In arguably the greatest document on civil liberty in mankind’s history, the Declaration of Independence has this well-known sentence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
It is important for us to remember and conserve the principles that founded our nation. That requires understanding what words actually mean.
We have rights – intrinsic to us as humans – that are given to us by God, not the government. Those unalienable rights include the right to life (for the born and unborn, ideally), liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Liberty is often understood to be the right to do whatever one wants.
Virtue, on the other hand, is doing what one ought to do. These things often conflict.
For example, last month Nancy Pelosi went to RuPaul’s All Star Drag Race (FYI: not a car race), and told the “queens,” “Your freedom of expression of yourselves in drag is what America is all about.”
Clearly, drag queens are not virtuous, or good for society. Yet, Pelosi articulates a common sentiment that freedom of expression (even if it’s deviant) is “what America is all about.”
No, it’s not. Or at least it wasn’t. The understanding of liberty at the time of the founding was not as hedonistic as it is today. The Founders understood that pursuit of happiness is primarily a spiritual – or at least a moral – pursuit. As people are free to exercise their faith – uncoerced by the government – they can pursue their happiness by doing what is good.
George Washington made this connection explicit: “There is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness…”
He also said, “The consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected, will always continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the former, by inculcating the practice of the latter.” In other words, we advance our happiness by doing what is right.
Likewise, John Adams wrote, “We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Benjamin Franklin added, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
The only people that can be free are those who have the ability to govern themselves. A people with no self-control will not be a free people because the state will gladly step in to control them. Everyone is ruled by someone.
Heed the words of Samuel Adams: “If Virtue and Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great Security.”
Let’s continue to celebrate our liberty by spreading virtue by word and example throughout our land.
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.