It has
been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of
this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question,
whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good
government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to
depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. –Alexander
Hamilton, Federalist #1
The Publication of the American
Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, marks the formal
beginning of a great experiment. As
Alexander Hamilton put it a decade later during the debate over adopting the
new constitution, the question was whether free men, exercising “reflection and
choice,” were up to the job. The
founders of the new republic, as Hamilton’s quote above suggests, also saw the
new republic that they inaugurating as not simply a matter of local interest,
but as an example to the rest of the world that such an arrangement could
succeed. The conventional wisdom at the
time was that republics and democracies were doomed to fail, devoured by the
unchecked passions and appetites of the populace. That, it was said, was the verdict of
history.
We might reasonably ask what it was that
led Hamilton and the other founders to believe that this republic would not
similarly fall victim to the baser motives of its citizens. It wasn’t education, as important as that
might be, because the founders understood the difference between knowledge and
wisdom, as so many of us today do not. George
Washington put it very directly in his Farewell Address:
…Of all
the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and
morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute
of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human
happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens . . . Let it simply be asked where is the security
for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of
investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the
supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be
conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure,
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can
prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
Washington was
most emphatically not referring to a national religion or state church,
something that was explicitly ruled out in the First Amendment to the U. S.
Constitution. He and the other founders
were mostly Protestants of various stripes; some, such as Jefferson, were
Christians of rather more idiosyncratic views, and a very few were Catholic
(including only one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Charles
Carroll). They were united, however, by
a strong Christian worldview and a firm conviction that human dignity demanded
that men should be accorded the freedom under God to conduct their own
lives. Religious toleration was
therefore an essential part of the polity they devised, an arrangement amenable
to the flourishing not only of Protest Christians, but of a growing Catholic
population as well (in whose case often in spite of very real prejudice on the
part of their non-Catholic fellow citizens).
The result was an inversion of the usual political order, in which
ordinary citizens occupied the lowest position, with a governing elite above,
and God over all; the American model still had God at the apex, but directly
below him not the rulers but the citizens themselves, and they, each one shaped
and informed by his faith, were empowered to direct the government.
For its first two
centuries the American experiment seemed to be proving the doubters wrong, although
not without a few rough spots along the way (the stretch from 1861-1865, for
instance). The United States has grown
and prospered, and has often been the example its founders hoped it would be. Material success, however, often leads both
individuals and nations to lose sight of their radical dependence on the Grace
of God. That would seem to be the case
in the United States today. It appears
that a new and very different experiment is under way, in which religion and morality
are no longer guiding principles; the indulgence of appetites and passions is held to
be a virtue, such that those who object must be harassed and silenced, and
oaths of the Courts of Justice, as Washington called them, are no more than
empty words, if recent judicial decisions are any indication. History and reason suggest that experiments
of this sort do not end well. I am
reminded of the words of Thomas Jefferson who, deist though he might have been,
had the wisdom to say: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is
just.”
God is indeed
just, but he is also merciful, and this country has seen several “Great
Awakenings” of religious faith in the past.
I believe with Alexander Hamilton
that the “conduct and example” of the American people are being watched with
interest around the world; the failure of the experiment in Liberty under God would be a loss not just for Americans but for people everywhere. Please join
me in praying that we rediscover the reliance on our Creator that animated the
signers of the Declaration of Independence whose proclamation we celebrate
today; please join me in echoing one of our great presidents, Abraham Lincoln,
who at perhaps the darkest juncture of our national history prayed “that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth.”
N.B. Lincoln’s quote comes from his “Gettysburg
Address”, which he delivered at the dedication of a cemetery to inter the dead
from the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest and most destructive battle in the
history of North America. It was fought
on July 1-3 1863, 152 years ago this week.
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