Thoughts from the Declaration
In a previous article entitled Compromise and the Constitution, I discussed the repugnancy of Congressmen bargaining with the basic law of our land. However, the Constitution is not the only area where compromise is anathema.
After all, neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights was written to grant rights to free Americans. Quite the contrary – our highest laws were adopted to secure the rights that pre-exist the charter of the Union.
Before the Constitution, there was another document, still more basic to our understanding of the American ideal of government. It was written to submit facts “to a candid world,” and as an appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world.” Of course, I refer to the Declaration of Independence.
The basic subtext of the Declaration is that rights are bestowed upon men and women by the Creator. Those rights may neither be granted nor permanently removed from any human being by any other. By very definition, if an ‘unalienable’ right is withheld from an individual, that person is enslaved by the one holding the usurped right.
The Declaration enumerates some fundamentals where compromise is not an option, prior to spelling out the grievances perpetrated by a distant and overactive bureaucracy upon a free people. Those grievances, and the unwillingness of free Americans to further bend to the will of a tyrant, compelled the separation from Great Britain and the War for Independence.
These are some of the fundamentals that the Declaration compels us to hold dear:
Life is not negotiable. Only if your life, your liberty, or that of your family or nation is threatened do you have a right to take life.
If you violate the sanctity of life, you have forfeited your own right to life. This is true regardless of the age of the victim, from conception through extreme old age. It is true regardless of the background or circumstances of either the victim or the perpetrator.
This is why abortion is wrong, always, under any condition. The only possible exception is when the choice is between the life of the mother and that of the child – I will not presume to make that choice for anyone.
Euthanasia is also wrong. Life is the gift of the Creator, and except in the circumstances that He has condoned, a taker of life has usurped the role of God.
The list of circumstances where taking a life is authorized by the Creator is short, but critical to our understanding of proper government. Capitol punishment for capitol crimes is authorized by the Scriptures, as are self-defense and the protection of those who cannot defend themselves.
Finally, there is such a thing as “just” war in which it is acceptable to take life. We should be engaged in one currently, but our Congress is for some reason reluctant to use their power to declare war on enemies that attacked our cities without provocation.
The next Declaration Principle is liberty. Liberty is the collection of rights and responsibilities given to us by God alone. These are essential attributes of free men and women, and are not bestowed by our peers or our government. Neither can they be removed or infringed by any without rendering us slaves.
Essential Liberty includes those rights of man that are enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but is by no means limited to the original ten amendments, nor is it summed up by those that have been subsequently added. The Bill’s first nine amendments delineate a few of the fundamental rights of free men. The tenth is intended to ensure that the federal government is unable to trample on the many rights that are not listed.
True God-given Liberty extends to each man and woman unlimited rights to the exact extent that the exercise of those rights does not enslave or impede the Life or Liberty of another.
The right to free of speech, referred to in the First Amendment, does not extend to libel or obscenity. There is certainly a right to privacy, though it is not mentioned in the Constitution, but that right is not sufficient license to confer the death penalty on innocent human children as the Supreme Court did in 1972.
And along with the blessings and protection of Providence, the right to keep and bear arms, enshrined in the Second Amendment, is an essential and necessary safeguard to every other aspect of liberty in a nation of free men.
When the prerequisites of Life and Liberty are secured, the pursuit of happiness becomes possible. This Declaration Principle teaches that we are (of right) free to pursue a direction in our lives that we believe will result in our own happiness. This is quite the opposite of saying that government will ensure (or insure) our happiness, for doing so would necessarily infringe upon the rights of others.
The pursuit of happiness allows the choices of career, place of residence, and a plethora of other decisions that make a life one’s own. We were created to be unencumbered by coercive intrusion into the areas of life where our decisions are our own. This freedom includes the ability to serve God according to the dictates of our own conscience. It includes choosing one’s marriage partner, within the Creator’s definition of that institution.
There is much more light that the Declaration of Independence can shed on the direction our government should take today. That will be the subject of another article. Suffice it to say that the right candidate for Congress from Iowa’s Second District will uphold the principles of the Declaration, and will not compromise them any more than he will compromise the clear and direct words of the Constitution.
