“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (James Madison).
A common theme of mine is that of liberty.
I think this is the critical point that Americans need to be discussing in today’s cultural and political conversations.
We have a growing crowd of progressive socialists who are setting out to destroy the American way of life. They believe that we need a revolution to destroy every system that is in place, in order to create their utopian vision of society.
It might seem like a contradiction to say they are not at liberty to do this; however – if we read the founders’ writings in context – we can clearly see that what socialists desire contradicts the principles of liberty set forth by our founding.
The founders frequently spoke about the God of Nature and of Nature’s Laws. In fact, this is often used as an argument, that our country was founded by deists and not Christians. These men were steeped in the Protestant Reformation and this resulted in an understanding of natural law that conformed to reformation teaching.
Our founders consistently spoke of the providence that brought us to America and this was a Christian viewpoint. After all, a deist doesn’t believe in the special care of a deity. Deists believe in a creational force that has since remained uninvolved and indifferent to the actions of men, but our founders believed in providence. They believed that there were laws upon the conscience of men, and it is our duty to observe them.
So while our founders believed that we must recognize our natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they also believed that there was a natural law that we are obligated to obey. Everything that we have a right to do, we also have a duty to do. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson made clear that you have the right to liberty and the duty to eschew tyrants who would seek to take it.
Jefferson – seemingly not a traditional christian – spoke of The Ten Commandments as the natural law which mankind should follow. Within that law, we see principles of civility that tell us that we should not bear false witness, covet, murder, steal and that we should honor parents. The socialist would have you vote to steal from your neighbor, to slander those who disagree with you, to give a right to abort babies, and to dishonor our forefathers.
Socialism is morally incompatible with the American way of life.
In the minds of our founders, moral virtue was a responsibility required of those who have liberty. While our liberties were given by the God of Nature – and not government – our actions should be bound by the laws of nature set in place by that same God.
Self-governance is the limiting principle which secures liberty. While our nation is not federally Christian, the founders taught that we needed an external principle – like The Bible – to teach us how to govern ourselves.
Nature’s laws are the foundation of freedom.
Jeremy Wiggins is a columnist for The Graham Star.