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How You Can Be Involved

The Book of Nehemiah is particularly pertinent to America because it is the only book in the Bible which shows how to take something once great, which since has been torn down, and then shows how to rebuild it,”the situation America finds itself in today. Therefore, what guidance for involvement does Nehemiah offer to the American Christian citizen?

Nehemiah sets forth three lessons to enhance our understanding of how to be involved in reforming society: (1) understanding the differing types of calling, (2) understanding the differing levels of involvement, and (3) understanding the differing spheres of involvement.

1. Differing types of calling: the book of Nehemiah, “to the surprise of many,”does not have a distinct hero; rather it has two co-heroes: Nehemiah and Ezra. These co-heroes have different ministries: Nehemiah is an activist involved in “cutting-edge” activities in the social/public arena; and Ezra is an intercessor, spending his time at the temple emphasizing spiritual activities; however, both are invaluable to the restoration effort. In recent years, these two types of Christians often confront each other, with the activists (the “Nehemiahs’) demanding that the intercessors (the “Ezras”) get involved in public arenas, or vice versa. Such demands are inappropriate, for both are needed: activists need intercessors and intercessors need to find activists for whom they can pray.

2. Differing levels of involvement: in Nehemiah, the men of Tekoa rebuilt two large sections of the wall, while others rebuilt only the section adjoining their own homes. In other words, not all will commit the same amount of energy to rebuilding. The standard of measurement should not be the quantity, but involvement; only then did the rebuilding effort succeed.

3. Differing spheres of involvement: in Nehemiah, there was much latitude for involvement. Individuals were assigned different locations to rebuild different sections. Today, some workers may labor on pro-family issues, pro-life issues, anti-porn issues, educational issues, or anti-sodomy issues, etc. It is improper for one to expect all others to join him at his location or “issue”; there is too much to rebuild for all to work on the same section or “issue.”

Understanding these principles will enhance cooperation among workers. The suggestions for involvement offered below are general because involvement will vary significantly depending upon the available time one has, and upon the particular arena into which he/she may feel “called.” However, before suggesting any activities, several correct attitudes should first be embraced.

Attitudes

All correct actions are proceeded by correct attitudes, and there are four correct attitudes which help prepare individuals for either as “Nehemiahs” or “Ezras.”

1. Learn to examine governmental actions in light of the Biblical principle of national accountability. (Deuteronomy 28; I Chronicles 21; I Kings 18) Our Founding Fathers recognized that not only does God cause nations to account for their actions, He causes them to account immediately, “not in the future:

As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities. GEORGE MASON

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever. THOMAS JEFFERSON

ABRAHAM LINCOLN once rebuffed a man who had expressed his hope that “the Lord was on our side” in the Civil War. As Lincoln correctly pointed out:

I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.

When we understand that not only does God hold America accountable for its leaders, but that His judgment on a nation affects everyone, “whether righteous or unrighteous,”we then find motivation to monitor the positions of our leaders and to become involved in national affairs.

2. We must learn about the values on which our nation was established, being convinced that this nation’s institutions must return to their Biblical foundations if we are to remain a world leader (see principles in Deuteronomy 28; Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:1-3 for keeping God’s precepts as the foundation).

3. We must recognize that national reform occurs over a long-term period (see Deuteronomy 7:22 and Exodus 23:29-30). The current negative philosophies were introduced and strengthened across a period of decades; reversal of those changes may also require decades; and we must therefore remain faithful in our labors, not becoming impatient or discouraged. As nineteenth century historian, Elbridge Brooks stated, “Duty is ours; results are God’s.”

4. We must understand that any positive changes in national policies must be led by the church. 2 Chronicles 7:14 makes it clear that if healing comes to a nation, it comes only through the actions of God’s people. Charles Finney, “a famous American minister and revivalist of the Second Great Awakening,”stated:

The Church must take right ground in regard to politics. . . . The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them. . . . God cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and pray for, unless the Church will take right ground. Politics are part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to the country as a part of their duty to God. . . . [God] will bless or curse this nation, according to the course [Christians] take [in politics].

Actions for “Nehemiahs” and “Ezras”

Beyond the development of positive attitudes, here are some simple activities which can help facilitate change and should be engaged in by all Christian citizens:

Read the Constitution. Most Christian citizens are unaware and unfamiliar with the scope of the Constitution and need to see for themselves what it contains and what it doesn’t (e.g., the total lack of the phrase “separation of church and state,” the lack of any specific or implied “right of privacy” which “protects” abortions and homosexual activities, impeachment as a control on the judiciary, etc.). Develop the attitude the Bereans demonstrated in Acts 17:11: when you hear something the Constitution supposedly says or means, investigate for yourself to see if it is true.

Educate yourself on the intent of our Founders to maintain Biblical principles as the basis for public policy. Our WallBuilders website contains a wealth of information on this topic, specifically the “Resources” section. In addition, the book Original Intent, along with our DVDs are excellent tools for this purpose. For those who want to study primary sources, our Helpful Links page will assist you.

Once you begin to learn this information, share it with others. Song of Solomon 8:13 reminds us that our friends do hear our voice, and that we are therefore to speak. Educate others and pass on the information, either in one-on-one conversation or by using other methods like the letters-to-the-editor section in your local newspaper.

Stay informed about current issues of importance to Christians. Subscribe to one or more magazines/newsletters/email alerts which report on issues pertinent to Christians (e.g., Citizen Magazine, Education Reporter, American Family Journal, Washington Update, etc.). Many of these publications give in a step-by-step and timely manner what a citizen can do to make a difference on an issue or bill.

You may find it productive to recruit several of your friends or members of your Sunday School class, etc., to each sign up for a different newsletter in order to keep abreast of current issues (the abundance of legislation often makes it necessary to subscribe to more than one publication). If several individuals subscribe to different newsletters, each can glean the items of importance and report back to the group either for action or prayer.

*In addition to tithing to your local church, financially support a Christian action group, even if you are able to only give a small gift. Many Christian legal groups,”because of the financial support they receive from the Christian community-at-large,”provide their services free to Christians who stand and fight in the legal system for Christian values. Examples include: Alliance Defense Fund, American Center for Law and Justice, National Legal Foundation, Liberty Counsel, Pacific Justice Institute, First Liberty etc. These groups argue cases at the U. S. Supreme Court for the Christian community,”very expensive cases. This is why a financial gift is so important. When a Christian issue wins in the Courts, the entire American Christian community wins.

Become an active and informed voter.

An effective Christian citizen must investigate beyond the secular information which is generally broadcast to the public about an issue or a candidate. Many organizations provide voter’s guides with the candidates’ stands on issues (e.g., voter’s guides are provided by Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, etc.).

Sites like Project Vote Smart and iVoteValues provide a wealth of non-partisan information on voting and candidates,”including biographies, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and interest group ratings. (Another way to access voter information for your state is to use a search engine like google or yahoo and type in “voter guide” or “voter information” along with key words like “pro-family” or “Christian” and the name of your state.)

When there are no Biblical candidates on the ballot for a specific position, determine which candidate would do the most damage, then vote against him/her. Additionally, being diligent in examining candidates will eventually improve the composition of the federal courts since federal representatives and senators first recommend and then confirm the appointment of federal judges.

Actions for “Nehemiahs”

Join one or more pro-family groups (e.g., American Family Association, Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, etc.) and become an active member, participating in their state and local activities.

Become active in helping good, quality candidates for public office. Although the candidate who stands for Godly values is often belittled, attacked, or ignored by the mainstream media, this is not an insurmountable problem. A candidate can overcome the media with a strong grass-roots effort. When you find a good candidate, get involved: offer whatever financial support you can, and call his/her office to volunteer some of your time, even if it is only an hour or two.

Become involved in political movements at the grass-roots level. However, recognize two things about a political party: (1) Although we may dislike them, they are necessary, for they are the mechanisms by which potential candidates are selected and offered to the public; (2) a political party is value-neutral,” it has no value of its own, but simply reflects the values of those who are involved in it and thus can change as its members change. Understanding this, choose a political party and become involved: attend the precinct meetings, become a worker, and advance in the party structure.

It is the active party workers who determine the party’s platform and who select, recruit, and provide funding for candidates. If Christians are not active at this level, then they only have the option of voting for those on the general ballot (often a case of the ungodly running against the more ungodly). By first helping recruit candidates for the party, and then by voting in the party primaries, Biblical candidates are able to advance to the general ballot, thus providing a clear choice.

However, when working for a political party, never develop a loyalty for the party itself; maintain a loyalty to proper principles, no matter in which party they appear. Benjamin Rush,” a signer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most influential Founding Fathers,” worked for several different political parties, but held a loyalty to none. As he explained:

I have alternately been called an aristocrat and a democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe that all power will fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.

Become involved as an active worker within a party structure, but always labor for the proper principles.

Become a resource person for an elected official. Apply yourself to the study and mastery of information on an issue which an elected official may face (e.g., the effectiveness of abstinence based sex-education, the ineffectiveness of comprehensive sex-education and condom distribution, the positive benefits of obscenity enforcement, the health risks associated with homosexual behavior, etc.) and then develop a friendship with an elected official (whether on the city council, school board, state or federal legislature) so that you may become a resource for that official. This is a position of positive influence, much as Mordecai exercised with Esther.

Always be patient in such a relationship; just because you may have “seen the light” on an issue, don’t expect that official to always agree with you, even if you provided him/her with clear statistics. Always remember how much you studied, how many sermons you heard, and the number of tapes you listened to before arriving at your convictions. We often forget how long it took God to help us arrive at and form our own convictions and we unreasonably expect others to change their positions more rapidly than we ourselves changed.

Write your elected officials. Unfortunately, too few Christians communicate directly with those elected to represent them. A well-written letter can have more impact than you would imagine, and letter writing is easy and often takes much less time than imagined. Most elected officials indicate that they prefer a letter of three or so paragraphs: begin with a short, friendly greeting, then explain why you are writing and what you would like him/her to do, then offer a statement of appreciation (for his/her service, for his/her consideration of your request, etc.), and then close and ask for a response to your letter.

When writing a letter, don’t be long-winded or wordy, don’t get preachy, don’t threaten, and don’t be antagonistic, provoking, rude, or abusive. A personal letter has much more impact than a petition, form letter, or mass mailing (most Congressmen, “including those who embrace our views,”indicate that typically they discard petitions and form letters, but immediately open personal letters); for this reason, many are organizing letter writing groups (Sunday School classes, civic groups, friends, etc.).

Once you have become active as an individual, then become active in leading community change. Gather others who believe as you do and start a local group in your community. Effective change most often comes through well-organized and well-led groups representing a body of the electorate who show the ability to muster that collective strength for or against an issue or a candidate. As one Christian statesman in Washington explained, “If you want politicians to ‘see the light’ on an issue, let them feel the heat.” Well organized, reputable groups can produce a lot of heat and help many “see the light.”

Actions for “Ezras”

Pray! (see I Thessalonians 5:17, Proverbs 15:8, Colossians 4:2)

Become active in praying for leaders and officials at all levels as instructed in I Timothy 2:1-4. The first Friday of each month is a nationally designated day of prayer and fasting; on that day, groups meet together in churches across the country to intercede for the nation. Intercessors for America publishes a monthly newsletter listing specific prayer focuses involving the nation and its leaders, and this newsletter is used by many groups.

Become active in praying together as a family. In previous generations, children were exposed to prayer almost every day, not only at home, but at school. Today, students are exposed to much less prayer, and there is less impression upon them of the importance of prayer. Take time to reinforce its importance, both by example and by instruction on prayer from the Scriptures. Pray with them daily, or if you have no children or if they have already left home, develop the daily habit of praying together with the immediate family.

Pray regularly for issues, elected officials, potential candidates, court cases, the “Nehemiahs” in public arenas, pastors, spiritual leaders, other “Ezras,” etc. Much information for prayer may be gleaned from subscriptions to the newsletters/magazines suggested under “Actions for ‘Nehemiahs’ and ‘Ezras,'” and groups like Concerned Women for America even list specific prayer requests in their newsletter.

Become active in praying with others. Enlarge your sphere of influence by organizing small groups for prayer. For example, our former WallBuilders’ prayer coordinator organized and coordinated on-site prayer coverage during state legislative sessions,”prayer efforts involving scores of churches and intercessory prayer groups. She also coordinated on-site prayer at the Supreme Court during periods when significant cases involving Christian issues were being argued. While this may be more ambitious than many intercessors may desire to undertake, the same concept of prayer coordination can be applied on a local level: arrange for prayer with others to focus on or to occur during school board meetings, city council meetings, etc. The “Ezras” can be as creative in prayer as the “Nehemiahs” in action.

Further information on specific areas of action may be obtained from the article “Ten Steps To Change America” and Chapter 18 of the book Original Intent by David Barton.

Ensuring Judicial Accountability For State Judges

The Constitution originally organized the judiciary in a manner providing for appointed judges, serving for the duration of “good behavior” (Art. III, Sec. 1, Par. 1). That appointed system performed admirably while a common value system was embraced by the nation. (For example, even though Declaration signers Benjamin Franklin and the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon held divergent religious views, there were few differences in their governmental philosophy or approach to common cultural values.) The success of the appointed system was further enhanced by the fact that the judiciary did not view itself as a super-legislature; policy-making was anathema to that branch, and it was extremely unusual for the judiciary to strike down any act of the legislature. As a supreme court explained in 1838:

The Court, therefore, from its respect for the Legislature – the immediate representation of that sovereign power [the people] whose will created and can at pleasure change the Constitution itself – will ever strive to sustain and not annul its [the Legislature’s] expressed determination. . . . [A]nd whenever the people become dissatisfied with its operation, they have only to will its abrogation or modification and let their voice be heard through the legitimate channel, and it will be done. But until they wish it, let no branch of the government – and least of all the Judiciary – undertake to interfere with it. [1] (emphasis added)

Most judges today no longer embrace this view. Consequently, State policies on issues from education to criminal justice, from religious expressions to moral legislation, from financing to health now stem more frequently from judicial decisions than legislative acts. In fact, in recent years, even the federal court has described itself as “a super board of education for every school district in the nation,” [2] “a national theology board,” [3] and amateur psychologists on a “psycho-journey.” [4] Judges now endorse the declaration of Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo that:

I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life. [5]

As a result, there are now two constitutions for most states: the ratified constitution with its explicitly written language, and the unratified living constitution that evolves from decision to decision (or, as explained by Supreme Court Chief-Justice Charles Evans Hughes: “We are under a Constitution – but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.” [6]) And unfortunately, just as there are now two constitutions, there are also now two public policy-making bodies: the elected legislature and the appointed judiciary.

With two such radically different constitutions and distinctively different public policy bodies, citizens should have the choice of the constitution and public policies under which they must live. Otherwise (as Samuel Adams wisely observed):

[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to [policies] to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them. [7]

While defenders of an activist judiciary often assert that an independent appointed judiciary does not hold political views, such claims are specious and are not confirmed by contemporary experience. As Thomas Jefferson long ago observed, it is naive to assume that judges do not have political views on most issues before them:

Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and
not responsible – as the other functionaries are – to the elective control.[8]

Recent months have provided numerous examples of the people expressing a clear will on an issue and the judiciary then abrogating that will.

Most recently, a state judge struck down California’s Prop 22 (enacted in 2000) declaring that marriage is only between a man and a woman. That judge unilaterally took the definition of marriage out of the hands of the people and substituted his own – as did judges in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

In Kansas, the legislature recently passed a death penalty statute at the behest of the people but the state supreme court struck it down, chiding both the legislature and the people. And despite the constitutional requirement that all spending originate and reside solely in the legislature, the court ordered additional spending on education lest the court take control of educational funding.

And in Nevada, even though the state constitution requires a 2/3rds majority of the legislature to increase taxes, its supreme court ordered that clause to be ignored and instead directed a tax increase to boost spending on education. Unbelievably, the state court ruled that part of the state constitution was unconstitutional!

Then in New Jersey, a 2002 candidate for U. S. Senate fell far behind in the polls; with 35 days left before the election, that candidate withdrew his name from the ballot. His party sought to place a new name on the ballot but State law stipulated that a candidate’s name could be replaced only if the “vacancy shall occur not later than the 51st day before the general election.” Despite the clear wording of the law, the appointed court ordered a new name to be placed on the ballot. That candidate surged in the polls and because the court ignored the law in order to advance a political agenda and gives one party two choices rather than one, his party won a U. S. Senate seat they were destined to lose.

And recall the Florida Supreme Court in the 2000 presidential election? State law explicitly declared that all election vote tallies were to be submitted to the Secretary of State’s office by 5 PM on the 7th day following the election, and that results turned in past that time were to be ignored; yet those judges ruled that 5 PM on the 7th day really meant 5 PM on the 19th day, and that the word “ignored” really meant just the opposite – that the Secretary of State must accept all results, even those that did not comply with the law.

There are many other similar examples demonstrating that in States with an appointed judiciary, judges are quite comfortable in exerting political influence rather than simply upholding and applying State laws.

Given the growing proclivities now evident throughout appointed judiciaries, it is time for States with appointed judges to move toward elected judges – as Texas, New York, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Alabama and more than half the States already have. And any argument that what occurred in New Jersey, California, Nevada, et. al, will not occur in other States ignores the fact that the current trend is not the result of demographics; rather, it is the result of what has been taught in law schools in recent decades. Consequently, the instances of judges acting as super-legislators will continue to increase.

The election of judges can now help preserve America’s two fundamental government principles: government by “the consent of the governed,” as authorized and approved by “We the people.” Additionally, there are three fundamental historic principles that further buttress the current efforts to move toward elected judges.

Principle #1: Under American Government as Originally Established, the People are Ultimately in Charge of All Three Branches

The same Framers who established the three separate branches also established the principle that none of the branches was to be beyond the reach of the people. For example, the early State constitutions written by those who also framed the national government contain declarations such as:

All power residing originally in the people and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government vested with authority – whether legislative, executive, or judicial – are their substitutes and agents and are at all times accountable to them [the people]. (emphasis added) [9]

Thomas Jefferson reiterated this important principle on numerous occasions. For example, when setting forth to the French the most important aspects of American government, he explained:

We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government. . . . Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the legislative or judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the legislative. The execution of the laws is more important than the making them. [10]

Since judges often have the final word, it is important that the people have a voice in that branch. In fact, if the “execution of the laws” by the judiciary regularly counters the will of the legislature (and thus uncorrectable by the people), then citizens will lose respect for government. As Luther Martin accurately warned at the Constitutional Convention:

It is necessary that the supreme judiciary should have the confidence of the people. This will soon be lost if they are employed in the task of remonstrating against [opposing and striking down] popular measures of the legislature. [11]

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (a “Father of American Jurisprudence,” appointed to the Court by James Madison) further warned that an unaccountable judiciary would create a general dislike and distrust of the judiciary by the citizenry:

[An] accumulation of power in the judicial department would not only furnish pretexts for [complaint] against it but might create a general dread of its influence. [12]

It is an established principle of American government that the judiciary is to be accountable to the people, and judicial elections safeguard this principle.

Principle #2: The Independence of the Judiciary is Not Violated by the Election of Judges

Today, the term “independent” as applied to the judiciary has largely become a euphemism for “unaccountable”; and not surprisingly, many judges, when given increased levels of protection from the public, feel freer to advance personal agendas. Thomas Jefferson wisely observed that no official was to be so “independent” as to be beyond the reach of the people:

It should be remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics that whatever power in any government is independent is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass.[13]

Only the people – and not the judiciary – can be safely trusted with complete independence. The term “independent” as currently used in relation to the judiciary is incorrectly applied – as pointed out by William Giles (1762-1830), a member of the first federal Congress:

With respect to the word “independent” as applicable to the Judiciary, it is not correct nor justified by the Constitution. This term is borrowed from Great Britain – and by some incorrect apprehension of its meaning there – . . . is applied here. [14]

In fact, when some clamored that the judiciary should be “independent,” judge and U. S. Rep. Joseph Nicholson (1770-1817) forcefully reminded them:

By what authority are the judges to be raised above the law and above the Constitution? Where is the charter which places the sovereignty of this country in their hands? Give them the powers and the independence now contended for and they will require nothing more, for your government becomes a despotism and they become your rulers. They are to decide upon the lives, the liberties, and the property of your citizens; they have an absolute veto upon your laws by declaring them null and void at pleasure; they are to introduce at will the laws of a foreign country, differing essentially with us upon the great principles of government; and after being clothed with this arbitrary power, they are beyond the control of the nation, as they are not to be affected by any laws which the people by their representatives can pass. If all this be true – if this doctrine be established in the extent which is now contended for – the Constitution is not worth the time we are now spending on it. It is, as its enemies have called it, mere parchment. For these judges, thus rendered omnipotent, may overleap the Constitution and trample on your laws; they may laugh the legislature to scorn and set the nation at defiance. [15]

The notion of independence as now applied to the judiciary was repugnant to the Framers of American government – as confirmed by Constitution signer John Dickinson:

What innumerable acts of injustice may be committed, and how fatally may the principles of liberty be sapped, by a succession of judges utterly independent of the people? [16]

In short, the modern notions of judicial independence are glaringly absent from the constitutional organization of the branches. No branch is to be unaccountable to the people, and judicial elections ensure accountability.

Principle #3: The Judiciary is to be Accountable to the People, and Election of Judges Currently Accomplishes what Impeachment Did During the First Century of American Government

Originally, every appointed judge was made accountable to the people through impeachment; and literally dozens of impeachment proceedings were conducted during the first century of the nation. [17]

Judges were removed from the bench for everything from cursing in the courtroom to rudeness to witnesses, from drunkenness in private life to any other conduct or behavior that was unacceptable to the public at large. (Only in the past half century has the level for an impeachable offense been erroneously redefined to be the commission of a major felony; with this incorrect standard, the people’s ability to hold judges accountable has been greatly diminished.) The election of judges will now ensure a level of judicial accountability that impeachments once provided. It is instructive to examine the original grounds for removal of judges through impeachment and to note that these would be the very same grounds used today for removal of judges through elections.

What were the offenses that allowed for the removal of judges during America’s early years? According to Justice Joseph Story, those offenses included “political offenses growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests.” [18]

And Alexander Hamilton explained that judges could be removed for “the abuse or violation of some public trust. . . . [or for] injuries done immediately to the society itself.” [19]

Constitutional Convention delegate Elbridge Gerry considered “mal-administration”[20] as grounds for a judge’s removal, and early constitutional scholar William Rawle also included “the inordinate extension of power, the influence of party and of prejudice” [21] as well as attempts to “infringe the rights of the people.” [22]

Very simply, judges could be removed whenever they disregarded public interests, affronted the will of the people, or introduced arbitrary power by seizing the role of policy-maker.

But would not a system of judicial elections be unfair to judges, or become a deterrent to good judges serving? Certainly not. As explained by Justice Story:

If he [a judge] should choose to accept office, he would voluntarily incur all the additional responsibility growing out of it. If [removed] for his conduct while in office, he could not justly complain since he was placed in that predicament by his own choice; and in accepting office he submitted to all the consequences. [23]

In fact, rather than keeping good judges from serving, the election of judges would do just the opposite: it would will help remove the most incompetent from office and – in the words of John Randolph Tucker (a constitutional law professor and early president of the American Bar Association) – it would “protect the government from the present or future incumbency of a man whose conduct has proved him unworthy to fill it.” [24]

Very simply, judicial elections guard the principle of judicial accountability set forth by Justice James Iredell (placed on the U. S. Supreme Court by George Washington), who asserted:

Every man ought to be amenable for his conduct. . . . It will be not only the means of punishing misconduct but it will prevent misconduct. A man in public office who knows that there is no tribunal to punish him may be ready to deviate from his duty; but if he knows there is a tribunal for that purpose, although he may be a man of no principle, the very terror of punishment will perhaps deter him. [25]

Election of judges is nothing more than a tool to protect the rights of the people collectively. It once again makes the judiciary an accountable branch (as was originally intended), holding individual judges responsible for their decisions and thus preventing their usurping, misusing, or abusing power.

Summary

In this day of rampant judicial agendas, proposals that judges should be protected from citizens are untenable. History is too instructive on the necessity of direct judicial accountability for its lessons to be ignored today; and while judicial accountability through the use of impeachment on the federal level appears to be a thing of the past, judicial accountability through the direct election of State judges should not be. Elected judges should know that if they make agenda-driven decisions, they not only may face a plethora of opponents in their next race who will remind voters of their demonstrated contempt for State law but they will also have to face the voters themselves. Election of judges restores the original vision that:

All power residing originally in the people and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government vested with authority – whether legislative, executive, or judicial – are their substitutes and agents and are at all times accountable to them [the people]. [26]

Endnotes

[1]Commonwealth v. Abner Kneeland, 37 Mass. (20 Pick) 206, 227, 232 (Sup. Ct. Mass. 1838).

[2]McCollum v. Board of Education; 333 U. S. 203, 237 (1948).

[3]County of Allegheny v. ACLU; 106 L. Ed. 2d 472, 550 (1989), Kennedy, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.

[4]Lee v. Weisman; 120 L. Ed. 2d 467, 516 (1992), Scalia, J., dissenting.

[5]Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), p. 10.

[6]Charles Evans Hughes, The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes, David J. Danelski and Joseph S. Tulchin, editors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 144, speech at Elmira on May 3, 1907.

[7]Boston Gazette, January 20, 1772, Samuel Adams writing as “Candidus.”

[8]Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XV, p. 277, to William Charles Jarvis on September 28, 1820.

[9]A Constitution or Frame of Government Agreed Upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston: Benjamin Edes & Sons, 1780), p. 9, Massachusetts, 1780, Part I, Article V.

[10]Jefferson, Writings, Vol. VII, pp. 422-423, to M. L’Abbe Arnoud on July 19, 1789.

[11]James Madison, The Papers of James Madison, Henry D. Gilpin, editor (Washington: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840), Vol. II, pp. 1161-1171, Luther Martin at the Constitutional Convention on July 21, 1787.

[12]Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1833), Vol. II, p. 233, § 760.

[13]Jefferson, Writings, Vol. XV, pp. 213-214, to Judge Spencer Roane on September 6, 1819.

[14]Charles S. Hyneman and George W. Carey, A Second Federalist (1967) supra note 91 at 183-84 (quoting Senator William Giles.

[15]Debates In the Congress of the United States on the Bill for Repealing The Law For the More Convenient Organization of the Courts of the United States; During the First Session of the Seventh Congress (Albany: Collier and Stockwell, 1802), pp. 658-659.

[16]Empire and Nation, Forrest McDonald, editor (Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1999), John Dickinson, Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letter IX, p.53.

[17]David Barton, Restraining Judicial Activism (Aledo: WallBuilder Press, 2003), p. 10, n. 25, 26.

[18]Story, Commentaries, Vol. II, pp. 233-234, § 762.

[19]The Federalist Papers, #65 by Alexander Hamilton.

[20]Madison, Papers, Vol. III, p. 1528, Elbridge Gerry at the Constitutional Convention on Saturday, September 8, 1787.

[21]William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Philip H. Nicklin, 1829), p. 211.

[22]Rawle, View of the Constitution, p. 210.

[23]Story, Commentaries, Vol. II, pp. 256-257, § 788.

[24]John Randolph Tucker, The Constitution of the United States: A Critical Discussion of its Genesis, Development, and Interpretation, Henry St. George Tucker, editor (Chicago: Callaghan & Co., 1899), Vol. I, pp. 411-412, § 199 (f ), p. 415, § 199 (o).

[25]Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, editor (Washington: Printed for the Editor, 1836), Vol. IV, p. 32, James Iredell at North Carolina’s Ratification Convention on July 24, 1788.

[26]A Constitution . . . of Massachusetts-Bay, p. 9, Massachusetts, 1780, Part I, Article V.

A Tale of Two Constitutions

(First published in the October 2004 issue of The American Legion magazine)

The subject of constitutional interpretation may seem like a topic best fitted for an ivory-tower debate, but it actually has a very real and dramatic impact on daily life (as will be demonstrated shortly). In recent years, two competing viewpoints have emerged.

Probably the first exposure most citizens had to the two views came during the 2000 presidential debates. When asked what type of judges should be placed on the bench, candidate Bush responded: “I believe that the judges ought not to take the place of the legislative branch of government . . . and that they ought to look at the Constitution as sacred. . . . I don’t believe in liberal, activist judges; I believe in strict constructionists.”1 Candidate Gore countered, “The Constitution ought to be interpreted as a document that grows.”2 Gore later stated, “I believe the Constitution is a living and breathing document. . . . We have interpreted our founding charter over the years, and found deeper meanings in it in light of the subsequent experience in American life.”3 So, the two choices are . . . follow original intent, or construct a living constitution.

Proponents of a living constitution believe that we should not be bound by what dead white guys wrote two centuries ago when slavery was legal, women could not vote, and horses were the fastest means of transportation. Instead, we should live under a constitution that is alive and vibrant, reflecting today’s values and beliefs.

Such rhetoric makes a living constitution sound appealing, but it is actually a complete misportrayal of the difference between the two philosophies. In reality, both accommodate an evolving society; in fact, under the strict construction (or originalist) viewpoint, Article V of the Constitution requires that the Constitution be a living document. The real difference between the two approaches is not whether the Constitution should evolve,
but rather how those changes should occur – and whoshould make them.

Under the living constitution approach, history and precedent are largely irrelevant; instead, unelected judges create policy to reflect modern needs through the constitution they themselves write. As explained by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes:

We are under a constitution, but the constitution is what the judges say it is.4

Ironically, under this modern approach, judicial policy-makers are regularly out of step with modern society. For example, although 80 percent of the nation currently opposes flag desecration, living constitution judges have ruled that the people are wrong on this issue and that the flag cannot be protected. Similarly, 90 percent of citizens in the federal Ninth Circuit supported keeping “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, but their living constitution judges pronounced them wrong.

Equally striking is the number of recent occasions in which living constitution judges have overturned statewide votes wherein the People clearly expressed their will (e.g., striking down votes in New York and Washington that banned physician-assisted suicides; in Arkansas and Washington that enacted term limits; in Missouri that rejected a tax increase; etc.).

Each of these popular votes would be valid under original intent because in that approach, the People — not unelected judges — determine their policies and values. And whenever the People want a change, they do not rely on a judge to make it; instead, they update their Constitution to reflect their views — as they have done on over two-dozen occasions. Samuel Adams pointed out the strength of this approach:

[T]he people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. And the federal Constitution — according to the mode prescribed therein [Article V] – has already undergone such amendments in several parts of it as from experience has been judged necessary.5(emphasis added)

This unique American guiding principle made its appearance in the Declaration of Independence as “the consent of the governed.” The State constitutions penned after the Declaration reiterated this precept — as, for example, in Massachusetts in 1780:

All power residing originally in the people and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government vested with authority — whether Legislative, Executive, or Judicial — are their substitutes and agents and are at all times accountable to them.6

The same axiom was then established in the Constitution through the three-word phrase that begins its text: “We The People.”

Today’s living document proponents decry this approach as majoritarianism – the so-called “tyranny of the majority.” Perhaps, but what is the alternative? Minoritarism? That a small group should be able to annul the will of the People and enforce its own desires upon the masses? Such an option is unacceptable under original intent. As explained by George Washington:

The fundamental principle of our Constitution . . . enjoins [requires] that the will of the majority shall prevail.7

Thomas Jefferson agreed:

The will of the majority [is] the natural law of every society [and] is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err. But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived.8

Does this original principle therefore mean that minorities are to be disregarded or trodden upon? Of course not. As Jefferson further explained:

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable — the minority possess their equal rights which equal law must protect.9

While the minority is not to prevail, with its constitutional guarantee of “free speech,” it does have the “equal right” to attempt to persuade the majority to its point of view. The minority does have equal rights, but equal right is not the same as equal power; the minority is never the equivalent of the majority and should never exercise control over it.

Living constitution judges, however, view the majority as inherently wicked and depraved — always seeking deliberately to violate the rights of the minority with only judges standing between the minority and total annihilation. Therefore, under this anti-majoritarian view, the greater the public support for a position, the more likely a living constitution judge is to strike it down.

Yet American history has proven that the best protector of minority rights is not the courts but rather the People. For example, former slaves received their constitutional rights not from the courts but by the majority consent of non-slaves; women were similarly accorded the constitutional right to vote not by the courts but by the majority approval of men; the constitutional rights accorded to the poor by the abolition of the poll tax came at the majority approval of those who were not poor; and the constitutional right allowing eighteen-year-olds to vote was given by the majority approval of voters not eighteen-years-old.

Additionally, all of the constitutional protections for individuals and minorities established in the original Bill of Rights (e.g., speech, religion, petition, assembly, bearing of arms, etc.) were also enacted by majority consent. In other words, all minority rights in the Constitution have in all cases been established by majority consent.

In fact, the courts have a very poor record of protecting minority rights. Although living constitution proponents love to point to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended segregation as proof that the courts protects minority rights, they conveniently forget to tell the rest of the story. In 1875, Congress — by majority vote — banned racial segregation, but in 1882, the unelected Supreme Court struck down that anti-segregation law; in 1896, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its pro-segregation position; but in 1954, the Court finally reversed itself and struck down segregation – eighty years after “We The People” had abolished segregation.

It is not surprising that judges are fallible, for as Jefferson pointed out:

Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have — with others — the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . And their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible — as the other functionaries are — to the elective control.10

Certainly, the majority will sometimes err, but as Jefferson observed, “its errors are honest, solitary, and short-lived” and can be remedied by “elective control.” However, the errors created by judicial decisions are more severe and long-lasting.

While living document enthusiasts disparage strict constructionists as being narrow or restrictive, Justice Antonin Scalia counters:

Don’t think the originalist interpretation constrains you. To the contrary, my [originalist] Constitution is a very flexible Constitution. You want a right to abortion? Create it the way all rights are created in a democracy: pass a law. The death penalty? Pass a law. That’s flexibility. 11

Scalia points out that it is just the opposite with living constitution judges:

They want the whole country to do it their way, from coast to coast. They want to drive one issue after another off the stage of political debate. 12

In short, then, the living constitution approach empowers an unaccountable elite to make decisions on behalf of the People; original intent empowers the People themselves.

Endnotes

1 Commission on Presidential Debates, “October 3, 2000 Debate Transcript,” https://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-3-2000-transcript.
2 Commission on Presidential Debates, “October 3, 2000 Debate Transcript,” https://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-3-2000-transcript.
3 PBS.org, “Online News Hour: Al Gore,” March 14, 2000.
4 Charles Evans Hughes, speech at Elmira on May 3, 1907, The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes, eds. David J. Danelski and Joseph S. Tulchin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 144.
5 Samuel Adams to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 19, 1796, The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), IV:388.
6 A Constitution or Frame of Government Agreed Upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston: Benjamin Edes & Sons, 1780), 9, Part I, Article V.
7 George Washington, “Sixth Annual Address,” November 19, 1794, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. James D. Richardson (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), I:164.
8 Thomas Jefferson, “Response to the Citizens of Albermarle,” February 12, 1790, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), XVI:179.
9 Thomas Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” March 11, 1801, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, ed. James D. Richardson (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), I:322.
10 Thomas Jefferson to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert Ellery Bergh (Washington D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:277.
11 “Justice Scalia speaks on constitutional interpretation,” Princeton, February 24, 2001, https://www.princeton.edu/news/2001/02/24/justice-scalia-speaks-constitutional-interpretation.
12 “Justice Scalia speaks on constitutional interpretation,” Princeton, February 24, 2001, https://www.princeton.edu/news/2001/02/24/justice-scalia-speaks-constitutional-interpretation.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

Five Judicial Myths

Talking Points About the Judiciary

Despite what we hear today . . .

1. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT A CO-EQUAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

  • A. Federalist #51: “the legislative authority necessarily predominates.1
  • B. Federalist #78: “The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will. . . . The judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution. . . . [T]he judiciary is, beyond comparison, the weakest of the three departments of power. . . . [and] the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter.2
  • C. Congress determines the operation of the Judiciary, not vice versa (Congress sets the number of judges and courts; what issues may come before the courts; judges’ salary and compensation; how often the courts meet and the length of their sessions; and just as Congress can establish and set the number of lowers courts, so, too, can Congress also abolish them; etc.)
  • D. Robert Wright, officer in the Revolution, Maryland judge, early U. S. Senator: “[C]ongress can establish legislatively a court, and thereby create a judge; so they can legislatively abolish the court and eventually annihilate the officer…the inferior courts are creatures of the legislature, and that the creature must always be in the power of the creator – that he who createth can destroy.3
  • E. William Giles, member of the first federal Congress under the Constitution: “Is that [the Judiciary department] formed by the Constitution? It is not…It is only declared that there shall be such a department, and it is directed to be formed by the two other departments, who owe a responsibility to the people….The number of judges, the assignation of duties, the fixing of compensations, the fixing the times when, and the places where, the courts shall exercise the functions, &c., are left to the entire discretion of Congress. The spirit as well as the words of the Constitution are completely satisfied, provided one Supreme Court be established….Congress may postpone the sessions of the courts for eight or ten years, and establish others to whom they could transfer all the powers of the existing courts.4
  • F. As Rep. Steve King correctly explains, “Constitutionally, Congress can reduce the Supreme Court to nothing more than Chief Justice Roberts sitting at a card table with a candle” – a power that the Judiciary cannot reciprocally exercise over Congress.

2. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT TO BE AN INDEPENDENT BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

  • A. John Dickinson, signer of the Constitution: “[W]hat innumerable acts of injustice may be committed – and how fatally may the principles of liberty be sapped – by a succession of judges utterly independent of the people?5
  • B. Thomas Jefferson: “It should be remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics that whatever power in any government is independent is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass.6
  • C. Nathaniel Chipman, office in the Revolution, early Member of Congress, U. S. federal judge, Chief Justice of Vermont Supreme Court: “If the judges are made thus independent . . . they will become a dangerous body.7
  • D. Jonathan Mason, law student trained by John Adams and an early Member of Congress: “The independence of the judiciary so much desired will – if tolerated – soon become something like supremacy. They will, indeed, form the main pillar of this goodly fabric; they will soon become the only remaining pillar, and they will presently be so strong as to crush and absorb the others into their solid mass.8
  • E. Thomas Jefferson: “We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government. . . Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the legislative or judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the legislative. The execution of the laws is more important than the making them.9
  • F. Joseph Nicholson, early Member of Congress, successfully managed the impeachment of multiple early federal judges: “Give [judges] the powers and the independence now contended for and . . . your government becomes a despotism and they become your rulers. They are to decide upon the lives, the liberties, and the property of your citizens; they have an absolute veto upon your laws by declaring them null and void at pleasure; they are to introduce at will the laws of a foreign country…after being clothed with this arbitrary power, they are beyond the control of the nation. . . . If all this be true – if this doctrine be established in the extent which is now contended for – the Constitution is not worth the time we are now spending on it. It is – as it has been called by its enemies – mere parchment. For these judges, thus rendered omnipotent, may overleap the Constitution and trample on your laws.10

3. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT THE SOLE BRANCH CAPABLE OF DETERMINING CONSTITUTIONALITY

  • A. James Madison: “But the great objection . . . is that the Legislature itself has no right to expound the Constitution – that wherever its meaning is doubtful, you must leave it to take its course until the Judiciary is called upon the declare its meaning. . . . I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another in marking out the limits.11
  • B. Elbridge Gerry, signer of the Declaration and a framer of the Bill of Rights: “It was quite foreign from the nature of [the judiciary’s] office to make them judges of the policy of public measures.12
  • C. Luther Martin, framer of the Constitution and Attorney General of Maryland: “A knowledge of mankind and of legislative affairs cannot be presumed to belong in a higher degree to the Judges than to the Legislature.13
  • D. John Randolph of Roanoke: “[I]f you pass the law, the judges are to put their veto upon it by declaring it unconstitutional. Here is a new power of a dangerous and uncontrollable nature contended for…The power which has the right of passing – without appeal – on the validity of laws is your sovereign.14
  • E. Thomas Jefferson: “O]ur Constitution. . . . has given – according to this opinion – to one of [the three Branches] alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others – and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. . . . The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.15
  • F. Rufus King, signer of the Constitution, framer of the Bill of Rights: “The judges must interpret the laws; they ought not to be legislators.16
  • G. John Randolph of Roanoke: “The decision of a constitutional question must rest somewhere. Shall it be confided to men immediately responsible to the people – the Congress, or to those who are irresponsible…the judges?….[a]re we [Congress] not as deeply interested in the true exposition of the Constitution as the judges can be? With all the deference to their talents, is not Congress as capable of forming a correct opinion as they are? Are not its members acting under a responsibility to public opinion which can, and will, check their aberrations from duty?17
  • H. Thomas Jefferson: “[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.18
  • I. James Madison: “[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.19
  • J. Federalist #81: “[T]here is not a syllable in the plan [the Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution.20
  • K. Thomas Jefferson: “You seem . . . to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions – a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . [A]nd their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective.21
  • L. President Andrew Jackson: “Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. . . . The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive.22
  • M. Abraham Lincoln: “I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court. . . . At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having . . . resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.23

4. FEDERAL JUDGES DO NOT HOLD LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS

  • A. The Constitution says that judges hold their office only during “good behavior” (Art. III, Sec. 1).
  • B. Federal judges may be removed by Congress for misbehavior, which, historically, did not include only criminal behavior but also other misbehavior.
  • C. Historically, federal judges have been removed from the bench by Congress for contradicting an order of Congress, for profanity, for rude treatment of witness in a courtroom, for drunkenness, for judicial high-handedness and a variety of other reasons.24
  • D. The Constitution provides six clauses on impeachment – the most often-mentioned subject in the Constitution.25
  • E. The Founding Fathers and early legal authorities were clear about the ground for impeachment:
    • 1. James Wilson, signer of the Constitution, original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court: “[I]mpeachments are confined to political characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to political punishments.26
    • 2. Justice Joseph Story, a “Father of American Jurisprudence” appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison: “The offenses to which the power of impeachment has been and is ordinarily applied as a remedy. . . . are aptly termed political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests.27
    • 3. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court: “[T]he present doctrine seems to be that a Judge giving a legal opinion contrary to the opinion of the legislature is liable to impeachment.28
    • 4. George Mason, the “Father of the Bill of Rights”: “attempts to subvert the Constitution.29
    • 5. Alexander Hamilton: “the abuse or violation of some public trust. . . . [or for] injuries done immediately to the society itself.30
    • 6. George Mason, “Father of the Bill of Rights,” and Elbridge, signer of the Declaration and Framer of the Bill of Rights: “mal-administration.31
    • 7. William Rawle, legal authority and author of early constitutional commentary: “the inordinate extension of power, the influence of party and of prejudice32 as well as attempts to “infringe the rights of the people.33
    • 8. Justice Joseph Story, a “Father of American Jurisprudence” appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison: “unconstitutional opinions” and “attempts to subvert the fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power.34
  • F. Federalist #65: “[T]he practice of impeachments [is] a bridle in the hands of the Legislative body.35
  • G. Justice James Iredell, a ratifier of the Constitution, placed on the Supreme Court by President Washington: “Every government requires it [impeachment]. Every man ought to be amenable for his conduct. . . . It will be not only the means of punishing misconduct but it will prevent misconduct. A man in public office who knows that there is no tribunal to punish him may be ready to deviate from his duty; but if he knows there is a tribunal for that purpose although he may be a man of no principle, the very terror of punishment will perhaps deter him.36

5. THE PURPOSE OF THE SUPREME COURT IS NOT TO PROTECT THE MINORITY FROM THE MAJORITY, AND CONGRESS IS A BETTER PROTECTOR OF MINORITY RIGHTS THAN IS THE JUDICIARY

  • A. George Washington: “[T]he fundamental principle of our Constitution… enjoins [requires] that the will of the majority shall prevail.37
  • B. Thomas Jefferson: “[T]he will of the majority [is] the natural law of every society [and] is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err. But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived.38
  • C. The Judiciary is now regularly anti-majoritarian.
  • D. The primary purpose of the Supreme Court is not to protect the minority from the majority.
  • E. The primary purpose of the Bill of Rights is not to protect the minority from the majority; the purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect every citizen, whether in the minority or the majority, from the intrusion upon their rights by government.
  • F. Congress is a better guardian of the people and the minority than are the courts.
  • G. Federalist #51: “The members of the Legislative department . . . are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. . . . they are more immediately the confidential guardians of their rights and liberties.39>
  • H. In 1875, Congress banned all segregation,40 but in 1882, the Supreme Court struck down that law.41 While the Court is often praised today for ending segregation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, what the Court actually did in that case was only to reverse its own position that had kept segregation alive 70 longer than Congress’ ban.
  • I. Thomas Jefferson: “When the Legislative or Executive functionaries act unconstitutionally, they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.42

Endnotes

1 James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 281.

2 James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 419-420.

3 The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1851), 7th Cong., 1st Session, 114, January 15, 1802.

4 Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 585-586, 593, February 18, 1802.

5 John Dickinsonn, Leters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (New York: The Outlook Company, 1903), 92, Letter IX.

6 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:137, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.

7 Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 131, January 19, 1802.

8 Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 63, January 13, 1802.

9 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 15:283, to the Abbe Arnoux, July 19, 1789.

10 Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 823-824, February 27, 1802.

11 Debates and Proceedings ( 1834), 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 520, June 17, 1789.

12 The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry D. Gilpin (Washington: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840), II:783, “Debates in the Federal Convention,” June 4, 1787.

13 Papers of James Madison, ed. Gilpin (1840), II:1166, “Debates in the Federal Convention,” July 21, 1787.

14 Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 661, February 20, 1802.

15 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1904), XV:213, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.

16 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), I:108, from Rufus King’s records of the Convention from Monday, June 4, 1787.

17 Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 661, February 20, 1802.

18 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1904), XI:51, to Mrs. John Adams, September 11, 1804.

19 James Madison, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (New York: R. Worthington, 1884), 1:194, “Remarks on Mr. Jefferson’s Draught of a Constitution for Virginia,” October 1788.

20 James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 436.

21 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:277, to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820.

22 James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), III:1145, “Veto Message,” July 10, 1832.

23 The Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. John H. Clifford (New York: The University Society Inc., 1908), V:142-143, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1861.

24 Congressional Record (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1933), 76:4914-4916, Impeachment articles against Harold Louderback, district judge for northern California, February 24, 1933; Congressional Record ( 1905), XXXIX:1281-1283, Impeachment articles against Charles Swayne, district judge for northern Florida, Junary 24, 1905; Congressional Record (1912), XLVIII:9051-9053, Impeachment articles against Robert W. Archbald, third circuit judge, July 15, 1912; Congressional Record (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1926), LXVII:6585-6589, Impeachment articles against George W. English, district judge for eastern Illinois, March 30, 1926; Floyd Riddick, Procedure and Guidelines for Impeachment Trials in the United States Senate (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1974), 10-13.

25 See The Constitution of the United States of America, available online at https://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html; Impeachment is mentioned in the following clauses: Article I, Section 2 and Section 3, Article II, Section 2 and Section 4, Article III, Section 2.

26 The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), II:166, “Of the Constitution of the United States and of Pennsylvania—of the Legislative Department.”

27 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co, 1833), II:233-234, Sec. 762.

28 The Papers of John Marshall, ed. Charles F. Hobson (Chapel Hill, VA: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), VI:347, to Samuel Chase, January 23, 1805.

29 The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry D. Gilpin (Washington: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840), III:1528, “Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787.”

30 Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), 352.

31 Papers of James Madison, ed. Gilpin (1840), III:1528, “Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787.”

32 William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Philip H. Nicklin, 1829), 211.

33 Rawle, A View of the Constitution (1829), 210.

34 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co, 1833), Vol. II, p. 268,

35 Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), p. 353,

36 The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, Jonathan Elliot, editor (Washington: Printed for the Editor, 1836), IV:32, July 24, 1788.

37 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents (1899), I:156, from the “Sixth Annual Address” of November 19, 1794.

38 Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd (1961), XVI:179, “Response to the Citizens of Albermarle,” February 12, 1790.

39 Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), p. 275.

40 The Statutes at Large (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1875), XVIII:3:335-337, “An Act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights,” March 1, 1875.

41 The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).

42 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed.. Lipscomb (1904), XV:278, to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820.

H.RES. 888

110th
CONGRESS

1st
Session

H.
RES. 888

Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week’ for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.

IN
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

December 18, 2007

Mr. FORBES (for himself, Mr. MCINTYRE, Mr. AKIN, Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina, Mr. CULBERSON, Mr. DOOLITTLE, Mr. FEENEY, Mr. GINGREY, Mr. GOHMERT, Mr. HAYES, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HERGER, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. MCHENRY, Mrs. MUSGRAVE, Mr. PEARCE, Mr. PENCE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. WALBERG, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. WOLF, and Mr. YOUNG of Florida) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

RESOLUTION

Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week’ for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.

Whereas religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization, and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all 3 branches of American Federal government from their very
beginning;

Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this self-evident fact in a unanimous ruling declaring `This is a religious people … From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation’;

Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible;

Whereas the first act of America’s first Congress in 1774 was to ask a minister to open with prayer and to lead Congress in the reading of 4 chapters of the Bible;

Whereas Congress regularly attended church and Divine service together en masse;

Whereas throughout the American Founding, Congress frequently appropriated money for missionaries and for religious instruction, a practice that Congress repeated for decades after the passage of the Constitution and the First Amendment;

Whereas in 1776, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence with its 4 direct religious acknowledgments referring to God as the Creator (`All people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’), the Lawgiver (`the laws of nature and nature’s God’), the Judge (`appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world’), and the Protector (`with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence’);

Whereas upon approving the Declaration of Independence, John Adams declared that the Fourth of July `ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty’;

Whereas 4 days after approving the Declaration, the Liberty Bell was rung;

Whereas the Liberty Bell was named for the Biblical inscription from Leviticus 25:10 emblazoned around it: `Proclaim liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof’;

Whereas in 1777, Congress, facing a National shortage of `Bibles for our schools, and families, and for the public worship of God in our churches,’ announced that they `desired to have a Bible printed under their care & by their encouragement’ and therefore ordered 20,000 copies of the Bible to be imported `into the different ports of the States of the Union’;

Whereas in 1782, Congress pursued a plan to print a Bible that would be `a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools’ and therefore approved the production of the first English language Bible printed in America that contained the congressional endorsement that `the United States in Congress assembled … recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States’;

Whereas in 1782, Congress adopted (and has reaffirmed on numerous subsequent occasions) the National Seal with its Latin motto `Annuit Coeptis,’ meaning `God has favored our undertakings,’ along with the eye of Providence in a triangle over a pyramid, the eye and the motto `allude to the many signal interpositions of Providence in favor of the American cause’;

Whereas the 1783 Treaty of Paris that officially ended the Revolution and established America as an independent begins with the appellation `In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity’;

Whereas in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin declared, `God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? … Without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel’;

Whereas the delegates to the Constitutional Convention concluded their work by in effect placing a religious punctuation mark at the end of the Constitution in the Attestation Clause, noting not only that they had completed the work with `the unanimous consent of the States present’ but they had done so `in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven’;

Whereas James Madison declared that he saw the finished Constitution as a product of `the finger of that Almighty Hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the Revolution,’ and George Washington viewed it as `little short of a miracle,’ and Benjamin Franklin believed that its writing had been `influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler, in Whom all inferior spirits live, and move, and have their being’;

Whereas from 1787 to 1788, State conventions to ratify the United States Constitution not only began with prayer but even met in church buildings;

Whereas in 1795 during construction of the Capitol, a practice was instituted whereby `public worship is now regularly administered at the Capitol, every Sunday morning, at 11 o’clock’;

Whereas in 1789, the first Federal Congress, the Congress that framed the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, appropriated Federal funds to pay chaplains to pray at the opening of all sessions, a practice that has continued to this day, with Congress not only funding its congressional chaplains but also the salaries and operations of more than 4,500 military chaplains;

Whereas in 1789, Congress, in the midst of framing the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, passed the first Federal law touching education, declaring that `Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged’;

Whereas in 1789, on the same day that Congress finished drafting the First Amendment, it requested President Washington to declare a National day of prayer and thanksgiving, resulting in the first Federal official Thanksgiving proclamation that declared `it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor’;

Whereas in 1800, Congress enacted naval regulations requiring that Divine service be performed twice every day aboard `all ships and vessels in the navy,’ with a sermon preached each Sunday;

Whereas in 1800, Congress approved the use of the just-completed Capitol structure as a church building, with Divine services to be held each Sunday in the Hall of the House, alternately administered by the House and Senate chaplains;

Whereas in 1853 Congress declared that congressional chaplains have a `duty … to conduct religious services weekly in the Hall of the House of Representatives’;

Whereas by 1867, the church at the Capitol was the largest church in Washington, DC, with up to 2,000 people a week attending Sunday service in the Hall of the House;

Whereas by 1815, over 2,000 official governmental calls to prayer had been issued at both the State and the Federal levels, with thousands more issued since 1815;

Whereas in 1853 the United States Senate declared that the Founding Fathers `had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people … they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy’;

Whereas in 1854 the United States House of Representatives declared `It [religion] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests … Christianity; in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions’;

Whereas, in 1864, by law Congress added `In God We Trust’ to American coinage;

Whereas in 1864, Congress passed an act authorizing each State to display statues of 2 of its heroes in the United States Capitol, resulting in numerous statues of noted Christian clergymen and leaders at the Capitol, including Gospel ministers such as the Revs. James A. Garfield, John Peter Muhlenberg, Jonathan Trumbull, Roger Williams, Jason Lee, Marcus Whitman, and Martin Luther King Jr.; Gospel theologians such as Roger Sherman; Catholic priests such as Father Damien, Jacques Marquette, Eusebio Kino, and Junipero Serra; Catholic nuns such as Mother Joseph; and numerous other religious leaders;

Whereas in 1870, the Federal government made Christmas (a recognition of the birth of Christ, an event described by the U.S. Supreme Court as `acknowledged in the Western World for 20 centuries, and in this country by the people, the Executive Branch, Congress, and the courts for 2 centuries’) and Thanksgiving as official holidays;

Whereas beginning in 1904 and continuing for the next half-century, the Federal government printed and distributed The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth for the use of Members of Congress because of the important teachings it contained;

Whereas in 1931, Congress by law adopted the Star-Spangled Banner as theofficial National Anthem, with its phrases such as `may the Heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation,’ and `this be our motto, `In God is our trust!’;

Whereas in 1954, Congress by law added the phrase `one nation under God’ to the Pledge of Allegiance;

Whereas in 1954 a special Congressional Prayer Room was added to the Capitol with a kneeling bench, an altar, an open Bible, an inspiring stained-glass window with George Washington kneeling in prayer, the declaration of Psalm 16:1: `Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust,’ and the phrase `This Nation Under God’ displayed above the kneeling, prayerful Washington;

Whereas in 1956, Congress by law made `In God We Trust’ the National Motto, and added the phrase to American currency;

Whereas the constitutions of each of the 50 states, either in the preamble or body, explicitly recognize or express gratitude to God;

Whereas America’s first Presidential Inauguration incorporated 7 specific religious activities, including–

(1) the use of the Bible to administer the oath;

(2) affirming the religious nature of the oath by the adding the prayer `So help me God!’ to the oath;

(3) inaugural prayers offered by the President;

(4) religious content in the inaugural address;

(5) civil leaders calling the people to prayer or acknowledgement of God;

(6) inaugural worship services attended en masse by Congress as an official part of congressional activities; and

(7) clergy-led inaugural prayers, activities which have been replicated in whole or part by every subsequent President;

Whereas President George Washington declared `Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports’;

Whereas President John Adams, one of only 2 signers of the Bill of Rights and First Amendment, declared `As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him’;

Whereas President Jefferson not only attended Divine services at the Capitol throughout his presidency and had the Marine Band play at the services, but during his administration church services were also begun in the War Department and the Treasury Department, thus allowing worshippers on any given Sunday the choice to attend church at either the United States Capitol, the War Department, or the Treasury Department if they so desired;

Whereas Thomas Jefferson urged local governments to make land available specifically for Christian purposes, provided Federal funding for missionary work among Indian tribes, and declared that religious schools would receive `the patronage of the government’;

Whereas President Andrew Jackson declared that the Bible `is the rock on which our Republic rests’;

Whereas President Abraham Lincoln declared that the Bible `is the best gift God has given to men … But for it, we could not know right from wrong’

Whereas President William McKinley declared that `Our faith teaches us that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, Who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and Who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps’;

Whereas President Teddy Roosevelt declared `The Decalogue and the Golden Rule must stand as the foundation of every successful effort to better either our social or our political life’;

Whereas President Woodrow Wilson declared that `America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture’;

Whereas President Herbert Hoover declared that `American life is builded, and can alone survive, upon … [the] fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago’;

Whereas President Franklin D. Roosevelt not only led the Nation in a 6 minute prayer during D-Day on June 6, 1944, but he also declared that `If we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction’;

Whereas President Harry S. Truman declared that `The fundamental basis of this Nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul’;

Whereas President Harry S. Truman told a group touring Washington, DC, that `You will see, as you make your rounds, that this Nation was established by men who believed in God. … You will see the evidence of this deep religious faith on every hand’;

Whereas President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared that `Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God’s help, it will continue to be’ in a declaration later repeated with approval by President Gerald Ford;

Whereas President John F. Kennedy declared that `The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God’;

Whereas President Ronald Reagan, after noting `The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation and so many of its citizens, has … requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the `Year of the Bible’,’ officially declared 1983 as `The Year of the Bible’;

Whereas every other President has similarly recognized the role of God and religious faith in the public life of America;

Whereas all sessions of the United States Supreme Court begin with the Court’s Marshal announcing, `God save the United States and this honorable court’;

Whereas a regular and integral part of official activities in the Federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court, was the inclusion of prayer by a minister of the Gospel;

Whereas the United States Supreme Court has declared throughout the course of our Nation’s history that the United States is `a Christian country’, `a Christian nation’, `a Christian people’, `a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being’, and that `we cannot read into the Bill of Rights a philosophy of hostility to religion’;

Whereas Justice John Jay, an author of the Federalist Papers and original Justice of the United States Supreme Court, urged `The most effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the Source from which they flow’;

Whereas Justice James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution, declared that `Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine … Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants’;

Whereas Justice William Paterson, a signer of the Constitution, declared that `Religion and morality … [are] necessary to good government, good order, and good laws’;

Whereas President George Washington, who passed into law the first legal acts organizing the Federal judiciary, asked, `where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths in the courts of justice?’;

Whereas some of the most important monuments, buildings, and landmarks in Washington, DC, include religious words, symbols, and imagery;

Whereas in the United States Capitol the declaration `In God We Trust’ is prominently displayed in both the United States House and Senate Chambers;

Whereas around the top of the walls in the House Chamber appear images of 23 great lawgivers from across the centuries, but Moses (the lawgiver, who–according to the Bible–originally received the law from God,) is the only lawgiver honored with a full face view, looking down on the proceedings of the House;

Whereas religious artwork is found throughout the United States Capitol, including in the Rotunda where the prayer service of Christopher Columbus, the Baptism of Pocahontas, and the prayer and Bible study of the Pilgrims are all prominently displayed; in the Cox Corridor of the Capitol where the words `America! God shed His grace on thee’ are inscribed; at the east Senate entrance with the words `Annuit Coeptis’ which is Latin for `God has favored our undertakings’; and in numerous other locations;

Whereas images of the Ten Commandments are found in many Federal buildings across Washington, DC, including in bronze in the floor of the National Archives; in a bronze statue of Moses in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress; in numerous locations at the U.S. Supreme Court, including in the frieze above the Justices, the oak door at the rear of the Chamber, the gable apex, and in dozens of locations on the bronze latticework surrounding the Supreme Court Bar seating;

Whereas in the Washington Monument not only are numerous Bible verses and religious acknowledgements carved on memorial blocks in the walls, including the phrases: `Holiness to the Lord’ (Exodus 28:26, 30:30, Isaiah 23:18, Zechariah 14:20), `Search the Scriptures’ (John 5:39), `The memory of the just is blessed’ (Proverbs 10:7), `May Heaven to this Union continue its beneficence’, and `In God We Trust’, but the Latin inscription Laus Deo meaning `Praise be to God’ is engraved on the monument’s capstone;

Whereas of the 5 areas inside the Jefferson Memorial into which Jefferson’s words have been carved, 4 are God-centered, including Jefferson’s declaration that `God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever’;

Whereas the Lincoln Memorial contains numerous acknowledgments of God and citations of Bible verses, including the declarations that `we here highly resolve that … this nation under God … shall not perish from the earth’; `The Almighty has His own purposes. `Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh’ (Matthew 18:7); `as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’ (Psalms 19:9); `one day every valley shall be exalted and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh see it together (Dr. Martin Luther KingÌs speech, based on Isaiah 40:4-5);

Whereas in the Library of Congress, The Giant Bible of Mainz, and The Gutenberg Bible are on prominent permanent display and etched on the walls are Bible verses, including: `The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not’ (John 1:5); `Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding’ (Proverbs 4:7); `What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God’ (Micah 6:8); and `The heavens declare the Glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork’ (Psalm 19:1);

Whereas numerous other of the most important American government leaders, institutions, monuments, buildings, and landmarks both openly acknowledge and incorporate religious words, symbols, and imagery into official venues;

Whereas such acknowledgments are even more frequent at the State and local level than at the Federal level, where thousands of such acknowledgments exist; and

Whereas the first week in May each year would be an appropriate week to designate as `American Religious History Week’: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That
the United States House of Representatives—-

(1) affirms the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day;

(2) recognizes that the religious foundations of faith on which America was built are critical underpinnings of our Nation’s most valuable institutions and form the inseparable foundation for America’s representative processes, legal systems, and societal structures;

(3) rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation’s public buildings and educational resources; and

(4) expresses support for designation of a `American Religious History Week’ every year for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.

 

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

American Voters and the Abortion Issue

Some may be surprised to learn that a 2008 Fox News poll found that abortion was an important issue to 45 percent of voters,1 yet, that number is consistent with what other polls have been documenting since 2002. And statistics further affirm that when voters not only identify abortion as an important issue but when those voters — especially Christian voters — actually vote accordingly, there is a direct impact on election results. (Although many pro-life voters are not Christians, and many Christians who are not pro-life, Christians nevertheless tend to be more pro-life in percentage than any other group, therefore, for the sake of simplifying the correlation and the statistics in the following summary, “Christian voters” will be considered likely pro-life voters.)

Significantly, in the four elections from 1992-2002, Christian voter turnout steadily declined. In 2002, however, that trend reversed and there was actually a 2 percent increase over the 2000 numbers (which is actually fairly sizable since 2002 was a non-presidential year, when voter turnout is traditionally much smaller). Exit polling in 2002 demonstrated that 41 percent of those who voted said that abortion was an important issue affecting their vote.2 The total effect was that 23 percent of all voters said they voted a pro-life ticket, and 16 percent said they voted a pro-abortion ticket,3 thus giving a 7 percent generic advantage to those running as a pro-life candidate. The result was evident: of the 54 freshmen elected to the U. S. House in 2002, 36 were pro-life4 (67 percent), and of the 10 freshmen elected to the U. S. Senate, 8 were pro-life5 (80 percent).

In 2004, Christian voter turnout increased 93 percent over the 2002 numbers6 (part of this surge was due to the fact that it was a presidential year, when turnout typically rises, and part to the fact that the percentage of Christian voters actually increased). In that election, 42 percent of voters identified abortion as an important issue,7 with the total effect being that 25 percent of voters said they voted pro-life, and 13 percent said they voted pro-abortion,8 resulting in a 12 percent generic advantage for pro-life candidates. The 2004 elections sent 40 new freshmen to the U. S. House, of whom 25 were pro-life9 (63 percent), and 9 new freshmen to the U. S. Senate, of whom 7 were pro-life10 (77 percent).

In those two elections in which Christian voter turnout rose, a total of 94 freshmen were sent to the House, of whom 61 were pro-life (65 percent), and 19 freshmen were sent to the Senate, of whom 15 were pro-life (79 percent). The result was the congressional enactment of the first four major stand-alone pro-life laws since Roe v. Wade: the Infants Born Alive Protection Act, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, and the Fetal Farming Ban.11 (Prior pro-life congressional activity typically addressed funding measures, such as the Hyde, Kemp-Casten, Dickey, etc. amendments, and the Mexico City policy.12 Furthermore, the addition of so many new pro-life Senators resulted in the confirmation of two new pro-life Supreme Court Justices13 and dozens of pro-life court of appeals and federal district court judges.14

In 2006, however, the trend reversed: Christian voter turnout fell by 30 percent.15 Of the 54 new freshmen sent to the U. S. House in the last election, only 17 were pro-life16 (31 percent), and of the ten freshmen elected to the U. S. Senate,17 only 1 was pro-life (10 percent). The Baltimore Sun identified this as “the most pro-choice Congress in the history of the Republic.”18

Not surprisingly, given the 30 percent drop in Christian voter turnout, the exit polling indicating the percentage of voters who considered abortion as an important issue showed a commensurate drop, plummeting from 42 percent in 2004 to only about 30 percent in 2006. (In the last election, most exit polling did not separate out abortion as a single issue but instead combined it with marriage and other issues to call it “values”; in that exit polling, the “values” numbers ranged from 27 to 36 percent.19 For polls that did break abortion out as a single issue, it was the driving issue for only 6 to 12 percent of voters.20

Significantly, polling reveals that liberals are much more focused on abortion as a single issue than are Christians. A 2005 survey affirmed that among liberals, “no other issue rivals abortion in importance,” but that among Evangelicals, “three-quarters . . . view abortion as very important, [and] nearly as many place great importance on court rulings on the rights of detained terrorist suspects (69%) and whether to permit religious displays on government property (68%).”21 Therefore, while the 45 percent identified by a Fox News poll is a significant number, that high number really has no meaning unless those who hold pro-life values vote in high percentages .

By the way, for those who wonder why the 2008 Congress was so aggressively pro-homosexual, actually pushing through two stand-alone pro-homosexual bills,22> it might be instructive to note that at the same time that Christian voters experienced a 30 percent decline in the last election, 92.5 percent of homosexual men and 91 percent of lesbian women voted in that same election.23 As President James A. Garfield so accurately pointed out a century ago:

Now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. . . . [I]f the next centennial does not find us a great nation . . . it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.24

In short, Congress never reflects the values of the nation; rather, it only reflects the values of those who voted in the last election.

Endnotes

1 FoxNews.com, “FOX News Poll: Half of Voters Eye Candidates Abortion Stance”, October 26, 2007.

2 National Right to Life, “The Pro-Life Advantage for Candidates”.

3 National Right to Life, “The Pro-Life Advantage for Candidates”.

4 Numbers provided by the House Pro-Life Caucus.

5 National Right to Life, “Senate Results Cause for Rejoicing,” November 2002.

6 In the 2004 elections, a total of 125,736,000 votes were cast; twenty-three percent of voters were “Evangelicals,” thus translating into 28.9 million votes. See sources at New York Times,“Religious Voting Data Show Some Shift, Observers Say,”; and U. S. Census Bureau, “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004”.

7 National Right to Life, “Statement by Carol Tobias: National Right to Life Political Director, November 4, 2004.”

8 National Right to Life, “Statement by Carol Tobias: National Right to Life Political Director, November 4, 2004.”

9 Numbers provided by the House Pro-Life Caucus.

10 National Right to Life, “Statement by Carol Tobias: National Right to Life Political Director, November 4, 2004;” Library of Congress, “CRS Report for
Congress: Freshmen in the House of Representatives and Senate by Political Party: 1913-2005”.

11 National Right to Life, “President Bush Signs Born Alive Infants Protection Act in Pittsburgh Ceremony Attended by NRLC Officials”; National Right to Life, “President Bush Signs Unborn Victims of Violence Act into Law, After Dramatic One-vote Win in Senate,” April 6, 2004; Office of the Press Secretary, “President Signs Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003,” November 5, 2003; GovTrack.us, “S. 3504: Fetal Farming Prohibition Act of 2006” (at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-3504).

12 American Family Association, “Loretta Sanchez of California Amendment; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004”; University of Maryland, “CRS
Report for Congress: Abortion Services and Military Medical Facilities”, pp. 17-18; National Women’s Health Network, “The Women’s Health Activist: The Hyde Amendment’s Prohibition of Federal Funding for Abortion — 30 Years is Enough”; National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, “The Hyde Amendment: Fact Sheet”; Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, “US ‘Mexico City’ Policy: Abortion funding in foreign countries,” last updated April 27, 2007 .

13 United States Senate, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress-2nd Session” (at https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00002); United States Senate, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress-1st Session” (at https://www.senate.gov/
legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00245).

14 See for example: Christian Life Resources, “President Bush Will Nominate 20 Pro-Life Judges, Democrat Fight Looms”; Lifenews.com, “President Bush Renominates Pro-Life Judges, Senate Abortion Battle Begins”, etc.

15 In the 2006 elections, a total of 85,251,089 votes were cast; twenty-four percent of voters were “Evangelicals,” thus translating into 20.5 million votes. See sources at George Mason University, “United States Elections Project: 2006 Voting-Age and Voting- Eligible Population Estimates”; New York Times, “Religious Voting Data Show Some Shift, Observers Say”.

16 Numbers provided by the House Pro-Life Caucus.

17 See for example: Wikipedia.com, “List of Freshmen Class Members of the 110th United States Congress” (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_
of_freshman_class_members_of_the_110th_United_States_Congress).

18 Thomas F. Shaller, Baltimore Sun, February 28, 2007.

19 See for example: The Pew Forum, “Religion and the 2006 Elections: Exit Poll Results — The ‘God Gap’ Widens”; FoxNews.com, “National Exit Poll: Midterms Come Down to Iraq, Bush”, November 8, 2006.

20 See for example: Faith in Public Life, “Exit Poll Shows Shift in Religious Vote Driven By ‘Kitchen Table’ Moral Issues”, November 15, 2006; People for the American Way, “The American Values Survey”, August 2006.

21 The Pew Research Center, “Abortion and Rights of Terror Suspects Top Court Issues” (at https://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=253), August 3, 2005.

22 GovTrack.us, “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007” (at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1592); Library of Congress, “S. 1284: Summary”.

23 Numbers from a study by San Francisco-based Community Marketing Inc. reported in the Los Angeles Times online blog on August 8, 2007 (at https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/08/
gay-power.html).

24 John M. Taylor, Garfield of Ohio: The Available Man (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1970), 180, quoted from “A Century of Congress,” by James A. Garfield, July 1877.

The Founding Fathers on Creation and Evolution

David Barton 2008

While uninformed laymen erroneously believe the theory of evolution to be a product of Charles Darwin in his first major work of 1859 (The Origin of Species), the historical records are exceedingly clear that the evolution-creation-intelligent design debate was largely formulated well before the birth of Christ. Numerous famous writings have appeared on the topic for almost two thousand years; in fact, our Founding Fathers were well-acquainted with these writings and therefore the principle theories and teachings of evolution – as well as the science and philosophy both for and against that thesis – well before Darwin synthesized those centuries-old teachings in his writings.

Nobel-Prize winner Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) explains: “The general idea of evolution is very old; it is already to be found in Anaximander (sixth century B.C.). . . . [and] Descartes [1596-1650], Kant [1724-1804], and Laplace [1749-1827] had advocated a gradual origin for the solar system in place of sudden creation.”1 Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935), a zoologist and paleontologist, agrees, declaring that there are “ancient pedigrees for all that we are apt to consider modern. Evolution has reached its present fullness by slow additions in twenty-four centuries.”2 He continues, “Evolution as a natural explanation of the origin of the higher forms of life . . . developed from the teaching of Thales [624-546 B.C.] and Anaximander [610-546 B.C.] into those of Aristotle [384-322 B.C.]. . . . and it is startling to find him, over two thousand years ago, clearly stating, and then rejecting, the theory of the survival of the fittest as an explanation of the evolution of adaptive structures.”3 And British anthropologist Edward Clodd (1840-1930) similarly affirms that, “The pioneers of evolution – the first on record to doubt the truth of the theory of special creation, whether as the work of departmental gods or of one Supreme Deity, matters not – lived in Greece about the time already mentioned: six centuries before Christ.”4

For example, Anaximander (610-546 B.C.) introduced the theory of spontaneous generation; Diogenes (412-323 B.C.) introduced the concept of the primordial slime; Empedocles (495-455 B.C.) introduced the theory of the survival of the fittest and of natural selection; Deomocritus (460-370 B.C.) advocated the mutability and adaptation of species; the writings of Lucretius (99-55 B.C.) announced that all life sprang from “mother earth” rather than from any specific deity; Bruno (1548-1600) published works arguing against creation and for evolution in 1584-85; Leibnitz (1646-1716) taught the theory of intermedial species; Buffon (1707-1788) taught that man was a quadruped ascended from the apes, about which Helvetius also wrote in 1758; Swedenborg (1688-1772) advocated and wrote on the nebular hypothesis (the early “big bang”) in 1734, as did Kant in 1755; etc. It is a simple fact that countless works for (and against) evolution had been written for over two millennia prior to the drafting of our governing documents and that much of today’s current phraseology surrounding the evolution debate was familiar rhetoric at the time our documents were framed.

In fact, Dr. Henry Osborn (1857-1935), curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, identifies four periods of evolution: I. Greek Evolution – 640 B.C. to 1600 A.D.; II. Modern Evolution – 1600-1800 A.D.; III. Modern Inductive Evolution – 1730-1850 A.D.; and IV. Modern Inductive Evolution – 1858 to the present.5 He describes the third period in the history of evolution – the period in which our Framers lived – as a period which produced the pro-evolution writings of “Linnaeus, Buffon, E[rasmus] Darwin, Lamarck, Goethe, Treviranus, Geof. St. Hilaire, St. Vincent, Is. St. Hilaire. Miscellaneous writers: Grant, Rafinesque, Virey, Dujardin, d’Halloy, Chevreul, Godron, Leidy, Unger, Carus, Lecoq, Schaafhausen, Wolff, Meckel, Von Baer, Serres, Herbert, Buch, Wells, Matthew, Naudin, Haldeman, Spencer, Chambers, Owen.”6

The debate over the origins of man has always been between a theistic and a non-theistic approach; and among those who embrace the theistic approach have been found (and still are found) three distinct sub-approaches: (1) intelligent-design (that which exists came into being by divine guidance, but the period of time required or the specifics of the process are unsettled, possibly unprovable, and therefore remain debatable); (2) theistic evolution (that which exists came into being over a long, slow passing of time through natural laws and processes but under divine guidance); and (3) special creation (that which exists came into being in six literal days). This, then, makes four separate historic approaches to the origins of man: three theistic, and one non-theistic.

In the non-theistic camp, Empedocles (495-435 B.C.) was the father and original proponent of the evolution theory, followed by advocates such as Democritus (460-370 B.C. ), Epicurus (342-270 B.C.), Lucretius (98-55 B.C.), Abubacer (1107-1185 A.D.), Bruno (1548-1600), Buffon (1707-1788), Helvetius (1715-1771), Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Lamarck (1744-1829), Goethe (1749-1832), Lyell (1797-1875), etc.

In the theistic camp, Anaxigoras (500-428 B.C.) was the father of intelligent design; that same belief was also expounded by such distinguished scientists and philosophers Descartes (1596-1650), Harvey (1578-1657), Newton (1642-1727), Kant (1729-1804), Mendel (1822-1884), Cuvier (1769-1827), Agassiz (1807-1873), etc. Significantly, even Charles Darwin (1809-1882), strongly influenced by the writings of Paley (1743- 1805),7 embraced the intelligent design position at the time that he wrote his celebrated word, explaining:

Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty, or rather impossibility, of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species.8

John Dewey, an ardent 20th century proponent of Darwinism, explained why the intelligent design position – scientifically speaking – was reasonable:

The marvelous adaptation of organisms to their environment, of organs to the organism, of unlike parts of a complex organ (like the eye) to the organ itself; the foreshadowing by lower forms of the higher; the preparation in earlier stages of growth for organs that only later had their functioning – these things are increasingly recognized with the progress of botany, zoology, paleontology, and embryology. Together, they added such prestige to the design argument that by the later eighteenth century it was, as approved by the sciences of organic life, the central point of theistic and idealistic philosophy.9

(This position of intelligent design, also called the anthropic or teleological view, is now embraced by an increasing number of contemporary distinguished scientists, non-religious though many of them claim to be.10)

The second camp within the theistic approach is theistic evolution, which was first propounded by Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Other prominent expositors of this view included Gregory of Nyssa (331-396 A.D.), Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.), St. Gregory the First (540-604 A.D.), St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Leibnitz (1646-1716), Swedenborg (1688-1772), Bonnet (1720-1793), and numerous contemporary scientists. In fact, many of Darwin’s contemporaries embraced this view, believing that “natural selection could be the means by which God has chosen to make man.”11

As confirmed by Dr. James Rachels, professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham: Mivart [1827-1900, a professor in Belgium] became the leader of a group of dissident evolutionists who held that although man’s body might have evolved by natural selection, his rational and spiritual soul did not. At some point God had interrupted the course of human history to implant man’s soul in him, making him something more than merely a former ape. . . . Wallace [1823-1913, who advocated natural selection prior to Darwin] took a view very similar to that of Mivart: he held that the theory of natural selection applies to humans, but only up to a point. Our bodies can be explained in this way, but not our brains. Our brains, he said, have powers that far outstrip anything that could have been produced by natural selection. Thus he concluded that God had intervened in the course of human history to give man the “extra push” that would enable him to reach the pinnacle on which he now stands. . . . Natural selection, while it explained much, could not explain everything; in the end God must be brought in to complete the picture.12

In fact, Clarence Darrow himself (the lead attorney during the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in 192513), admitted during the trial that this was a prominent position of many in that day;14 and Dudley Malone, Darrow’s co-counsel, even declared:

We shall show by the testimony of men learned in science and theology that there are millions of people who believe in evolution and in the stories of creation as set forth in the Bible and who find no conflict between the two.15

Interestingly, writers who chronicle the centuries-long history of the evolution debate16 confirm that there have always been numerous evolutionists in both the theistic and the non-theistic camps, and much of the proceedings in the Scopes trial reaffirmed that a belief in evolution was not incompatible with teaching theistic origins and a belief in a divine creator.

The third camp, special (or literal) creation, was championed by Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) and later by Pasteur (1822-1895) as well as by subsequent contemporary scientists.

Significantly, then, the history of this controversy through recent years and even previous centuries makes clear that subsequent scientific discovery across the centuries has not yet significantly altered any of these four views. Therefore, it was not in the absence of knowledge about the debate over evolution but rather in its presence, that our Framers made the decision to incorporate in our governing documents the principle of a creator.

One example affirming the Framers’ view on this subject is provided by Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine

Although Paine was the most openly and aggressively anti-religious of the Founders, in his 1787 “Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists in Paris,” Paine nevertheless forcefully denounced the French educational system which taught students that man was the result of prehistoric cosmic accidents, or had developed from some other species:

It has been the error of schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the Author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well-executed statue, or a highly-finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talent of the artist.

When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How, then, is it that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the Author of them. . . .

The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.

And when we speak of looking through nature up to nature’s God, we speak philosophically the same rational language as when we speak of looking through human laws up to the power that ordained them.

God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon.

But infidelity, by ascribing every phenomenon to properties of matter, conceives a system for which it cannot account and yet it pretends to demonstrate.17

Paine certainly did not advocate this position as a result of religious beliefs or of any teaching in the Bible, for he believed that “the Bible is spurious” and “a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy.”18 Yet, this anti-Bible founder was nevertheless a strong supporter of teaching the theistic origins of man. Many other Founding Fathers also held clear positions on this issue.

John Quincy Adams

It is so obvious to every reasonable being, that he did not make himself; and the world which he inhabits could as little make itself that the moment we begin to exercise the power of reflection, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that there is a Creator. It is equally evident that the Creator must be a spiritual and not a material being; there is also a consciousness that the thinking part of our nature is not material but spiritual – that it is not subject to the laws of matter nor perishable with it. Hence arises the belief, that we have an immortal soul; and pursuing the train of thought which the visible creation and observation upon ourselves suggest, we must soon discover that the Creator must also he the Governor of the universe – that His wisdom and His goodness must be without bounds – that He is a righteous God and loves righteousness – that mankind are bound by the laws of righteousness and are accountable to Him for their obedience to them in this life, according to their good or evil deeds.19

But the first words of the Bible are, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The blessed and sublime idea of God as the creator of the universe – the Source of all human happiness for which all the sages and philosophers of Greece and Rome groped in darkness and never found – is recalled in the first verse of the book of Genesis. I call it the source of all human virtue and happiness because when we have attained the conception of a Being Who by the mere act of His will created the world, it would follow as an irresistible consequence (even if we were not told that the same Being must also be the governor of his own creation) that man, with all other things, was also created by Him, and must hold his felicity and virtue on the condition of obedience to His will.20

Benjamin Franklin

It might be judged an affront to your understandings should I go about to prove this first principle: the existence of a Deity and that He is the Creator of the universe; for that would suppose you ignorant of what all mankind in all ages have agreed in. I shall therefore proceed to observe that He must be a being of infinite wisdom (as appears in His admirable order and disposition of things), whether we consider the heavenly bodies, the stars and planets and their wonderful regular motions; or this earth, compounded of such an excellent mixture of all the elements; or the admirable structure of animate bodies of such infinite variety and yet every one adapted to its nature and the way of life is to be placed in, whether on earth, in the air, or in the water, and so exactly that the highest and most exquisite human reason cannot find a fault; and say this would have been better so, or in such a manner which whoever considers attentively and thoroughly will be astonished and swallowed up in admiration.21

That the Deity is a being of great goodness appears in His giving life to so many creatures, each of which acknowledges it a benefit by its unwillingness to leave it; in His providing plentiful sustenance for them all and making those things that are most useful, most common and easy to be had, such as water (necessary for almost every creature to drink); air (without which few could subsist); the inexpressible benefits of light and sunshine to almost all animals in general; and to men, the most useful vegetables, such as corn, the most useful of metals, as iron, & c.; the most useful animals as horses, oxen, and sheep, He has made easiest to raise or procure in quantity or numbers; each of which particulars, if considered seriously and carefully, would fill us with the highest love and affection. That He is a being of infinite power appears in His being able to form and compound such vast masses of matter (as this earth, and the sun, and innumerable stars and planets), and give them such prodigious motion and yet so to govern them in their greatest velocity as that they shall not fly out of their appointed bounds not dash one against another for their mutual destruction. But it is easy to conceive His power, when we are convinced of His infinite knowledge and wisdom. For, if weak and foolish creatures as we are, but knowing the nature of a few things, can produce such wonderful effects, . . . what power must He possess, Who not only knows the nature of everything in the universe but can make things of new natures with the greatest ease and at His pleasure! Agreeing, then, that the world was a first made by a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, which Being we call God.22

John Adams

When I was in England from 1785 to 1788, I may say I was intimate with Dr. Price [Richard Price was a theologian and a strong British supporter of American rights and independence, with Congress bestowing on him an American citizenship in 1778]. I had much conversation with him at his own house, at my houses, and at the house and tables of many friends. In some of our most unreserved conversations when we have been alone, he has repeatedly said to me, “I am inclined to believe that the Universe is eternal and infinite. It seems to me that an eternal and infinite effect must necessarily flow from an eternal and infinite Cause; and an infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power that could have been induced to produce a Universe in time must have produced it from eternity.” “It seems to me, the effect must flow from the Cause”… It has been long – very long – a settled opinion in my mind that there is now, never will be, and never was but one Being who can understand the universe, and that it is not only vain but wicked for insects [like us] to pretend to comprehend it.23

James Wilson

When we view the inanimate and irrational creation around and above us, and contemplate the beautiful order observed in all its motions and appearances, is not the supposition unnatural and improbable that the rational and moral world should be abandoned to the frolics of chance or to the ravage of disorder? What would be the fate of man and of society was every one at full liberty to do as he listed without any fixed rule or principle of conduct – without a helm to steer him, a sport of the fierce gusts of passion and the fluctuating billows of caprice?24

Daniel Webster

The belief that this globe existed from all eternity (or never had a beginning), never obtained a foothold in any part of the world or in any age. Even the infidel writer of modern times, however, in the pride of argument they may have asserted it but believed it not, for they could not help perceiving that if mankind, with their inherently intellectual powers and natural capacities for improvement, had inhabited this earth for millions of years, the present inhabitants would not only be vastly more intelligent than we now find them but there would be vestiges of the former races to be found in every inhabitable part of the globe, floods and earthquakes notwithstanding. Unless we adopt Lord Monboddo’s [1714-1799, a Scottish legal scholar and pioneer anthropologist who advocated evolution through natural selection and man’s ascent from chimps] supposition that mankind were originally monkeys, it is impossible to admit the idea that they could have existed millions of years without making more discoveries and improvements than the early histories of nations warrant us to believe they had done. The belief in an uncreated, self-existent intelligent First Cause takes possession of our minds whether we will or not, because if man could not create himself, nothing else could; and matter, if it were not external, could produce nothing but matter; it could never produce thought nor free will nor consciousness. There must have been, therefore, a time when this globe and its inhabitants did not exist. The question then arises, what gave it existence? We answer God, the great First Cause of all things. What is God? We know not. We know Him only through His creation and His revelation. What do these teach us? They teach us, first this; incomprehensible power, next His infinite mind, and lastly His universal benevolence or goodness. These terms express all that we can know or believe of Him.25

Thomas Jefferson

[W]hen we take a view of the universe in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses – it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause, and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order.26

(A longer and more extensive piece on the history of evolution and the Founding Fathers can be read in David Barton’s law review article published for Regent Lawschool on the 75th anniversary of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. That piece, entitled “Evolution and the Law: A Death Struggle Between Two Civilizations,” is accessible here.)

Endnotes

1 Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948), 33-34.

2 Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924), 1.

3 Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924), 6.

4 Edward Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution From Thales to Huxley (New York: Books for Libraries Press), 3.

5 Osborn, From the Greeks (1924), 10-11.

6 Osborn, From the Greeks (1924), 11.

7 James Rachels, Created From Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 10.

8 Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, ed. Nora Barlow (London: Collins, 1958), 92-93.

9 John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and Other Essays on Contemporary Thought (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1910), p. 11.

10 Some of the contemporary academics and researchers embracing this position include Dr. Mike Behe of Lehigh University, Dr. Walter Bradley of Texas A & M, Dr. Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer of Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Phillip Johnson and Dr. Jonathan Wells of the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Robert Kaita of Princeton, Dr. Steven Meyer of Whitworth, Dr. Heinz Oberhummer of Vienna University, Dr. Siegfried Scherer of the Technical University of Munich, Dr. Jeff Schloss of Westmont, etc. There are numerous others that, to varying degrees, embrace the anthropic position, including Dr. Brandon Carter of Cambridge, Dr. Frank Tipler of Tulane, Dr. Peter Berticci of Michigan State, Dr. George Gale of University of Missouri Kansas City, Dr. John Barrow of Sussux University, Dr. John Leslie of the University of Guelph, Dr. Heinz Pagels of Rockefeller University, Dr. John Earman of University of Pittsburgh, and many others.

11 Rachels, Created From Animals (1990), 3.

12 Rachels, Created From Animals (1990),57-58.

13 Scopes v. State, 289 S. W. 363 (1927).

14 The World’s Most Famous Court Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case; A Word for Word Report of the Famous Court Test of the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Act, at Dayton, July 10 to 21, 1925 . . . (Cincinnati: National Book Company, 1925), 83-84, Clarence Darrow, July 13, 1925.

15 The World’s Most Famous Court Trial (1925), 113, Dudley Malone, July 15, 1925.

16 See Osborn, From the Greek (1924); Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Edward Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution From Thales to Huxley (New York: Books for Libraries Press); Robert Clark, Darwin: Before and After, and Examination and Assessment (London: The Paternoster Press, 1958),

17 Thomas Paine, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Daniel Edwin Wheeler (New York: Printed by Vincent Parke and Company, 1908), 7:2-8, “The Existence of God,” A Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists, Paris.

18 Paine, Life and Writings, ed. Wheeler (1908), 6:132, from his “Age of Reason Part Second,” January 27, 1794.

19 John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), Letter II, 23-24.

20 Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams (1850), Letter II, 27-28.

21 Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1836), II:526, “A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World.”

22 Franklin, Works, ed. Jared Sparks (1836), II:526-527, “A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World.”

23 John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. Lester Cappon (North Carolina: University of North Carolina, 1959) 374-375, to Thomas Jefferson, September 14, 1813.

24 James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), I:113-114.

25 From Daniel Webster’s 1801 Senior Oration at Dartmouth, translated from the Latin by John Andrew Murray, received by the author from the translator on February 21, 2008. The oration is titled “On the Goodness of God as manifested in His work, 1801.”

26 Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:426-427, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823.

Congress, the Culture, and Christian Voting

(1992-2006)
On many current cultural and pro-family issues, polling numbers show that public support is high, but voting numbers show that the support in Congress is much lower. For example:

Prohibiting federal courts from removing “Under God” in the Pledge

  • Public support: 91%,1 thereby giving it public bi-partisan support (approximately 28% of the nation identifies as Republican, 33% as Democrat, and 38% as third-party or independent2)
  • In the vote on HR 2389 (Pledge Protection Act of 2006, introduced by Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri), only 60% of House Members voted for it3– certainly much lower than the 91% of the nation that supports it
  • In that vote, 96% of Republicans voted to preserve “under God” from the hands of activist judges, but only 19% of Democrats did so4
  • The measure passed the House but was not taken up by Senate5

Permitting public displays of the Ten Commandments

  • Public support is at 76%,6 thereby giving it public bi-partisan support
  • In the vote on The Aderholt Amendment in which Rep. Robert Aderholt’s (of Alabama) bill, HR 1501, “The Ten Commandments Defense Act,” was inserted as language within another bill, only 57% of House Members voted for it7
  • 93% of Republicans voted for the Ten Commandments amendment but only 27% of Democrats8
  • That measure passed the House but was not taken up by Senate9

Authorizing faith-based programs

  • Currently, in government-run prisons (state or federal), the average recidivism rate is 68%10 (meaning that 68% of inmates, within three years of their release from prison, will commit a crime that will place them back in prison); however, in faith-based prisons (currently operating in about a dozen states11) such as the ones in Texas, the recidivism rate is only 8%12 (a rate that is 88% lower than government-run prisons). Consider the effect of this not only in reduced spending and crime but also in strengthening the family, since an estimated 1.5 million children presently have at least one parent in prison13
  • Currently, in government-run drug rehab programs (state or federal), the average cure rate is under 20%;14 however, in faith-based drug rehab programs such as Teen Challenge, the cure rate is over 70%15
  • Public support for faith-based programs is at 75%,16 thereby giving it public bi-partisan support
  • In the vote on HR 7 (Community Solutions Act), only 54% of House Members voted for that measure17
  • 98% of Republicans voted for it but only 7% of Democrats18
  • The measure passed the House but was not taken up by the Senate19

Permitting voluntary school prayer

  • Public support is at 76%,20 thereby giving it public bi-partisan support
  • The vote on HJ Res 78 (Community Life Amendment): only 52% of House Members voted for it21
  • 87% of Republicans voted for it but only 13% of Democrats22

Defining marriage as being one man and one woman

  • Opposition to same sex marriage is at 66%,23 thereby giving public bi-partisan support in support of traditional marriage
  • In the Senate, on the vote to address The Federal Marriage Amendment (SJ Res 1) to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, only 49% of Senators voted in support of that definition24
  • 85% of Republican Senators voted for it but only 5% of Democratic Senators25
  • In the House vote on HJ Res 88 (The Federal Marriage Amendment), only 55% of House Members voted for it26
  • 87% of House Republicans voted for it but only 16% of Democrats27

Repealing the anti-family Death Tax (also called the Estate Tax, or Inheritance Tax) (see Proverbs 13:22, Ezekiel 46:18, Proverbs 19:14, I Chronicles 28:8, Ezra 9:12, etc.)

  • Public opposition to the tax is 68%, thereby giving public bi-partisan support for its repeal
  • In the vote on HR 8 (Estate Tax Repeal Act), only 57% of voted for its repeal28
  • 96% of Republicans voted to repeal it but only 9% of Democrats29
  • The measure passed the House but30 failed in the Senate31

Repealing the Marriage Penalty Tax

  • Public support to repeal that anti-family policy is 80%,32 thereby giving public bi-partisan support to rid the nation of this onerous measure
  • In the vote on HR 4810 (Marriage Tax Penalty Relief Act), 87% of Republicans voted for it but only 16% of Democrats voted to stop penalizing marriage33

Controlling the Supreme Court

  • The Supreme Court and the federal courts in general are the primary cause for the culture war. Consider: while no legislature has passed a law permitting abortion-on-demand, it has become national policy via a Supreme Court decision;34 similarly, no legislature has prohibited voluntary school prayer but that prohibition has become national policy via Supreme Court decisions;35 the same is true on numerous other cultural issues.
  • The Supreme Court’s own Justices have described the Court as “a super board of education for every school district in the nation,”36 “a national theology board,”37 and amateur psychologists on a “psycho-journey.”38 Far too many of the nation’s current policies on criminal justice, education, morality, etc., are not the result of legislative action but rather of judicial decrees.
  • 77% of the nation thinks that courts have overreached in driving religion out of public life, and 59% believe that they have singled out Christianity for attack,39 thereby giving public bi-partisan support to efforts to restrain judicial activism
  • Two strict-constructionists, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, were nominated to the Supreme Court as part of the effort to restrain judicial activism
  • Public support for Alito’s confirmation was 54%40 and for Roberts’ was 60%,41 thereby giving them public bi-partisan support
  • The vote on Alito’s confirmation was 98% of Republicans, 9% of Democrats;42 and the vote on the Roberts confirmation was 100% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats43
  • Why is Congress so far out of step with the people on so many cultural issues, frequently demonstrating a level for those issues that is 20 to 30% lower than the public support?

President James A. Garfield (the 20th President, and a minister of the Gospel during the Second Great Awakening) answered this question in 1876:

“Now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. . . . [I]f the next centennial does not find us a great nation . . . it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.”44

The Church probably better represents the “enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation” than any other group, but it has not “aided in controlling the political forces”

Christian voting

  • There are three types of Christian voters in polling
  • Christian voters – largest group; this is the group that simply self-identifies as (i.e., calls themselves) Christians
  • Born-again voters – a Christian voter who says he has had a life-changing experience with Jesus Christ;45 a smaller group than that of Christian voters
  • Evangelical voters – a born-again voter who also believes the Bible is important and who attends church, prays, and reads the Bible at least once a week;46 this is the group of Christians that take their faith most seriously

Christian voting patterns

  • 1992-1996: a 17% decrease in Christians who voted
  • 1996-2000: an additional 23% decrease in Christians who voted
  • 1992-2000: a 40% total decrease in Christians who voted
  • There are 60 million evangelicals in America47
  • Only 15 million evangelicals voted in 200048
  • Some 24 million (40%) evangelicals are not even registered to vote49

2002 efforts

  • In the 2002 election, following the dramatic drop in 1992-2000, national evangelical leaders widely urged Christians to register, vote, and vote their values
  • The national efforts resulted in 2% increase in Christian voter turnout
  • Even that percentage resulted in dramatic improvements, which were visible in exit polling on the abortion issue
  • 41% of all voters said the abortion issue impacted their vote
  • 23% said they voted a straight pro-life ticket
  • 16% said they voted a straight pro-abortion ticket
  • This resulted in a 7% advantage for a pro-life candidate (it had been some years since most federal candidates had an advantage by being openly pro-life50)
  • The results were visible in those elected to Congress
  • Of the 54 Freshmen elected to the U. S. House, 36 were pro-life – a 67% pro-life class51 (anything over 50.1% is moving forward)
  • Of 10 Freshmen elected to the U. S. Senate, 8 were pro-life – an 80% pro-life class52 (the Senate is where the help is most needed)

Legislative impact

  • Based on the logic of President Garfield (as well as that of Proverbs 29:2), if pro-life voters elect pro-life legislators, the logical result would be that they would begin to get pro-life legislation
  • Since the Roe v. Wade Court decision in 1973, Congress had not reduced the scope of abortions or the type of abortions performed but instead restricted only money
  • Congress regularly defeats the Sanchez Amendment that would fund abortions on military bases53
  • Congress regularly enacts the Hyde Amendment that prohibits federal funds from being used for abortions54
  • Congress regularly enacts the Mexico City policy that prohibits foreign aid monies from going to groups that perform abortions overseas55
  • The 2002 Congress became the first to pass not just one but three bills that protected unborn human life; all three were signed by President Bush
  • Infant Born-Alive Protection Act56
  • Unborn Victims of Violence Act57
  • Partial-Birth Abortion Ban58

2004 efforts

  • National evangelical leaders continued to widely urge voter registration, voter turnout, and Christians voting their values59
  • Those efforts resulted in a 93% increase in Christian voter turnout (28.9 million evangelicals voted,60 up 93% from the 15 million that voted in 2000; of course, 28.9 million of the 60 million still means that under half of evangelicals are voting, but this still is a dramatic increase over 2000)
  • The effect was reflected in exit polling on the abortion issue
  • 42% of all voters said the abortion issue impacted their vote61
  • 25% said they voted a straight pro-life ticket62
  • 13% said they voted a straight pro-abortion ticket63
  • This resulted in a 12% advantage for pro-life candidates
  • The results were visible in those elected to Congress
  • Of 40 Freshmen elected to the U. S. House, 25 were pro-life64 (a 63% pro-life class)
  • Of 9 Freshmen elected to the U. S. Senate, 7 were pro-life65 (a 77% pro-life class)

Overall effects of these two elections

  • Not only have a number of pro-life, pro-faith, and pro-family legislators been elected to Congress, but the change has been especially visible in the Senate
  • Over these two elections, of the 19 Freshman Senators elected, 15 have been pro-life – a 79% pro-life group
  • It has been the addition of these new pro-life Senators that has allowed the confirmation of two new pro-life Justices to the U. S. Supreme Court – something that likely would not have happened had not Christians showed up in the past two election cycles and voted their values
  • Those two new Justices have already had a significant impact on a number of Biblical and pro-family issues, including a pro-life Court ruling that ended a 1981 policy wrongly used to prosecute pro-life protestors,66 upholding the ban on partial-birth abortions,67 a refusal to hear a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (a federal law defining marriage as being the union of a man and a woman for federal purpose),68 and a decision to uphold a public display of the Ten Commandments69– the Court’s first favorable ruling on such displays in 27 years
  • Only one more such Justice is needed to place five solid votes on the Court, thus potentially ending the federal control of the culture war and returning it back to the people, where they can direct it through their elected officials

2006 voting efforts

  • There was a 30% decrease in Christian voter turnout, falling from 28.9 million evangelicals down to 20.5 million70
  • The result was clearly visible in the philosophy of those elected to Congress
  • Of 54 Freshmen elected to the U. S. House, only 17 were pro-life71 (a 31% pro-life class)
  • Of 10 Freshmen elected to the U. S. Senate,72 only 1 was pro-life (a 10% pro-life class), and one of those two will not vote for marriage as being only between a man and a woman
  • The Baltimore Sun described this Congress as “the most pro-choice Congress in the history of the Republic”73
  • Just as Christian voter turnout directly affects policies on life issues, so, too, on issues related to slowing the promotion of the homosexual agenda
  • The 2006 Congress has been active in promoting the homosexual agenda through its onerous homosexual hate-crimes bill as well as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would force employers, including churches, to hire homosexuals
  • While Evangelical voting turnout reaches only at 50% when at its highest, homosexual men vote at a rate of 92.5% and lesbian women at a rate of 91%74
  • Clearly, there is a direct correlation between Christian voter turnout and the percentage of elected leaders who embrace and reflect basic Biblical values

Challenges for Christian voter involvement

  1. The Rev. Matthias Burnet (1803)

    Finally, ye . . . whose high prerogative it is to . . . invest with office an authority or to withhold them and in whose power it is to save or destroy your country, consider well the important trust . . . which God . . . [has] put into your hands. To God and posterity you are accountable for them. . . . Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you.75

  2. The Rev. Charles Finney (1830s)

    The Church must take right ground in regard to politics. . . . [T]he time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics. . . . Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has come when they must act differently. . . . God cannot sustain this free and blessed country which we love and pray for unless the Church will take right ground. . . . It seems sometimes as if the foundations of the nation are becoming rotten, and Christians seem to act as if they think God does not see what they do in politics. But I tell you He does see it, and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course [Christians] take [in politics].76

  3. The Rev. Frederick Douglass (1852)

    [I] have one great political idea. . . . That idea is an old one. It is widely and generally assented to; nevertheless, it is very generally trampled upon and disregarded. The best expression of it, I have found in the Bible. It is in substance, “Righteousness exalteth a nation; sin is a reproach to any people” [Proverbs 14:34]. . . This constitutes my politics – the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole of my politics. . . . I feel it my duty to do all in my power to infuse this idea into the public mind, that it may speedily be recognized and practiced upon by our people.77

  4. The Rev. Francis Grimke (1909)

    The Stars and Stripes – the old flag – will float . . . over all these States. . . If the time ever comes when we shall go to pieces, it will . . . be . . . from inward corruption – from the disregard of right principles . . . from losing sight of the fact that “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but that sin is a reproach to any people” [Proverbs 14:34]. . . . [T]he secession of the Southern States in 1860 was a small matter compared with the secession of the Union itself from the great principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, in the Golden Rule, in the Ten Commandments, in the Sermon on the Mount. Unless we hold, and hold firmly to these great fundamental principles of righteousness, . . . our Union . . . will be “only a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” If it continues to exist, it will be a curse and not a blessing.78

– – – ◊ ◊ ◊ – – –
Many of the above statistics (and their documentation) as well as the historical quotations can be found in several articles on the WallBuilders website (www.wallbuilders.com) as well as in WallBuilders resources available from the store on our website.

WallBuilders Resources

Endnotes

1 Gallup, “Americans Indivisible on Pledge of Allegiance” (at: https://www.gallup.com/poll/11551/Americans-Indivisible-Pledge-Allegiance.aspx).

2 Gallup, “Party Affiliation” (at https://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx).

3 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 385” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll385.xml), GovTrack.us, “H.R. 2389 [109th]: Pledge Protection Act of 2005” (at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2006-385).

4 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 385” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll385.xml), GovTrack.us, “H.R. 2389 [109th]: Pledge Protection Act of 2005” (at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2006-385).

5 Library of Congress, “H.R. 2389” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR02389:@@@L&summ2=m&), GovTrack.us, “H.R. 2389 [109th]: Pledge Protection Act of 2005” (at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-2389).

6 See for example: Gallup, “Americans: Thou Shalt Not Remove the Ten Commandments” (at: https://www.gallup.com/poll/15817/Americans-Thou-Shalt-Remove-Ten-Commandments.aspx).

7 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 221: Aderholt of Alabama Amendment” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll221.xml).

8 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 221: Aderholt of Alabama Amendment” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll221.xml).

9 Library of Congress, “H.R. 1501: H.AMDT.200” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:HR01501:@@@S).

10 U.S. Department of Justice, “Criminal Offenders Statistics” (at: https://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#recidivism).

11 FoxNews.com, “Faith-Based Prisons Multiply Across U.S.” (at: https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301600,00.html).

12 The Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare Policy, “Unresolved Problem- Interview with Rob Boston, Mark Earley” (at: https://www.religionandsocialpolicy.org/news/article.cfm?id=423).

13 University of Pennsylvania, “Fathers in Prison: A Review of the Data” (at: https://www.ncoff.gse.upenn.edu/briefs/brennerbrief.pdf), California State Library, “Children of Incarcerated Parents” (at: https://www.library.ca.gov/crb/00/notes/V7N2.pdf).

14 Mackinac Center for Public Policy, “Teen Challenge: Kicking Two Bad Habits” (at: https://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=56).

15 “Statement of the Dave Batty, Executive Director, Teen Challenge, Inc., Brooklyn, New York. Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Committee on Ways and Means,” 3.

16 PewForum, “Report: Faith-Based Funding Backed, but Church-State Doubt Abound” (at: https://pewforum.org/events/0410/report/).

17 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 254: HR 7” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll254.xml).

18 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 254: HR 7” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll254.xml).

19 Library of Congress, “HR 7: All Actions” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:HR00007:@@@X).

20 Gallup, “Public Favors Voluntary Prayer for Schools” (at: https://www.gallup.com/poll/18136/Public-Favors-Voluntary-Prayer-Public-Schools.aspx), August 26, 2005; Gallup, “Education: Topics A to Z” (at: https://www.gallup.com/poll/1612/Education.aspx).

21 Library of Congress, “HJ Res 78” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:HJ00078:@@@X), Library of Congress, “Final Results for Roll Call 201: HJ Res 78” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/1998/roll201.xml).

22 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 201: HJ Res 78” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/1998/roll201.xml).

23 Fox News Poll, June 18, 2004 (at: https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,103756,00.html).

24 Library of Congress, “S.J. Res. 1” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SJ00001:@@@X), GovTrack.us, “S.J. Res. 1 [109th]: Marriage Protection Amendment” (at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=sj109-1).

25 Library of Congress, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress- 2nd Session” (at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00163), GovTrack.us, “Senate Vote #163 (Jun 7, 2006)” (at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s2006-163).

26 Library of Congress, “H.J. Res. 88” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HJ00088:@@@X), GovTrack.us, “H.J. Res. 88 [109th]: Marriage Protection Amendment” (at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj109-88).

27 Library of Congress, “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 378” (at: https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll378.xml), GovTrack.us, “H.J. Res. 88 [109th]: Marriage Protection Amendment (Vote on Passage)” (at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2006-378).

28 Library of Congress, “H.R. 8” (at https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00008:@@@X), Library of Congress, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress-2nd Session: H.R. 8” (at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00164).

29 Library of Congress, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress-2nd Session: H.R. 8” (at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00164).

30 Library of Congress, “H.R. 8” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00008:@@@X).

31 Library of Congress, “H.R. 8” (at: https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00008:@@@X), Library of Congress, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress-2nd Session: H.R. 8” (at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00164).

32 Gallup, “Broad Public Support for Variety of Economic Stimulus Proposals” (at: https://www.gallup.com/poll/7549/Broad-Public-Support-Variety-Economic-Stimulus-Proposals.aspx), January 8, 2003; see also Pew Research Center, “Public Votes for Continuity and Change in 2000” (at: https://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?PageID=330), February 25, 1999.

33 Library of Congress, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 106th Congress- 2nd Session” (at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=2&vote=00226).

34 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

35 See for example Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985).

36 McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 237 (1948).

37 County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 106 L. Ed. 2d 472, 550 (1989), Kennedy, J. (concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part).

38 Lee et al. v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 643 (1992).

39 Foxnews.com, “Courts Driving Religion Out of Public Life; Christianity Under Attack” (at: https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177355,00.html); see also CNSNews.com, “Most Americans Feel Religion Is ‘Under Attack,’ Poll Shows” (at: https://www.csnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=Culturearchive200511CUL20051121a.html).

40 CNN-USA Today-Gallup Poll reported on January 23, 2006 (at: https://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-23-alito-senate_x.htm).

41 CNN-USA Today-Gallup Poll reported on January 19, 2005 (at: https://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/19/bush.poll/index.html).

42 United States Senate, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress-2nd Session” (at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00002).

43 United States Senate, “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress-1st Session” (at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00245).

44 John M. Taylor, Garfield of Ohio: The Available Man (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1970), p. 180, quoted from “A Century of Congress,” by James A. Garfield, Atlantic, July 1877.

45 Barna Group, “Born Again Christians” (at: https://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&TopicID=8).

46 Wheaton College, “Defining Evangelicalism” (at: https://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_evangelicalism.html).

47 The Boston Globe, “Apocalyptic President?” (at: https://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/04/04/apocalyptic_president/?page=3); Reuters, “U.S. Evangelicals Eye Renewed Domestic Drive” (at: https://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0741145420070207);

48 Focus on the Family, Citizen Magazine, September 2003, “Believers at the ballot box: Election 2000 by the numbers.”

49 Operation Vote.com, “More Ways Churches Can Get Involved” (at: www.kintera.org/atf/cf/%7BBA59548B-F8D6-416E-86A7-3BF0226F8467%7D/AF104-%20Planning%20Points.pdf); Summit Ministries, “Why Christians Should Vote” (at: https://summit.org/resource/tc/archive/1004/).

50 National Right to Life, “The Pro-Life Advantage for Candidates” (at: https://www.nrlc.org/EandP/profileadvantage.html).

51 Numbers provided by the House Pro-Life Caucus.

52 Statement of Carol Tobias, National Right to Life PAC Director, Post Election Press Conference, November 13, 2002, (at: http//www.nrlc.org/Election2002/tobiaspressconference111302.html).

53 American Family Association, “Loretta Sanchez of California Amendment; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004,” (at: ); University of Maryland, “CRS Report for Congress: Abortion Services and Military Medical Facilities” (at: https:// www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/95-387_F.pdf), 17-18.

54 National Women’s Health Network, “The Women’s Health Activist: The Hyde Amendment’s Prohibition of Federal Funding for Abortion- 30 Years is Enough!”; National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, “The Hyde Amendment: Fact Sheet” (at: www.nchla.org/datasource/ifactsheets/hyde8b.00.PDF).

55 Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, “US ‘Mexico’ policy: Abortion funding in foreign countries,” last updated April 27, 2007 (at: https://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_wrld.htm).

56 National Right to Life, “President Bush Signs Born Alive Infants Protection Act in Pittsburgh Ceremony Attended by NRLC Officials,” (at: https://www.nrlc.org/Federal/Born_Alive_Infants/BAIPAsigned.html).

57 National Right to Life, “ President Bush Signs Unborn Victims of Violence Act into Law, After Dramatic One-vote Win in Senate,” April 6, 2004 (at: https://ww.nrlc.org/Unborn_Victims/BshsignsUVVA.html).

58 Office of the Press Secretary, “President Signs Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003,” November 5, 2003 (at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031105-1.html).

59 Washington Post, “Evangelical Leaders Appeal to Followers to Go to Polls,” October 15, 2004, p. A06; see also Washington Post, “Evangelicals Say They Led Charge for the GOP” (at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32793-2004Nov7.html).

60 In the 2004 elections, a total of 125,736,000 votes were cast; twenty-three percent of voters were “Evangelicals,” thus translating into 28.9 million votes. See sources at New York Times, “Religious Voting Data Show Some Shift, Observers Say,” (at: https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50F17F7355B0C7A8CDDA80994DE404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fE%2fEvangelical%20Movement); and U. S. Census Bureau, “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004” (at: https://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p20-556.pdf).

61 National Right to Life, “Statement by Carol Tobias: National Right to Life Political Director, November 4, 2004” (at: https://www.nrlc.org/Post/Tobias110404.html).

62 National Right to Life, “Statement by Carol Tobias: National Right to Life Political Director, November 4, 2004” (at: https://www.nrlc.org/Post/Tobias110404.html).

63 National Right to Life, “Statement by Carol Tobias: National Right to Life Political Director, November 4, 2004” (at: https://www.nrlc.org/Post/Tobias110404.html).

64 Numbers provided by the House Pro-Life Caucus.

65 National Right to Life, “Statement by Carol Tobias: National Right to Life Political Director, November 4, 2004” (at: https://www.nrlc.org/Post/Tobias110404.html), Library of Congress, “CRS Report for Congress: Freshmen in the House of Representatives and Senate by Political Party: 1913-2005” (at: www.llsdc.org/sourcebook/docs/CRS-RS20723.pdf).

66 NOW v. Scheidler, 547 U.S. ___ (2006).

67 Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. ___ (2007).

68 Smelt v. County of Orange, 374 F. Supp. 2d 861 (C.D. Cal., 2005), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, 447 F.3d 673 (9th Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 127 S. Ct. 396 (2006).

69 Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005).

70 In the 2006 elections, a total of 85,251,089 votes were cast; twenty-four percent of voters were “Evangelicals,” thus translating into 20.5 million votes. See sources at George Mason University, “United States Elections Project: 2006 Voting-Age and Voting-Eligible Population Estimates” (at: https://elections.gmu.edu/Voter_Turnout_2006.htm); New York Times, “Religious Voting Data Show Some Shift, Observers Say” (at: https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50F17F7355B0C7A8CDDA80994DE404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fE%2fEvangelical%20Movement).

71 Numbers provided by the House Pro-Life Caucus.

72 See for example: Wikipedia.com, “List of Freshmen Class Members of the 110th United States Congress” (at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freshman_class_members_of_the_110th_United_States_Congress).

73 Thomas F. Shaller, Baltimore Sun, February 28, 2007 (at: https://www.sba-list.org/newsitems.aspx).

74 Numbers from a study by San Francisco-based Community Marketing, Inc. reported in the Los Angeles Times online blog on August 8, 2007 (at: https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/08/gay-power.html).

75 Matthias Burnet, An Election Sermon, Preached at Hartford, on the Day of the Anniversary Election, May 12, 1803 (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1803), 26-27.

76 Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1868, first published in 1835), Lecture XV, 281-282.

77 Douglass, The Frederick Douglass Papers, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 2:397, from a speech delivered at Ithaca, New York, October 14, 1852.

78 Francis J. Grimke, from “Equality of Right for All Citizens, Black and White, Alike,” March 7, 1909, published in Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence, Alice Moore Dunbar, editor (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2000), 246-247.

Private Property Rights Resolution

Resolution Acknowledging the Inalienable Rights of Private Property

I. Whereas, an overriding respect for the sanctity of the ownership and personal use of private property, free from restrictive and invasive regulatory regulations, is firmly embedded in American colonial law, common law, and constitutional law:

A. The three most-influential political philosophers impacting the formation of American law were Charles Montesquieu, William Blackstone, and John Locke1

B. Charles Montesquieu, whose writings were recommended by major Framers such as James Madison, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, declared: “Let us therefore lay down a certain maxim: that whenever the public good happens to be the matter in question, it is not for the advantage of the public to deprive an individual of his property – or even to retrench the least part of it by a law or a political regulation”2

C. William Blackstone, whose legal writings were considered as the final authority in American courts for a century-and-a-half after the adoption of the U. S. Constitution, declared: “So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property that it will not authorize the least violation of it – no, not even for the general good of the whole community”3

D. John Locke, whose writings had direct impact in the framing both of the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution, succinctly declared that “the preservation of property [is] the reason for which men enter into society” and that “government . . . can never have a power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the subject’s. property without their own consent, for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all”;4 and

II. Whereas, the right to hold, possess, and use one’s own private property was also recognized by our Framers and in our founding government documents as one of the foremost of our inalienable, inviolable, God-given rights:

A. Samuel Adams declared that our inalienable rights included “first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property – together with the right to support and defend them”5

B. John Adams declared that “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence”6 and that “Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty”7

C. John Jay, original Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and an author of the Federalist Papers declared that “It is the undoubted right and unalienable privilege of a [citizen] not to be divested or interrupted in the innocent use of . . . property. . . . This is the Cornerstone of every free Constitution”8

D. Adam Smith, famous economist of the Founding Era, foresaw the tendencies of governments to impinge the rights of private property, forewarning: “As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords [e.g., the governments], like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce”9

E. Noah Webster, a Founding Father who served as a judge and legislator, declared that property is “the exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing; ownership. In the beginning of the world, the Creator gave to man dominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air, and over every living thing. This is the foundation of man’s property in the earth and in all its productions. Prior occupancy of land and of wild animals gives to the possessor the property of them. The labor of inventing, making or producing anything constitutes one of the highest and most indefeasible titles to property”10

F. Both John Adams (signer of the Declaration and framer of the Bill of Rights) and William Paterson (signer of the Constitution and Justice placed on the U. S. Supreme Court by President George Washington) declared: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of . . . acquiring, possessing, and protecting property”11

III. Whereas, our founding governing documents declare that it is the purpose of government to protect and not violate inalienable God-given rights, including the right of owning and using one’s own property;

A. James Madison declared that “Government is instituted to protect property. . . . This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own. . . . That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions [i.e., restrictive zoning requirements], exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their [own] faculties”12

B. Fisher Ames, a Framer of the Bill of Rights, forcefully declared that “The chief duty and care of all governments is to protect the rights of property”13

C. John Dickinson, a signer of the Constitution, declared: “Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds: (1) that we cannot be happy without being free; (2) that we cannot be free without being secure in our property; (3) that we cannot be secure in our property if without our consent others may as by right take it away”14

D. John Adams – one of only two signers of the Bill of Rights – declared: “Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist” and that “it is agreed that the end of all government is the good and ease of the people in a secure enjoyment of their rights without oppression”15

E. James Wilson – a signer of the Declaration, signer of the Constitution, original U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and founder of the first organized legal training in America – declared that American government was created “to acquire a new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights to . . . which we were previously entitled by the immediate gift or by the unerring law of our all-wise and all-beneficent Creator,” including the right of property, and that “every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind”16

F. Thomas Jefferson similarly declared that the purpose of government “is to declare and enforce only our natural [inalienable, God-given] rights and duties and to take none of them from us,”17 including the right to own, use, and enjoy one’s own private property

G. An early public school textbook on ethics, reprinted for generations, transmitted these original principles to young Americans, teaching them: “Property is something which one owns and has a right to own. . . . Everything which you see or touch belongs to you or to somebody else. If it belongs to you, you have the right to do what you please with it, provided you do not abuse it: if it belongs to somebody else, you have no right to it whatever”18 – a prohibition that applies equally to government entities as well as to individuals; and

IV. Whereas, the Common Law, directly incorporated into the U. S. Constitution by the Seventh Amendment, establishes that an “absolute right . . . is that of property. . . . So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property that. . . . [i]n vain may it be urged that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community; for it would be dangerous to allow any private man, or even any public tribunal [governmental body], to be the judge of this common good and to decide whether it be expedient or no [how to use that property]”;19 and

VI. Therefore, Be It Resolved, that all interpretations and applications of zoning ordinances shall be examined and applied so as to recognize and preserve the inalienable, inviolable principles of private property usage and that such individual rights may be infringed only if it is clearly proven that they directly injure or harm the same rights of another citizen.

Footnotes

1 Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 143; Donald S. Lutz, “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review, 78:1:191, March 1984.

2 Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1752), 210.

3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), I:139; The Founders’ Constitution, “Property: William Blackstone, Commentaries” (at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html).

4 John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1698) 273-274, Second Treatise §§ 138-40.

5 Samuel Adams, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, William V. Wells, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1865), I:502, “The Natural Rights of the Colonists As Men.”

6 John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), III:217, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined.”

7 John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution (1797), III:216, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined.”

8 John Jay, John Jay The Making of a Revolutionary, Unpublished Papers, 1745-1780, ed. Richard B. Morris (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1980), I:462, “A Freeholder: A Hint to the Legislature of the State of New York,” Winter 1778.

9 Adam Smith, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Vol. I, Chapter 6.”

10 Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. “property.”

11 The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman and Bowen, 1785), 6; William Paterson, The Charge of Judge William Paterson to the Jury (Philadelphia, Smith, 1796), 15.

12 James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), VI:102, “Property,” March 29, 1792.

13 Fisher Ames, The Works of Fisher Ames (Boston: T.B. Wait & Co., 1809), 125, “Eulogy on Washington”, Feb. 8, 1800.

14 John Dickinson, The Political Writings of John Dickinson (Wilmington, Bonsal and Niles, 1801), I:275, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the inhabitants of the British Colonies,” Letter XII.

15 John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), VI:280, “Discourse on Davila; a Series of Papers on Political History.”

16 John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), III:293-294, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined”; The Founders’ Constitution, “Balanced Government: John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States” (at https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch11s10.html).

17 James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), II:454, 466, “Of The Natural Rights Of Individuals.”

18 Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), IV:278, to Francis Gilmer, June 7, 1816.

19 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), I:138-139; The Founders’ Constitution, “Property: William Blackstone, Commentaries” (at https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html).

Testimony on Global Warming

Testimony of David Barton in the June 7, 20071

U.S. Senate Hearing on Global Warming in the

Environment and Public Works Committee

My name is David Barton. I represent a group that works to integrate faith with the many practical issues of daily life, and each year I personally speak to hundreds of religious groups from numerous different Christian denominations. I was honored to be named by Time Magazine as one of America’s twenty-five most influential Evangelicals,2 meaning, of course, that I will address this issue from an Evangelical perspective.

Evangelicals are generally characterized by an adherence to what is considered a traditional – that is, a conservative – Biblical theology. While Gallup has placed the number of Evangelicals at 124 million and Barna at much less, most estimates place the number at about 100 million.3 Significantly, statistics demonstrate that the religious groups and denominations in America adhering to conservative theological views (such as Evangelicals) are growing in membership and affiliation,4 whereas those adhering to liberal theological views are declining.5

In my experience, three factors influence how people of conservative religious faith – especially Evangelicals – approach the issue of man-caused Global Warming. The first is their theological view of man and the environment; the second is the perceived credibility of the scientific debate; and the third is how Evangelicals prioritize the issue of Global Warming among the other cultural and social issues of concern to them.

Concerning the first factor, a very accurate rendering of Evangelicals’ general theological position on the environment is presented in the Cornwall Declaration,6 prepared by twenty-five conservative Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish theologians. In general, conservative people of faith view the creation in Genesis as moving upward in an ascending spiritual hierarchy, beginning with the creation of the lowest (the inanimate) and moving toward the highest (the animate), with the creation of man and woman being the capstone of God’s work. God placed man and woman over creation, not under it;7 man and woman interacted with nature and the environment, they were not isolated from it.8 As the Cornwall Declaration explains, there is no conservative theological basis for the current belief of environmentalists that “humans [are] principally consumers and polluters rather than producers and stewards,” and that “nature knows best,” or that “the earth, untouched by human hands is the ideal.”9 Religious conservatives believe just the opposite; and as my orthodox Jewish Rabbi friend reminded me just last week, the Scriptures teach conservation, not preservation. Man is the steward of nature and the environment and is definitely to tend and guard it, but it is to serve him, not vice versa.10 From the beginning, God strongly warned against elevating nature and the environment over humans and their Creator.11 This generally summarizes the theology common among Evangelicals on this point.

The second factor influencing conservative religious adherents is the credibility of the scientific debate; and when something is still debated as heavily as is the issue of man-caused Global Warming, and when there is still not a clear consensus, Evangelicals tend to approach that issue with great skepticism. Significantly, in 1992, Al Gore declared: “Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.”12 Yet a Gallup Poll that same year revealed that “53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe [man-caused] global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed [man-caused] global warming had begun.”13 Clearly, despite Gore’s claims to the contrary, there was much more than “an insignificant fraction of scientists” denying that there was a man-caused Global Warming crisis.

Now, fifteen years later, there still is no consensus. For example, even though 2,500 of the world’s top scientists agree with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assertions about man-caused Global Warming,14 well over 10,000 scientists do not.15 Recent national articles have attempted to draw attention to this fact (see, for example, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Atmospheric Science Professor Richard Lindzen declaring: “There is no ‘Consensus’ on Global Warming”;16 “They Call This A Consensus?” in the Canada Financial Post<17

Yet, when such truthful claims are made, those making them are aggressively attacked by the Global Warming supporters, whose counter-claims are eagerly broadcast by the mainstream media. For example, when NASA head Michael Griffin recently stated that he did not see Global Warming as a “problem we must wrestle with,”18 outspoken Global Warming promoter James Hansen (called “a grandfather of the Global Warming theory”19) immediately and fiercely attacked the NASA chief, telling national news reporters: “It’s an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement. It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.”20

Even though numerous scientists across the globe sided with NASA chief Griffin,21 their voices were unreported. Griffin eventually acknowledged that he wished “he’d stayed out of the debate on climate effects,” noting that “this is an issue which has become far more political than technical.”22

There are many others in the scientific community who are unwilling to openly air their view for fear of being similarly attacked in what truly is a much more of a political than a technical debate.

The lack of consensus in the scientific community is paralleled in the Evangelical community. For example, although more than 100 religious leaders in a highly-publicized announcement signed onto the Evangelical Climate Initiative on Global Warming calling for immediate action on what they believed was man-caused Global Warming,23 more than 1,500 religious leaders signed onto the Cornwall Declaration that reached quite different conclusions;24 yet that much larger declaration went without media notice.

Many Evangelicals, like many scientists, are skeptical on the issue of man-caused Global Warming; and in the case of Evangelicals, their skepticism is heightened by their memory of previous politically-driven “scientific” consensuses. For example:

  • Twenty years ago the scientific community proclaimed that fetal tissue research held the solution for many of the world’s health problems, but the science on that issue has subsequently proven to be a complete bust.25
  • In the 1960s, environmental scientists warned that the Global Population Bomb would soon doom the entire planet;26 in the 1980s as population growth continued to increase, they further warned that by the year 2000, economic growth would be destroyed.27 and there would be a worldwide unemployment crisis.28 The world population has almost doubled since those predictions, but the current worldwide unemployment rate is only 6.3 percent.29 and worldwide economic growth is and has been booming for many years.
  • In the 1960s, environmental scientists similarly claimed that DDT harmed humans and caused cancer, thus resulting in a near worldwide ban on the use of that pesticide. Now, four decades later, the scientific community has found no harm to humans from DDT,30 so it has been reintroduced to fight the mosquitoes that carry malaria.31 Regrettably, in the intervening years, between one and two million persons each year needlessly died each year from malaria because DDT had been banned.32 Recent years have been filled with scientific claims that embryonic stem-cell research holds the cure for human maladies from Alzheimer’s to diabetes to the reversal of spinal cord injuries and everything in between.33 However, after twenty-five years of embryonic stem-cell research, not a single cure has been documented,34 yet during the same time, adult stem-cell research has produced dozens of documented cures for some of mankind’s most serious medical problems.35
  • For more than a century, scientists have asserted unaided materialistic evolution – that God had no part in the appearance of man. Yet, despite a century of this aggressive “scientific” indoctrination, today only 12-18 percent of the nation accepts that position; some eighty percent do not believe what “science” avows on this issue.36
  • Less than a decade ago, science was warning of the worldwide problems that would result from the world arriving at a new millennia – a problem known as Y2K, or the millennium bug. It was viewed as an impending disaster, and after U. S. Senators received a 160-page report on the issue in a closed-door briefing session, “Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, advised citizens to stock up on canned goods. Senator Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, suggested that passengers ask airlines about Y2K before boarding a plane this New Year’s Eve. Senator Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah, said there was a great likelihood of economic disruptions around the world . . . [and] would not rule out the possibility of intercontinental warfare as a result of Y2K.”37 States such as Ohio built underground bunkers into which they moved state operations in preparation for the coming massive failures; the U. S. military and National Guard were put on alert; the U. S. Treasury printed an additional $200 million in extra currency; and the FBI created a special division to deal with the problems. The U. S. spent some $225 billion to address an impending disaster based on what turned out to be inaccurate scientific warnings.38
  • In the 1970s, scientists claimed that aerosols were a leading cause of harm to the environment,39 but a recent report now shows that “Aerosols actually have a cooling effect on global temperatures” which helps “cancel out the warming effect of CO2.”40 In short, science – especially environmental science – has a demonstrated pattern of announcing strong and emphatic conclusions and then later reversing itself.Further buoying the current skepticism about man-caused

Global Warming is the fact that the scientific clamor about radical climate change has been occurring for almost a century. For example, in the 1920s, the newspapers were filled with scientists warning of a fast approaching Glacial Age; but in the 1930s, scientists reversed themselves and instead predicted serious Global Warming.41 But by 1972, Time was citing numerous scientific reports warning of imminent “runaway glaciation,”42 and in 1975, Newsweek reported overwhelming scientific evidence that proved an approaching Ice Age, with scientists warning the government to stockpile food; proposals were even advanced to melt the artic ice cap in an effort to help forestall the oncoming Ice Age.43 In fact, in 1976, the U. S. Government itself even released a study affirming that “the earth is heading into some sort of mini-ice age.”44

Now, however, just a few years later, the warning of an imminent Ice Age has been replaced with the warning of an impending Global Warming disaster. In less than a century, environmental science has completely reversed itself on this issue no less than three times.Yet, in deference to the scientific community, some of the reversals in their predictions are completely understandable, for the scientific community was merely responding to the changing temperature trends as measured at the Artic. For example, notice that on the chart below, the temperature did indeed fall throughout the 1920s, rise throughout the 1930s, fall throughout the 1960s, and has been rising since the 1980s. However, is the current temperature rise man-caused as environmental activists and liberals claim, or might it stem from something else? Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon has correlated the last century of temperature changes to solar activity rather than to human activity producing increased carbon-dioxide emissions.45 Those charts therefore suggest that unless Congress can pass legislation controlling the sun, it is unlikely that restricting human activity will have any significant effect in reducing the rising global temperatures.Another indication of the current volatility of the science among Global Warming proponents is the fact that they are reversing themselves even on their own recent claims. For example, just a few years ago scientists predicted that the seas would rise from 20 to 40 feet because of Global Warming,46 with “waves crashing against the steps of the U.S. Capitol” that would “launch boats from the bottom of the Capitol steps”; additionally, one-third of Florida and large parts of Texas were projected to be under water.47

Now, however, the estimates have been revised radically downward to a maximum water rise of anywhere from only a few inches to just a few feet at most.48

Clearly, the science on this issue continues to oscillate; in fact, Senator Inhofe is one of many who have tracked the number of leading scientists who, after announcing their position in support of anthropogenic Global Warming, have reversed that position upon further research. This lack of consensus, coupled with the issuing of so many forceful assertions followed by subsequent repudiations, certainly merits a very cautious and guarded approach to any proposed congressional policy on this subject.The truth is that Evangelicals and people of conservative religious faith are very comfortable with theological teachings that have been proved correct for millennia, but not with science that often reverses its own claims on the same issue. And while science is still debating the causes of Global Warming and trying to decide where the ocean waves will end up, religious conservatives rest in the many promises of the Scriptures. For example, in Genesis 8:21-22, God promised that the natural cycles would continue (“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease”); and Psalm 104:9 declares: “You set a boundary that they [the waters] may not pass over, so that they will not return to cover the earth”; and in Jeremiah 5:22, God asks: “Will you not tremble at My presence, Who have placed the sand as the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree that it [the sea] cannot pass beyond it? And though its waves toss to and fro, yet they cannot prevail.” To date, neither science nor experience has disproved the promises of those Scriptures. Considering not only the theological beliefs of Evangelicals but also the rapidly-changing science surrounding anthropogenic Global Warming, the skepticism of religious conservatives on this issue is understandable.The third factor affecting Evangelicals’ approach to man-caused Global Warming is how they rank that issue among other issues of importance to them, for Evangelicals are concerned about many issues, not just one. In fact, polls indicate that it is not conservative Christians who are fixated with single issues such as abortion but rather it is liberals. As a recent poll on Americans’ views toward the judiciary reported, for liberals, “no other issue rivals abortion in importance,” but among Evangelicals, “three-quarters . . .view abortion as very important, [and] nearly as many place great importance on court rulings on the rights of detained terrorist suspects (69%) and whether to permit religious displays on government property (68%).”49

Very simply, Evangelicals tend to have many issues of importance on their list of concerns, not just one. So where does the issue of man-caused Global Warming rank on that list of concerns?Current polling shows that Evangelicals are not cohesive about the issue;50 and while 12 percent of the nation overall ranks Global Warming as a top priority issue,51 less than 6 percent of Evangelicals do so.52 However, they do remain the most cohesive group in the nation on many other issues, including their opposition to abortion, gay marriage, and civil unions;53 in teaching teenagers to abstain from sex until marriage;54 and in support of public religious expressions.55

In fact, in this latter area, among Evangelicals, 99.5 percent support public displays of the Ten Commandments; 99 percent support keeping the phrase “In God We Trust” on the nation’s currency; 96 percent support keeping “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance; and 86 percent support teaching Creationism in the public school classroom; additionally, 94 percent oppose allowing the use of profanity on broadcast television.56 It is unlikely that Global Warming will overshadow these other issues at anytime in the near future.

One other issue on which Evangelicals show cohesive support is in global efforts to fight extreme poverty: not only do 90 percent support such efforts,57 but 87 percent directly cite their Evangelical faith as the reason for “helping those less fortunate than [them]selves.”58 Yet, significantly, the poor will suffer most under the current “cap and trade” policy proposals for reducing man-caused Global Warming. (Under “cap & trade” programs, a “cap” is set on the total amount of emissions permitted and companies may then buy and “trade” to receive permits to release emissions). Independent analyses affirm that “cap and trade” programs definitely will be “regressive” – that is, there will definitely be higher consumer costs caused by the programs, and those higher costs will be felt most directly by the poor who least can afford to bear those costs as the price they pay for energy and utilities will soar. (See, for example, the April 27, 2007, report from the Congressional Budget Office59 or the report “A Call to Truth>, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming” from the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance.60

Given the fact that the current proposals will harshly impact the poor in developing nations and dramatically impede their hopes for a more prosperous life, it is even less likely that Evangelicals will place the theoretical needs of the environment above the actual needs of the poor.In summary, the three primary factors influencing how Evangelicals respond to the current vigorous debate on Global Warming are: (1) their theological views of man and his relationship to nature and the environment; (2) their skepticism over scientific disputes until a clear and unambiguous consensus has emerged; and (3) their ranking of that issue within the list of the many other issues of concern to them. (Of course, the fact the climate-change agenda is being so aggressively promoted by the same groups which regularly oppose Evangelicals on core issues of faith and values further exacerbates Evangelicals’ suspicion about anthropogenic, or man-caused, Global Warming.)

Currently, I do not find any substantial widespread movement in the mainstream Evangelical community to support any policy proposal on Global Warming that would significantly alter the way individuals now live, or that might inflict additional burdens on the poor and potentially confine them to a permanent state of poverty. Based on these points, I urge extreme caution in crafting any legislative policy on this issue.

Endnotes

1 At the time this document was being prepared for submission to the Senate Committee, additional inquiries were still underway by the author; that information was not available in time for the hearing, but was subsequently submitted to the Committee and then added to this document, thus making it slightly different from what was originally submitted to the Senate Committee. Additionally, this document also incorporates much of what the author presented orally during the question and answer period with the Senators.

2 “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals In America,” Time, February 7, 2005.

3 See, for example, Wheaton College, “Defining Evangelicalism.”

4 Such as the National Association of Evangelicals, which now represents about 30 million people from 60 member denominations as well as individual churches from numerous other denominations (at National Association of Evangelicals, “Benefits of Membership”).

5 For example, mainline churches that make up organizations such as the National Council of Churches have lost over 35 percent of their members since the 1970s. “The National Council of Churches (NCC) now receives more funding from private foundations, most of them secular and politically liberal, than from its member denominations, it was revealed at its fall 2005 Governing Board meeting. In the fiscal year ending in June 2005, the NCC received $1,761,714 from liberal foundations, compared to $1,750,332 from its 35 member churches. The foundations include the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Tides Foundation, the Better World Fund, the Sierra Club, the AARP, the Ocean Conservancy, and the National Religious Partnership on the Environment,” from Touchstone,
“NCC Exit Poll” (at https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=19-02-057-r).

6 Available at Cornwall Alliance, “A Call to Truth, Prudence and Protection of the Poor”; Cornwall Alliance, “The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship.”

7 In Matthew 10:31 and Luke 12:7, Christ reminds man that “You are of more value than many sparrows,” and Psalm 8:6-8 declares: “You have made man to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all animal, birds, and fish, whether on land or in the sea.”

8 In Genesis 1:25-29, God created all, and then placed man over his creation to interact with all of it, whether animate or inanimate.

9 The Cornwall Alliance, https://www.cornwallalliance.org.

10 Genesis2:8-20 records man’s stewardship and interaction with creation, not his removal from it. God put him in the Garden to tend and keep it; and God brought his
creation before Adam, who named it all.

11 See, for example, Romans 1:20-25; for instances where man wrongly turned their primary focus toward animals and the creation rather than the Creator; see also Exodus 32:7-9, 34-35; 2 Kings 17:14-16l 2 Kings 18:3-5; 2 Chronicles 11:14-15; Nehemiah 9:17-19; Psalms 106:19-23; Ezekiel 8:9-12; Acts 7:40-42; etc.

12 “They call this a consensus?” Financial Post, June 2, 2007.

13 “They call this a consensus?” Financial Post, June 2, 2007.

14 “They call this a consensus?” Financial Post, June 2, 2007.

15 “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine; “List of Signers by State,” Petition Project.

16 “There is No ‘Consensus’ on Global Warming,” Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2006.

17 “They call this a consensus?” Financial Post, June 2, 2007.

18 “Scientists Surprised by NASA Chief’s Climate Comments: NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming,” ABC News, May 31, 2007.

19 See, for example, Harmonious Living, “A New Global Warming Strategy”; Veganica.com, “Biggest Cause of Global Warming Ignored”; Energy Tribune, “Global Warming: Witnesses for the Skeptical Perspective”; and others.

20 “Scientists Surprised by NASA Chief’s Climate Comments: NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming,” ABC News, May 31, 2007.

21 “Scientists Rally Around NASA Chief After Global Warming Comments,” E-Wire, June 4, 2007.

22 See, for example, “NASA chief regrets remarks on global warming,” MSNBC, June 5, 2007.

23 “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action,” Evangelical Climate Initiative.

24 Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, “About ISA.”

25 See, for example, testimony of Andrew Kimbrell of the International Center for Technology Assessment before the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee on February 5, 2002, from United States Senate, “Committee on the Judiciary: Human Cloning: Must We Sacrifice Medical Research in the Name of a Total Ban?”

26 See, for example, Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), and many other books and articles.

27 “Get Serious About Population,” The New York Times, April 12, 1984, A-26.

28 Warren Brown, “A Population Bomb: Report Warns Increase in Children May Trigger Third-World Unrest,” The Washington Post, March 10, 1979, A-2; “The Right Number of American,” The New York Times, February 2, 1989, A-24; “We are too many,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), September 14, 1983; “Our crowded planet,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), December 26, 1985.

29 International Labour Office, “Global Employment Trends.”

30 “Dr. Conyers, I Presume,” Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2007; “Without DDT, malaria bites back,” Spiked, April 24, 2001.

31 “Dr. Conyers, I Presume,” Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2007; “Without DDT, malaria bites back,” Spiked, April 24, 2001.

32 “Dr. Conyers, I Presume,” Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2007; “Without DDT, malaria bites back,” Spiked, April 24, 2001.; “Forty years of perverse ‘social responsibility’,” Canada Free Press, March 26, 2007.

33 See, for example, Joe Palca, “Q&A: Embryonic Stem Cells: Exploding the Myths,” NPR, March 30, 2007; “Current state of stem cell-based therapies: an overview,” Stem Cell Investigation, 2020; and many others.

34 See, for example, “Nascent Falsehood: If embryonic research is so promising, why do its backers need to lie?” National Review; “Empty Hope Of Stem Cell Science,” New York Sun; Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics, “Where’s The Beef” citing Diana Kapp, “The $3 Billion Cell Job,” San Francisco, January, 2005 (acknowledging “Not a single embryonic stem cell has ever been tested in a human being, for any disease”); “Science’s Stem-Cell Scam: It should change its name to Pseudoscience,” National Review; and many others.

35 See, for example, “Expectant Families: Diseases Treated with Stem Cells,” CorCell; Lifenews.com, “Science’s New Era Centers On Adult, Not Embryonic Stem Cell
Research,” Lifenews.com, June 11, 2007; National Review, “Science’s Stem-Cell Scam: It should change its name to Pseudoscience”; The Washington Times, “Adult stem
cells produce treatment breakthroughs,” The Washington Times, December 28, 2003; Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics, “Where’s The Beef? Hint: Not with Embryonic Stem Cells”; and many others.

36 For example, the contrast was 13% v. 78% in the March 28-29, 2007 Newsweek Poll; 13% v. 82% in the May 8-11, 2006 Gallup Poll; 17% v. 76% in the April 6-9, 2006 CBS Poll; 12% v. 84% in the September 8-11, 2005 in CNN/USA Today Poll: “Science and Nature: Origin of Human Life,” PollingReport.com.

37 Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, “Senate Y2K Watchers Sound Muted Alarm,” United States Senate.

38 For a collage of the various articles chronicling the government’s preparedness actions, see “Y2K Emergency Update,” Cinemonky.

39 W. Sullivan. “Tests Show Aerosol Gases May Pose Threat to Earth,” New York Times, 26 September 1974, A1.

40 “A New Global Warming Strategy: How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes,” EarthSave, August 2005.

41 Chicago Daily Tribune, August 9, 1923, “Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada”; Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1932, “Fifth Ice Age Is On The Way”; Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1924, “New Ice-Age is Forecast”; Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1929, “Is Another Ice Age Coming?”; New York Times, February 24, 1867, “The Glacial Period”; New York Times, February 24, 1895, “Prospects of Another Glacial Period”; New York Times, October 7, 1912, “Sees Glacial Era Coming”; New York Times,
June 10, 1923, “Menace of a New Ice Age to be Tested by Scientists”; New York Times, September 28, 1924, “MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age”; New York Times, January 27, 1972, “Climate Experts Assay Ice Age Clues”; New York Times, May 21, 1975, “Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing”; “Major Cooling May Be Ahead”; Washington Post, August 10, 1923, “Volcanoes in Australia”; “Ice Age Coming Here”; Washington Post, October 28, 1928, “An Ice-Free World, What Then?”; Washington Post, August 2, 1930,”Hot Weather”; Washington Post, May 3, 1932, “Second World Flood Seen, if Earth’s Heat Increases”; Washington Post, January 11, 1970, “Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age”; Atlantic, December 1932, “This Cold, Cold World”; Fortune, August 1954, “Climate – the Heat May Be Off”; International Wildlife, July-August 1975, “In the Grip of a New Ice Age?”; Newsweek, April 28, 1975, “The Cooling World”; Science News, Nov 15, 1969, “Earth’s Cooling Climate”; Science News, March 1, 1975, “Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities”; Time, January 2, 1939, “Warmer World”; Time, October 29, 1951, “Retreat of the Cold”; Time, June 24, 1974, “Another Ice Age?”; U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976, “Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend.”

42 “Another Ice Age?” Time, November 13, 1972.

43 “The Cooling World,” Newsweek, April 28, 1975. See also George Will, “Cooler Heads Needed on Warming,” RealClearPolitics, April 2, 2006. Science Magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned of “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation.” Science Digest (February 1973) reported that “the world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age.” The Christian Science Monitor (“Warning: Earth’s Climate is Changing Faster Than Even Experts Expect,” Aug. 27, 1974) reported that glaciers “have begun to advance,” “growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter” and “the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool.” Newsweek agreed (“The Cooling World,” April 28, 1975) that meteorologists “are almost unanimous” that catastrophic famines might result from the global cooling that the New York Times (Sept. 14, 1975) said “may mark the return to another ice age.” The Times (May 21, 1975) also said “a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable” now that it is “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950.” . . . “About the mystery that vexes ABC – Why have Americans been slow to get in lock step concerning global warming? – perhaps the . . . problem is big crusading journalism.”

44 “Worrisome CIA report; Even U.S. Farms May Be Hit By Cooling Trend,” U. S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976.

45 Charts prepared and presented by Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, “Remarks for the Council on National Policy Meeting,” May 11, 2007.

46 See, for example, “Trouble on the Rise,” Sea Grant New York; “Climate Changes Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions,” ClimateChangesFutures.org; “Global Warming’s Increasingly Visible Impacts,” Environmental Defense.

47 Robert Locke, AP Science Writer, January 8, 1979, coving the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, Christian Science Monitor, October 8, 1980.

48 See, for example, “Global Warming’s Increasingly Visible Impacts,” Environmental Defense; “We’re All New Orleanians Now,” The Atlantic, September 29, 2010; “Trouble on the Rise,” Sea Grant New York; “Climate Changes Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions,” ClimateChangesFutures.org.

49 “Abortion and Rights of Terror Suspects Top Court Issues,” Pew Research Center, August 3, 2005.

50 ABCNews/Time/Stanford Poll: Global Warming; March 26, 2006, p. 7 that “There’s been interest in the views of evangelical white Protestants . . . since 86 evangelical leaders last month signed a statement citing ‘general agreement’ among scientists working on the issue that climate change is happening, and urging federal legislation to deal with it. This survey, however, finds little resonance for that statement among evangelical white Protestants.”

51 “Political climate changing on global warming,” MarketWatch.

52 “POLL: Priority of ‘global warming’ for evangelicals,” OneNewsNow.

53 “Pragmatic Americans Liberal and Conservative on Social Issues,” Pew Research Center, August 3, 2006.

54 “Abortion and Rights of Terror Suspects Top Court Issues,” Pew Research Center, August 3, 2005.

55 “Abortion and Rights of Terror Suspects Top Court Issues,” Pew Research Center, August 3, 2005.

56 “Barna Poll: 33 Percent of Adults Agree with Declaring America a ‘Christian Nation’,” The Christian Post, July 31, 2004.

57 “Poll: Faith Sometimes Drives Support for AIDS, Poverty Relief,” Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy.

58 “Poll: Faith Sometimes Drives Support for AIDS, Poverty Relief,” Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy.

59 “Trade-Offs in Allocating Allowances for CO2 Emissions,” Congressional Budget Office.

60 “A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming,” Cornwall Alliance.

 

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.