors to justify the same failed prescriptions for our economy, yet it is a false choice. What’s worse, he knows it. He knows that every dollar earned is not a dollar taken from someone else, and that capitalism, when allowed to flourish, creates more dollars to go around for everyone.
If he doesn’t, and he truly believes the rhetoric he is spouting, then he is a dangerous man who must not be handed the reins of power again.
Despite the fact he is the president of all the people, he has deemed some to be unworthy of the fruits of their labors. By proposing the use of the coercive power of government to seize whatever portion of those fruits he deems necessary, he has reduced the producers of this nation to mere property. If you own the fruits of their labor, you own their labor, and therefore you own them.
I thought the question of who owns a man’s labor was put to rest with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
And he won’t stop there. He is determined to win reelection, even if it means pitting blacks against whites, Hispanics against whites, gays against straights, or whatever coalition he needs to push back against the tide of disillusionment from those voters who expected so much more of him than his character apparently allows him to deliver.
Across the country, God is demonized and disparaged as the wellspring of intolerance, because man cannot accept that God doesn’t think or act as he does. We presume that we, the created, are more enlightened than the Creator, and so we overturn everything that doesn’t conform to our will.
It’s our kingdom come, our will be done.
John Adams was unequivocal when he said, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’
He was not advocating a national religion, but rather a common sense of humility and awe at the beauty, vastness and order of the universe, and the magnitude of the One who created such magnificence.
Instead, we presume to tell God what He should really believe or how He should really feel. The foolishness of such thinking should be readily apparent:
‘But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?’ ~ Romans 9: 20-21
Why is humility toward God and the subservience of our will to His important to America? Because, as Adams stated, we must have the values to govern ourselves if the system of limited government they created in our Constitution is to work.
Even if one doesn’t believe in God, there still must be an inviolable set of virtues and standards to which one submits. Without them, our individual desires, regardless of what they are, become ‘rights,’ and conflict is inevitable. (Think homosexual behavior!—my addition)
This is why I wonder how many more July 4th celebrations we have left as the United States of America. We are not united, and we cannot come together even in a time of great peril.
Our leaders are either the instigators of this divisiveness, or they are too timid to push back against it.
People with the fame and influence to bring us together are insistent on tearing us apart. They mock and insult people who don’t agree with them, and the truth is irrelevant to their rants.
God is being told He’s out of step with the times, and needs to make way so the loud, arrogant and audacious creation He called man can do whatever he wants.
So this is how it’s going to go down. Nothing is going to be done to handle the approaching tsunami of debt. Nothing is going to be done to reduce the size of government or its intrusion into our lives. Nothing is going to be done to respect liberty, faith and family.
One party doesn’t want to do anything about it, so they deny there’s a problem, or think that taking more money from people is the answer.
The other party doesn’t have the guts to fight them because they are more concerned with people taking offense than they are with saving the nation from itself.
As a result, we’re going off a cliff, and we’re going to crash.
Those who understand that the best government in America is self-government will pick themselves up, dust themselves off and figure out how to make a way for themselves and their families. They’ll raise their own food, take care of themselves and their neighbors through the bartering of goods and services, and arm themselves to provide for their own security.
Those who don’t understand this, or who have never had to fend for themselves, will flail about in frustration because the promise of government always being there for them was a lie and, like the victims of Hurricane Katrina, they will wait for someone to come and rescue them rather than saving themselves.
Ultimately, what will it take to see more Independence Day celebrations? I have one answer:
‘If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.’ ~ 2 Chronicles 7: 14 (AMEN!—my addition)
From: Western Representation PAC
http://www.westernpac.org/
“Dear Patriot,
On the Fourth of July, many of us are used to the typical written fare, celebrations of the undeniably extraordinary birth of our great Republic. We read motivating patriotic themes of sacrifice, democracy, and love of country.
But what we hear less frequently is the hard truth of our contemporary crisis, and how the sacrifices of yesterday are on the verge of being forever lost to the excesses of today.
Although I'm tempted to diverge into a litany of federal excesses that are killing the country, I'm not going to take my own bait. Rather, let's take a little stroll down memory lane and consider where we've come from and try to stoke the embers left from the greatest Revolution on earth.
Our Founders hailed from countries with tyrannical central governments that had little regard for fundamental freedoms. Driven by a desire to worship free of persecution, many of our ancestors were willing to suffer incredibly high mortality rates rather than the heavy hand of government. Jamestown lost about 80% of its original inhabitants. Their descendants formed the backbone of the Revolution.
The Founders were not ignorant of this history. They were intimately familiar with the extreme sacrifices of their ancestors and why they sought out this special land. So when the heavy hand of Britain began to squeeze ever so tightly, these exceptional families made the only moral choice: confront the evil no matter the cost.
When you hear the stories of bare-footed patriots barely surviving through the vicious winter in Valley Forge and wonder what motivated them, think back through the history, and thousands that sacrificed before them. They knew the motto, 'Live free or die.' Their ancestors lived the motto. As did ours.
Why, then, do we seem so complacent? Perhaps we're the frog in the pot that's been slowly heated to a catastrophic boiling point, not recognizing the tyranny until it's almost too late.
But there's hope. The same freedom-loving spirit that drove persecuted thousands to our shores, and motivated the sacrifices of life, liberty, and property in our Founders' pursuit of Independence has not disappeared. Join a local tea party and catch the Spirit. We will save this nation.
Happy Birthday, America!
Sincerely,
Joe Miller, Chairman
Western Representation PAC”
http://www.westernpac.org/
Donate: https://www.westernpac.org/donate/
From: http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2286/default.asp
“Calvin Coolidge
The Inspiration of the Declaration
Speech at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
July 5, 1926
We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgement of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.
Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.
It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.
It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose they have become sanctified.
It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes which led to the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were largely economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which interfered with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose taxes which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to these laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.
We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.
The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.
While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.
This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.
When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history.
One empire after another has arisen, only to crumble away as its constituent parts separated from each other and set up independent governments of their own. Such actions long ago became commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.
It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.
If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.
It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.
The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.
But if these truths to which the declaration refers have not before been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect upon our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been true. But the principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations before the advent of the French political philosophy that characterized the middle of the eighteenth century. In fact, they come from an earlier date. A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that—
‘The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people’
‘The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.’
This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise, entitled ‘The Church’s Quarrel Espoused,’ in 1710, which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.
While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch-Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his ‘best ideas of democracy’ had been secured at church meetings.
That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that ‘All men are created equally free and independent.’ It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, ‘Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man.’ Again, ‘The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth . . . .’ And again, ‘For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine.’ And still again, ‘Democracy is Christ’s government in church and state.’ Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.
When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature’s God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say ‘The people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven.’
No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.
Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country.
This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.
If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world.
Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.
We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. THE PEOPLE HAVE TO BEAR THEIR OWN RESPONSIBILITIES (My Capitalization!—my addition). There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government—the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that ‘Democracy is Christ’s government.’ The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.
On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to present evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at home and the ever-broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although these things are well known, their frequent consideration is an encouragement and an inspiration. But it is not results and effects so much as sources and causes that I believe it is even more necessary constantly to contemplate. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.
It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one might encroach upon the other. These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has been an ever-broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.
Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre (or scepter—my addition) in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy.
We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.”
Watch this video. Count the number of times reference is made to GOD!
From: Tea Party Nation
“Nothing of importance happened today
Posted by Judson Phillips on July 3, 2011 at 5:57pm
‘Nothing of importance happened today.’ King George III, July 4, 1776.
On July 3, 1776, the final draft of the Declaration of Independence sat in the desk of Thomas Jefferson. On the next day 56 men would sign this document that would change the world. On this day, the even of our celebration of independence, it is worth remembering what they wrote, what they suffered and what they did.
Read and celebrate, WE THE PEOPLE.
‘The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
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 (My capitalization—my addition.) entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR (My capitalization—my addition.) with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the SUPREME JUDGE (My capitalization—my addition.) of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the 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, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE (My capitalization—my addition.), we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.’”
4 references to GOD:
1) and of nature’s GOD
2) endowed by their CREATOR
3) appealing to the SUPREME JUDGE
4) the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE
A time sensitive announcement:
“Obamacare Announcement
FLEMING to make MAJOR Obamacare Announcement TOMORROW—Tuesday July 5th
Dear Friends,
I will be announcing an important effort: TOMORROW—Tuesday July 5—regarding the repeal of Obamacare and its pending consideration before Supreme Court of the United States.
Here are the details:
When: Tuesday July 5, 2011
Time: 10pm EST (9pm Central)
FOX BUSINESS NETWORK
Host: Eric Bolling
Show: Follow The Money
To find Fox Business in your area go to:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/channel_finder.html
Please spread the word and tune in!
Sincerely,
JOHN FLEMING, M.D.
Member of Congress
P.S. For the latest on my efforts to repeal Obamacare, please take a minute to visit my website at http://www.fleming.house.gov/ or follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/repjohnfleming or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/repfleming”
NEW POST:
WATCH this video! http://vimeo.com/15571221
Taking Back America Music Video from Norvell Rose on Vimeo.
WATCH this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC18F9mOhsY
From: Tea Party Nation
“Happy Independence Day!
Posted by Lloyd Marcus on July 4, 2011 at 12:52am
Patriots, some folks are extremely uncomfortable embracing an ‘us against them’ mindset. However, the cold reality is there are those who love freedom, liberty and America and those who do not. Moses cried out, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come to me’.
On this Independence Day, I salute the Patriot Guard Riders, the good guys. They obviously chose the Lord’s side by defending military families and the funerals of their loved ones against evil nut case fanatics. http://bit.ly/gpXR6D
Gold Star mom, Debbie Lee, in honor of her decorated son, Marc Alan Lee, is also supporting the families of fallen soldiers with her wonderful organization, AmericasMightyWarriors.org
http://americasmightywarriors.org/
Conservative musicians across America donated their recorded songs (40 selected) to Tea Are The World with 100% of the proceeds going to AmericasMightyWarriors.org
Music Video http://vimeo.com/15571221
Please visit and purchase. I promise the music will bless you and your purchase will bless many.
Happy Independence Day!
God bless,
Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated America”
From: Tea Party Nation
“The Fourth of July
Posted by Judson Phillips on July 4, 2011 at 9:16am
Happy Fourth of July!
Today we celebrate what may be the most momentous event of the last millennia. Fifty-six men gathered in Philadelphia. What they did not only changed the course of a nation but changed the course of the world.
What did they do?
Simply put, they signed a document.
More to the point, they shook the political world to its core.
By signing the Declaration, they threw out tyranny. By signing, they rebuked oppression and declared liberty. By signing, they said God gave rights, not a fickle tyrant. If God gave us rights, no man could take them away.
By signing, they launched a Copernican revolution. Man did not belong to the state. Man did not live to serve the state. The state exists to serve man. The state exists for the benefit of man. The state exists to protect its citizens, not to exploit them for a ruling class.
By declaring life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable rights; the rulers of man were reduced to being the servants of the people.
By declaring freedom, tyranny was thrown down. By declaring independence, man’s better nature was allowed to achieve greatness and the depravity of man was cast out of the public square.
By declaring our emancipation, we declared that all men truly are created equal and no man has the right to be our master by virtue of birth or because of the arrogance of power and the narcissism of authority.
By declaring liberty, they had the audacity to believe they could and would change the world. Their hope was in God and not in men. Their hope was not in the power of government to force change on people but the power of people to change government from an oppressive master to a meek and humble servant.
This day we celebrate our freedom. This day we celebrate our liberty. This day we celebrate our independence. As our founding fathers had to fight to establish liberty, on this date we must fight to restore it.
Let us fight so that we will live up to the expectations of those who made our freedoms possible and not live down to those who would make government again our master and who would trade our freedoms for chains.
Today let us celebrate freedom!
Happy Independence Day from all of us here at Tea Party Nation.”
From: Tea Party Nation
“One Nation Over God, Divisible
Posted by Ron Miller on July 4, 2011 at 2:27am
This is the 51st Independence Day celebration in my lifetime and, as I watched the fireworks over the Chesapeake Bay from a friend’s house, I found myself wondering how many more of these we will celebrate as the United States of America.
It has been my great honor over the past few years to be part of a grass-roots movement that took the nation by surprise, and has revived our institutional memory of what it truly means to be American. Long-forgotten words like liberty, faith and family are being spoken from lecterns at outdoor rallies, public libraries, churches, exhibition halls, gymnasiums or wherever Tea Party groups gather.
I have been invited to and welcomed with open arms to these gatherings, and I have broken bread and had meaningful fellowship with people all over the country who are bound by their devotion to the American ideal as it once existed. I have been blessed by their hospitality as they have opened their homes to me, given me a place to rest, and fed me from their bounty before I went on my way to the next destination.
And yet, I feel despair, and I feel anger.
I read about people who have been kissed by fame, and have used their blessing to disparage the people who have shown me such kindness. I read of Janeane Garofalo and Keith Olbermann, still professing to know the hearts of tens of millions of people they’ve neither met nor bothered to meet, with Garofalo declaring:
‘I do not enjoy when people don’t like me … I would prefer to be well liked in any and all situations. And I also feel it’s quite unjust to be punished for calling racism ‘racism.’’
No, Ms. Garofalo, the injustice is finding people who are NOT racists guilty of racism, and THAT is why people don’t like you. I have been overwhelmed by the love of white strangers who cared not about the color of my skin, but that I shared the same ideals they did. They honor my service to my country, in which I proudly wore the uniform here and abroad to defend your liberty, and that of your self-important media friend, to say utterly indefensible and evil things about good, decent people.
How. dare. you.
I watch my president who, by the nature of the position to which we have elevated him, should be a statesman and a leader in this time of great crisis. Many of the men who preceded him summoned in troubled times a strength of spirit and a commitment to unity that brought the nation together to meet its greatest challenges.
Not so the campaigner-in-chief occupying the White House.
He stirs the pot of covetousness and envy, blaming people who have worked hard to make a living, and been successful at it, for all the ills those who suffer are facing. He paints a stark picture of corporate fat cats versus starving children and sick seniors to justify the same failed prescriptions for our economy, yet it is a false choice. What’s worse, he knows it. He knows that every dollar earned is not a dollar taken from someone else, and that capitalism, when allowed to flourish, creates more dollars to go around for everyone.
If he doesn’t, and he truly believes the rhetoric he is spouting, then he is a dangerous man who must not be handed the reins of power again.
Despite the fact he is the president of all the people, he has deemed some to be unworthy of the fruits of their labors. By proposing the use of the coercive power of government to seize whatever portion of those fruits he deems necessary, he has reduced the producers of this nation to mere property. If you own the fruits of their labor, you own their labor, and therefore you own them.
I thought the question of who owns a man’s labor was put to rest with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
And he won’t stop there. He is determined to win reelection, even if it means pitting blacks against whites, Hispanics against whites, gays against straights, or whatever coalition he needs to push back against the tide of disillusionment from those voters who expected so much more of him than his character apparently allows him to deliver.
Across the country, God is demonized and disparaged as the wellspring of intolerance, because man cannot accept that God doesn’t think or act as he does. We presume that we, the created, are more enlightened than the Creator, and so we overturn everything that doesn’t conform to our will.
It’s our kingdom come, our will be done.
John Adams was unequivocal when he said, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’
He was not advocating a national religion, but rather a common sense of humility and awe at the beauty, vastness and order of the universe, and the magnitude of the One who created such magnificence.
Instead, we presume to tell God what He should really believe or how He should really feel. The foolishness of such thinking should be readily apparent:
‘But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?’ ~ Romans 9: 20-21
Why is humility toward God and the subservience of our will to His important to America? Because, as Adams stated, we must have the values to govern ourselves if the system of limited government they created in our Constitution is to work.
Even if one doesn’t believe in God, there still must be an inviolable set of virtues and standards to which one submits. Without them, our individual desires, regardless of what they are, become ‘rights,’ and conflict is inevitable. (Think homosexual behavior!—my addition)
This is why I wonder how many more July 4th celebrations we have left as the United States of America. We are not united, and we cannot come together even in a time of great peril.
Our leaders are either the instigators of this divisiveness, or they are too timid to push back against it.
People with the fame and influence to bring us together are insistent on tearing us apart. They mock and insult people who don’t agree with them, and the truth is irrelevant to their rants.
God is being told He’s out of step with the times, and needs to make way so the loud, arrogant and audacious creation He called man can do whatever he wants.
So this is how it’s going to go down. Nothing is going to be done to handle the approaching tsunami of debt. Nothing is going to be done to reduce the size of government or its intrusion into our lives. Nothing is going to be done to respect liberty, faith and family.
One party doesn’t want to do anything about it, so they deny there’s a problem, or think that taking more money from people is the answer.
The other party doesn’t have the guts to fight them because they are more concerned with people taking offense than they are with saving the nation from itself.
As a result, we’re going off a cliff, and we’re going to crash.
Those who understand that the best government in America is self-government will pick themselves up, dust themselves off and figure out how to make a way for themselves and their families. They’ll raise their own food, take care of themselves and their neighbors through the bartering of goods and services, and arm themselves to provide for their own security.
Those who don’t understand this, or who have never had to fend for themselves, will flail about in frustration because the promise of government always being there for them was a lie and, like the victims of Hurricane Katrina, they will wait for someone to come and rescue them rather than saving themselves.
Ultimately, what will it take to see more Independence Day celebrations? I have one answer:
‘If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.’ ~ 2 Chronicles 7: 14 (AMEN!—my addition)
From: Western Representation PAC
http://www.westernpac.org/
“Dear Patriot,
On the Fourth of July, many of us are used to the typical written fare, celebrations of the undeniably extraordinary birth of our great Republic. We read motivating patriotic themes of sacrifice, democracy, and love of country.
But what we hear less frequently is the hard truth of our contemporary crisis, and how the sacrifices of yesterday are on the verge of being forever lost to the excesses of today.
Although I'm tempted to diverge into a litany of federal excesses that are killing the country, I'm not going to take my own bait. Rather, let's take a little stroll down memory lane and consider where we've come from and try to stoke the embers left from the greatest Revolution on earth.
Our Founders hailed from countries with tyrannical central governments that had little regard for fundamental freedoms. Driven by a desire to worship free of persecution, many of our ancestors were willing to suffer incredibly high mortality rates rather than the heavy hand of government. Jamestown lost about 80% of its original inhabitants. Their descendants formed the backbone of the Revolution.
The Founders were not ignorant of this history. They were intimately familiar with the extreme sacrifices of their ancestors and why they sought out this special land. So when the heavy hand of Britain began to squeeze ever so tightly, these exceptional families made the only moral choice: confront the evil no matter the cost.
When you hear the stories of bare-footed patriots barely surviving through the vicious winter in Valley Forge and wonder what motivated them, think back through the history, and thousands that sacrificed before them. They knew the motto, 'Live free or die.' Their ancestors lived the motto. As did ours.
Why, then, do we seem so complacent? Perhaps we're the frog in the pot that's been slowly heated to a catastrophic boiling point, not recognizing the tyranny until it's almost too late.
But there's hope. The same freedom-loving spirit that drove persecuted thousands to our shores, and motivated the sacrifices of life, liberty, and property in our Founders' pursuit of Independence has not disappeared. Join a local tea party and catch the Spirit. We will save this nation.
Happy Birthday, America!
Sincerely,
Joe Miller, Chairman
Western Representation PAC”
http://www.westernpac.org/
Donate: https://www.westernpac.org/donate/
From: http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2286/default.asp
“Calvin Coolidge
The Inspiration of the Declaration
Speech at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
July 5, 1926
We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgement of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.
Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.
It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.
It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose they have become sanctified.
It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes which led to the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were largely economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which interfered with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose taxes which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to these laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.
We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.
The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.
While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.
This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.
When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history.
One empire after another has arisen, only to crumble away as its constituent parts separated from each other and set up independent governments of their own. Such actions long ago became commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.
It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.
If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.
It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.
The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.
But if these truths to which the declaration refers have not before been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect upon our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been true. But the principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations before the advent of the French political philosophy that characterized the middle of the eighteenth century. In fact, they come from an earlier date. A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that—
‘The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people’
‘The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.’
This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise, entitled ‘The Church’s Quarrel Espoused,’ in 1710, which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.
While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch-Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his ‘best ideas of democracy’ had been secured at church meetings.
That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that ‘All men are created equally free and independent.’ It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, ‘Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man.’ Again, ‘The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth . . . .’ And again, ‘For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine.’ And still again, ‘Democracy is Christ’s government in church and state.’ Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.
When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature’s God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say ‘The people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven.’
No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.
Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country.
This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.
If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world.
Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.
We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. THE PEOPLE HAVE TO BEAR THEIR OWN RESPONSIBILITIES (My Capitalization!—my addition). There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government—the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that ‘Democracy is Christ’s government.’ The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.
On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to present evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at home and the ever-broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although these things are well known, their frequent consideration is an encouragement and an inspiration. But it is not results and effects so much as sources and causes that I believe it is even more necessary constantly to contemplate. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.
It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one might encroach upon the other. These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has been an ever-broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.
Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre (or scepter—my addition) in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy.
We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.”
Watch this video. Count the number of times reference is made to GOD!
From: Tea Party Nation
“Nothing of importance happened today
Posted by Judson Phillips on July 3, 2011 at 5:57pm
‘Nothing of importance happened today.’ King George III, July 4, 1776.
On July 3, 1776, the final draft of the Declaration of Independence sat in the desk of Thomas Jefferson. On the next day 56 men would sign this document that would change the world. On this day, the even of our celebration of independence, it is worth remembering what they wrote, what they suffered and what they did.
Read and celebrate, WE THE PEOPLE.
‘The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
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 (My capitalization—my addition.) entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR (My capitalization—my addition.) with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the SUPREME JUDGE (My capitalization—my addition.) of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the 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, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE (My capitalization—my addition.), we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.’”
4 references to GOD:
1) and of nature’s GOD
2) endowed by their CREATOR
3) appealing to the SUPREME JUDGE
4) the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE
posted by Christian Gunslinger at 5:41 AM
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