Era or Event: 1950s-Now: Modern

Analyzing Legislation

Overview

  • Briefly state the problem or issue addressed by this bill.
  • What relationships are affected by this bill? (e.g., parent to child, husband and wife, business to business, contracts, state to citizen, state to business, etc.)
  • Does this bill address a general and widespread problem, or is it based on a worst-case scenario? (e.g., because one homeschool parent mistreats his child, not all homeschool parents need to be regulated.)
  • What facts and what sources are documented to prove that this is a widespread, general problem warranting legislation?
  • Is this the least restrictive manner for government to address the issue?
  • What is the philosophical worldview of the bill’s chief sponsor?
  • Are there any aspects of this bill, either direct or indirect, which are addressed by the Bible? If so, does this bill contradict any Biblical teaching?

An Appropriate Function of State Government-A Recognition of Proper Jurisdictions

Acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, . . . with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens-a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. THOMAS JEFFERSON1

Does this bill:

  • address an issue which falls under the unique jurisdiction of State government? If so, what is the legitimate State interest?
  • usurp power from another jurisdiction (e.g., family, church, private business, local community)?

Limited Government

Government is aptly compared to architecture; if the superstructure is too heavy for the foundation, the building totters, though assisted by outward props. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN2

Does this bill:

  • limit or expand, government size, powers, or intrusiveness?
  • provide provisions to ensure accountability and observability by the citizens?
  • micromanage the activities or establish an intrusive mandate, either funded or unfunded, on citizens, businesses, families, or communities?
  • make government a provider of goods or services or does it seek a free-market solution?

Empowering the People and Local Communities

I am not among those who fear the people. THOMAS JEFFERSON3

All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. TEXAS CONSTITUTION4

I wish . . . never to see all offices transferred to [the Capitol], where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market. THOMAS JEFFERSON5

Here, the people are masters of the government: [in other places] the government is master of the people. JAMES WILSON, U. S. Supreme Court Justice and Signer of the Declaration and the Constitution6

Does this bill:

  • take rights from the people?
  • interfere with any inalienable rights?
  • restrict the liberty of the law-abiding citizen in his peaceful pursuits?
  • assume that “everyone” is guilty, and must prove themselves innocent? (e.g., require all employers to prove that they are not hiring illegal immigrants.)
  • protect the people from themselves or their own ignorance?
  • benefit citizens in general, or just a narrow constituency?
  • promote local controls?

Spending and Taxes

I . . . place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. THOMAS JEFFERSON7

On new spending: When you incline to have new clothes, look first well over the old ones, and see if you cannot shift with them another year, either by scouring, mending, or even patching if necessary. Remember, a patch on your coat and money in your pocket is better and more creditable than a writ on your back and no money to take it off. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN8

To constrain the brute force of the people, [the European governments] deem it necessary to . . . take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings. . . . And these earnings they apply to maintain their privileged orders in splendor and idleness, to fascinate the eyes of the people. THOMAS JEFFERSON9

On hidden taxes: Direct taxes are not . . . easily levied on the . . . inhabitants of our wide extended country; [but] what is paid in the price of merchandise is less felt by the consumer, and less the cause of complaint. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN10

Does this bill:

  • cost money or increase taxes?
  • provide a visible tax, or a tax hidden in the price or products or services?
  • establish a permanent entitlement?
  • use taxes for penalty, social control, or reform?

Business Impact

Industry and constant employment are great preservatives of the morals and virtue of a nation. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN11

America, under an efficient government, will be the most favorable country of any in the world for persons of industry and frugality. GEORGE WASHINGTON12

Does this bill:

  • discourage free enterprise?
  • discourage entrepreneurship?
  • affect the tax burden on businesses?
  • negatively impact businesses?
  • make businessmen serve as government bookkeepers or file clerks?
  • restrict the employee and employer from deciding between themselves an equitable wage and working environment?
  • restrict the employer from designing, producing, and pricing his goods or services?
  • restrict the consumer in his free choice of services or purchases?

Family Preservation and Strengthening

Marriage was not originated by human law. When God created Eve, she was a wife to Adam; they then and there occupied the status of husband to wife and wife to husband. . . .The truth is that civil government has grown out of marriage . . . which created homes, and population, and society, from which government became necessary. . . . [Marriages] will produce a home and family that will contribute to good society, to free and just government, and to the support of Christianity. . . . It would be sacrilegious to apply the designation “a civil contract” to such a marriage. It is that and more; a status ordained by God. TEXAS SUPREME COURT IN GRIGSBY V. REIB13

Whether we consult the soundest deductions of reason, or resort to the best information conveyed to us by history, or listen to the undoubted intelligence communicated in Holy Writ, we shall find that to the institution of marriage the true origin of society must be traced. By that institution the felicity of Paradise was consummated. . . . Legislators have with great [correctness]. . . provided, as far as municipal law can provide, against the violation of rights indispensably essential to the purity and harmony of [marriage]. JAMES WILSON, U. S. Supreme Court Justice and Signer of the Declaration and the Constitution14

Does this bill:

  • foster the traditional family structure?
  • strengthen, or weaken, the stability of the family and, particularly, the marital commitment?
  • interfere with the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, supervision, and education of their children?
  • substitute governmental activity for a family function or responsibility?
  • increase or decrease family earnings?

Private Property and Individual Rights

[It] is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions . . . deny to part of its citizens [the] free use of their facilities. JAMES MADISON15

Does this bill:

  • limit, control, or destroy a person’s right to own and use his property, and that which lies above and beneath it?
  • use a citizen’s property for the government’s or someone else’s profit?

Strengthening Morality and Individual Accountability

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN16

The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible. PATRICK HENRY17

Does this bill:

  • strengthen or weaken traditional moral values?
  • require personal accountability for actions?
  • provide favorable treatment of one group to the detriment of another?
  • force citizens to subsidize government-financed expenditures that violate their traditional moral or religious beliefs?
  • promote a positive work ethic?

Endnotes

1 Thomas Jefferson, “Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1801, The American Presidency Project.
2 Benjamin Franklin, “On Government” in the Pennsylvania Gazette, April 1, 1736, The Works of Dr. Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia: William Duane, 1809) IV:340.
3 Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kerchival, July 12, 1816, National Archives.
4 Texas State Constitution Preamble, 1876, Texas Law.
5 Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, National Archives.
6 James Wilson, The Works of James Wilson, ed. James DeWitt Andrews (Chicago: Callaghan & Company, 1896), I:384.
7 Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, July 21, 1816, National Archives.
8 Poor Richard’s Almanac, “Plan for Saving One Hundred Thousand Pounds,” 1756, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1844), II:90.
9 Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, National Archives.
10 Benjamin Franklin to M. le Veillard, February 17, 1788, The Private Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, ed. William Temple Franklin (London: Henry Colburn, 1818), I:235.
11 Benjamin Frnaklin, “Information to Those Who would Remove to America,” The Complete Works in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin (London: J. Johnson, 1806), III:408.
12 George Washington to Richard Henderson, June 19, 1788, National Archives.
13 Grigsby v. Reib, 105 Tex. 597, 153 S.W. 1124 (Tex. 1913).
14 James Wilson, The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), II:476.
15 James Madison, “Property” from the National Gazette, March 29, 1792, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G. P. Puntam’s Sons, 1906), VI:102.
16 Benjamin Franklin to Abbes Chalut & Arnaud, April 17, 1787, The Works of Benjamin Franklin (MA: Hilliard, Gray & Co., 1840), X:297.
17 Patrick Henry to John Blair, January 1799, The Life of Patrick Henry of Virginia, ed. S. G. Arnold (NY: Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, 1857), 254.

Political Parties and Morality

On Saturday, December 19, 1998, President William Jefferson Clinton became only the second President in American history to be impeached. Charged by a majority of the House with the crimes of perjury before a grand jury and the abuse of power, the impeachment vote was lambasted as completely partisan and therefore meaningless, having no moral authority.

Truly, the vote was almost totally partisan; only a handful of Democrats voted for the impeachment of the President; and only a handful of Republicans voted against it. But does the impeachment vote mean less because it was partisan? Or is there, perhaps, a more important reason-a hidden message-underlying this clear division among party lines?

Despite the harsh and demeaning Democratic rhetoric against the impeachment vote, it must not be categorized as only another “partisan” political vote. Instead, it should be considered as being another vote in a long ongoing series of Congressional votes on moral issues. After all, lying under oath, and engaging in illicit sexual relations with a subordinate in the workplace, are indisputably moral concerns.

When the impeachment vote is examined as a moral vote rather than a vote of politics, it is not surprising that it should be partisan. After all, on nearly all Congressional votes on traditional moral issues in recent years, the dividing line has been almost completely partisan.

For example, on the moral issue of protecting innocent human life, it is the Democrats who have caused the continuation of partial-birth abortions and protected and defended this reprehensible moral misbehavior. (Eighty-two percent of Senate Democrats voted to allow partial-birth abortions while only eleven percent of Republicans did so.)

Similarly, votes on the moral issue of sodomy, like the impeachment vote, are usually decided along partisan lines. It is the Democrats who consistently vote for the protection of the homosexuals’ “lifestyle,” seek to reward their sexual misconduct with special benefits, and pursue the extension of this behavior throughout society. (For example, eighty-seven percent of Senate Democrats voted to increase protection for the homosexual lifestyle1 while only seventeen percent of Republicans did so.)

And on the issue of voluntary school prayer and the public acknowledgment of God, the dividing lines are almost completely partisan-as evidenced by the vote in Congress on the school prayer amendment. (Eighty-seven percent of House Democrats opposed voluntary school prayer while only twelve percent of Republicans did so.)

Similar partisan distinctions could be shown with almost every other moral issue, whether it be preserving parental rights or teaching pre-marital abstinence to young people. Clearly, the Democrats in Congress generally oppose traditional moral values and only rarely demonstrate any desire to hold individuals accountable for violating established mores. Therefore, when the vote on impeachment is considered as just another vote on a moral issue, the partisan results become completely predictable.

There truly is a difference between Congressional Republicans and Democrats, and nowhere is this difference more evident than on traditional moral values. The Democrats’ cry of “partisanship” is simply a smokescreen to divert attention from the lack of a moral compass that permeates their Party.

However, in the wake of the impeachment vote, the Democrats are finally clamoring for something that America actually does need: bi-partisanship. America does need two parties standing up for what is morally right-America does need two parties demanding accountability for the acts of all individuals regardless of their social position-America does need two parties seeking to preserve the moral foundations of the nation. Up to now, the only thing preventing this bi-partisanship is the Democrats.

The current partisanship exists only because the overwhelming majority of Democrats demand on the defense of what is morally indefensible and refuse to join with the overwhelming majority of Republicans who continue to defend what is morally right. It is time for Democrats to heed their own call and become bi-partisan, joining with the Republicans in defending America’s great moral values.

David Barton
December 21, 1998

1 The vote was recorded on ENDA-the Employment Non-Discrimination Act- which extended special protections and special status for homosexuals.

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

A Godless Constitution?: A Response to Kramnick and Moore

In their provocative polemic The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness (W. W. Horton, 1996), Cornell University professors Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore argue that the God-fearing framers of the U. S. Constitution “created an utterly secular state” unshackled from the intolerant chains of religion. They purportedly find evidence for this thesis in the constitutional text, which they describe as radically “godless” and distinctly secular. Their argument, while an appealing antidote to the historical assertions of the religious right, is superficial and misleading.

There were, indeed, anti-Federalist critics of the Constitution who complained bitterly that the document’s failure to invoke the Deity and include explicit Christian references indicated, at best, indifference or, at worst, hostility toward Christianity. This view, however, did not prevail in the battle to ratify the Constitution. The professor’s inordinate reliance on the Constitution’s most vociferous critics to describe and define that document results in misleading, if not erroneous, conclusions. Furthermore, like the extreme anti-Federalists of 1787, the professors misunderstand the fundamental nature of the federal regime and its founding charter.

The U. S. Constitution’s lack of a Christian designation had little to do with a radical secular agenda. Indeed, it had little to do with religion at all. The Constitution was silent on the subject of God and religion because there was a consensus that, despite the framer’s personal beliefs, religion was a matter best left to the individual citizens and their respective state governments (and most states in the founding era retained some form of religious establishment). The Constitution, in short, can be fairly characterized as “godless” or secular only insofar as it deferred to the states on all matters regarding religion and devotion to God.

Relationships between religion and civil government were defined in most state constitutions, and the framers believed it would be inappropriate for the federal government to encroach upon or usurp state jurisdiction in this area. State and local governments, not the federal regime, it must be emphasized, were the basic and vital political units of the day. Thus, it was fitting that the people expressed religious preferences and affiliations through state and local charters.

Professors Kramnick and Moore find further evidence for a godless Constitution in the Article VI religious test ban. Here, too, they misconstrue the historical record. Their argument rests on the false premise that, in the minds of the framers, support for the Article VI ban was a repudiation of state establishments of religion and a ringing endorsement of a radically secular polity. The numerous state constitutions written between 1776 and 1787 in which sweeping religious liberty and nonestablishment provisions coexisted with religious test oaths confirm the poverty of this assumption. The founding generation, in other words, generally did not regard such measures as incompatible.

The Article VI ban (applicable to federal officeholders only) was not driven by a radical secular agenda or a renunciation of religious tests as a matter of principle. The fact that religious tests accorded with popular wishes is confirmed by their inclusion in the vast majority of revolutionary era state constitutions.

Professors Kramnick and Moore also blithely ignore Article I, sec. 2 of the U. S. Constitution, which deferred to state qualifications for the electors of members of the U. S. House of Representatives. This provision is significant since the constitutional framers of 1787 knew that in some states–such as South Carolina–the requisite qualifications for suffrage included religious belief.

Significantly, there were delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia who endorsed the Article VI ban but had previously crafted religious tests for their respective state constitutions. The constitutional framers did not appreciate this apparent contradiction, which arises under a secular construction of Article VI. The framers believed, as a matter of federalism, that the Constitution denied the national government all jurisdiction over religion, including the authority to administer religious tests. Many in founding generation supported a federal test ban because they valued religious tests required under state laws, and they feared that a federal test might displace existing state test oaths and religious establishments. In other words, support for the Article VI ban was driven in part by a desire to preserve and defend the instruments of “religious establishment” (specifically, religious test oaths) that remained in the states.

The late-eighteenth-century view of oaths and religious test bans is illustrated in state constitutions of the era. The Tennessee Constitution of 1796 included the language of the Article VI test ban; however, the same constitution states that “no person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.” Adopting a standard definition of oaths, the Kentucky Constitution of 1792, which omitted an express religious test but prescribed a basic oath of office, stated that required oaths and affirmations “shall be esteemed by the legislature [as] the most solemn appeal to God.” This understanding of oaths, which was largely unchallenged in the founding era and frequently repeated in the state ratifying conventions, suggests that the US Constitution, contrary to Professors Kramnick and Moore, was not entirely devoid of religious affirmations and did not create an utterly secular polity. The argument was made in ratifying conventions that the several constitutionally required oaths implicitly countenanced an acknowledgment of God (which, in a sense, constituted a general, nondenominational religious “test”), while the Article VI test ban merely proscribed sect-specific oaths for federal officeholders.

The debates in Article VI in state ratifying conventions further indicate that few, if any, delegates denied the advantage of placing devout Christians in public office. The issue warmly debated was the efficacy of a national religious test for obtaining this objective.

The Godless Constitution’s lack of clear documentation is a disappointment. In order to examine the book’s thesis more fully, I attempted to document the claims and quotations in the second chapter, which sets forth the case that the “principal architects of our national government envisioned a godless Constitution and a godless politics.” It was readily apparent why these two university professors, who live in the world of footnotes, avoided them in this tract. The book is replete with misstatements or mischaracterizations of fact and garbled quotations. For example, the professors conflate two separate sections of New York Constitution of 1777 to support the claim that it “self-consciously repudiated tests” (p. 31). Contrary to this assertion, neither constitutional section expressly mentions religious tests and, indeed, test oaths were retained in the laws of New York well into the nineteenth century. The Danbury Baptists, for another example, did not ask Jefferson to designate “a fast day for national reconciliation” (pp.97, 119).

The book illustrates what is pejoratively called “law office history.” That is, the authors, imbued with the adversary ethic, selectively recount facts, emphasizing data that support their own prepossessions and minimizing significant facts that complicate or conflict with their biases. The professors warn readers of this on the second page when they describe their book as a “polemic” that will ” lay out the case for one” side of the debate on the important “role of religion in public and political life.”

The suggestion that the U. S. Constitution is godless because it makes only brief mention of the Deity and Christian custom is superficial and misguided. Professors Kramnick and Moore succumb to the temptation to impose twentieth-century values on eighteenth-century text. Their book is less an honest appraisal of history than a partisan tract written for contemporary battles. They frankly state their desire that this polemic will rebut the “Christian nation” rhetoric of the religious right. Unfortunately, their historical analysis is as specious as the rhetoric they criticize.

Copyright 1997 by Daniel L. Dreisbach. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author.

Daniel L. Dreisbach, D. Phil. (Oxford University) and J. D. (University of Virginia), is an associate professor at American University in Washington, D. C.. He is the author of Religion and Politics in the Early Republic (University Press of Kentucky, 1996), and Real Threat and Mere Shadow: Religious Liberty and the First Amendment (Crossway Books, 1987).

SUGGESTED READING

Dreisbach, Daniel, L. Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (NYU Press, 2003).

“‘Sowing Useful Truths and Principles’: The Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson, and the ‘Wall of Separation.'” Journal of Church and State 39 (Summer 1997).

“In Search of a Christian Commonwealth: An Examination of Selected Nineteenth-Century Commentaries on References to God and the Christian Religion in the United States Constitution.” Baylor Law Review 48 (1996): 927-1000.

“The Constitution’s Forgotten Religion Clause: Reflections on the Article VI Religious Test Ban.” Journal of Church and State 38 (1996): 261-295.

In Hoc Anno Domini

Wall Street Journal

December 24, 2007; Page A10

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar. Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression — for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter’s star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.

God: Missing in Action from American History

(First published in the June 2005 issue of The NRB Magazine magazine)

American history today has become a dreary academic subject. Yet, most who are bored by American history view Bible history quite differently: they love the stories of David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion’s den, and Peter walking on the water. So it’s not that people don’t enjoy history, it’s just that they don’t respond favorably to the way American history is currently being taught.

One reason Bible history is interesting and American history is not is that the Bible (as well as American education during its first three centuries) utilizes biographical history – that is, it presents history through the eyes and life experiences of those involved (i.e., the biographies) rather than through the recitation of a string of dates and places. It is the difference between reading the stories in Guideposts and the numbers in a phone book.

Looking at history the way God presents it is exciting and informative; and in numerous verses, God even commends its study: “Remember the former things of old: for I am God” (Isaiah 46:9); and “Call to remembrance the former days” (Hebrews 10:32); etc. But why would God want us to know history? The Apostle Paul answers that question in 1 Corinthians 10:1: “All these things happened unto them for example; and they are written for our admonition” (see also Romans 15:4: “Those things written aforetime were written for our learning”). In short, we learn from history; and what we learn affects our behavior.

American leaders long understood this Biblical truth. For example, Thomas Jefferson noted: “History, by apprizing them [students] of the past, will enable them to judge of the future.” And what can be learned by being “apprized of the past”? According to Benjamin Franklin: History will afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion from its usefulness to the public; the advantage of a religious character among private persons; the mischiefs of superstition; and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.

Franklin understood that history, when accurately presented, would demonstrate the need for Christianity because of both the societal and the individual benefits it produces. In fact, the presenting of an uncensored and unrevised history actually causes a recognition of the hand of God – for, in the words of the great statesman Daniel Webster: “History is God’s providence in human affairs.”

Today, however, history is presented in such an edited, revised, and politically-correct manner that God’s hand is rarely visible – and even the historic role of famous Godly leaders in education, business, politics, and the military is now virtually unacknowledged.

An obvious example of the secularization of history occurs each year around the Fourth of July. Americans are taught that “taxation without representation” was the reason America separated from Great Britain; yet “taxation without representation” was only reason number seventeen out of the twenty-seven reasons given in the Declaration of Independence – it was not even in the top half, yet it’s all that most ever hear. Never mentioned today are the numerous grievances condemning judicial activism – or those addressing moral or religious or other issues.

What religious issues? In 1762, the king vetoed the charter for America’s first missionary society; he also suppressed other religious freedoms and even prevented Americans from printing an English language Bible.

How did Americans respond? They took action; and almost unknown today is the fact that Declaration signers such as Samuel Adams and Charles Carroll cited religious freedom as the reason they became involved in the American Revolution. And significantly, even though Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin (two of the least religious signers) are typically the only signers studied today, almost half of the signers of the Declaration (24 of 56) held what today would be considered seminary or Bible school degrees. Clearly, for many Founders, religious issues were an important motivation behind their separation from Great Britain; but that motivation is largely ignored today.

Moral issues are accorded the same silence. The greatest moral issue of that day was slavery; and after several of the American colonies moved toward abolishing slavery in 1773, the King, in 1774, vetoed those anti-slavery laws and continued slavery in America. Soon-to-be signers of the Declaration Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush promptly founded America’s first abolition society as a direct response against the king’s order. The desire to end slavery in America was a significant motivation not only for Franklin and Rush but also for a number of others; but the end of slavery in America could be achieved only if they separated from Great Britain – which they were willing to do (and six of the thirteen colonies began abolishing slavery following the separation).

There were many other significant issues that led to our original Fourth of July; so why aren’t Americans familiar with the rest? Because in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, a group of secular-minded writers (including Charles and Mary Beard, W. E. Woodward, Fairfax Downey, and others) began penning works on American history that introduced a new paradigm. For this group, economics was the only issue of importance, so they began to write texts accordingly (their approach is now described as “the economic view of American history” and since the 1960s has been widely embraced throughout the education community). Consequently, since “taxation without representation” was the economic grievance in the Declaration, it became the sole clause that Americans studied.

As a result, God is no longer visible in American history; and His absence is now construed as a mandate for secularism. Texts now forcefully assert that the American founding produced the first intentionally secular government in history – even though the Declaration officially acknowledges God in four separate clauses. (But who still teaches the Declaration – or even reads it?) Similarly, leaders such as John Hancock and John Adams receive credit as being the source of our independence, even though John Adams himself declared that the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Mayhew and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper were two of the individuals “most conspicuous, the most ardent, and influential” in the “awakening and revival of American principles and feelings” that led to American independence. Regrettably, God (and His servants) have largely disappeared from the presentation of American history in general and America’s founding in particular.

As a further example, consider the legendary Minutemen: even though they are still honored in many texts, their leader, the Rev. Jonas Clark, is no longer mentioned – nor the fact that many of the Minutemen were deacons in his church. And the Rev. James Caldwell is no longer acknowledged as a key leader of military forces in New Jersey – nor the Rev. John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg (who led 300 men from his church against the British) as one of Washington’s most trusted generals.

Regrettably, we no longer know much about the indispensable role of pastors and Christian leaders in the founding of our civil government. Americans have been subjected to “revisionism” defined by the dictionary as “the revision of an accepted, usually long-standing view; especially a revision of historical events and movements.” Revisionism attempts to alter the way a people sees its history in order to cause a change in public policy.

Consider how successful this has been. Under the economic view of American history, Americans now believe that the early colonists came to America seeking land and gold rather than for the reason most cited by the colonists: evangelization. And most now accept that the colonies were founded for trade, fishing, and other economic enterprises, even though more than half were founded by Gospel ministers for religious purposes (e.g., Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Georgia, etc.). And if religion is discussed in a text, it will be to present the 21 deaths during the Salem Witch Trials rather than the Great Awakenings, the Civil War revivals, or the turn-of-the-century revivals that led to widespread urban renewal and the end of child labor.

Having now come to believe that economics is what created and made America great, it is not surprising that few Americans commented on the fact that, during the 2004 presidential debates, “jobs” and “economy” were mentioned hundreds of times but “marriage” less than a dozen. Nor is it surprising that over the past decade, 45 percent of evangelical Christians say that economic issues are more important than moral issues when it comes to voting.

There is so much of our wholesome, God-centered American history that we no longer know today. This is especially true when it comes to the average American’s knowledge of African American history.

Consider, for example, African American achievements during the American Revolution. Few today know that almost 5,000 of the patriots in the fledgling Continental Army were African Americans – that, for example, a hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill was African American Peter Salem. His heroic actions saved the lives of scores of Americans, and he was honored before General Washington for his courage.

And Pastor Lemuel Haynes was involved in several major Revolutionary battles and became an ardent admirer of George Washington, regularly preaching sermons on Washington’s birthday. This patriot preacher was the first African American to be ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination (the Congregationalists, in 1785), to pastor a white congregation (a congregation in Connecticut), and to be awarded an honorary Master’s Degree (by Middlebury College, in 1804). Yet who today has heard of Lemuel Haynes?

Or who has heard of James Armistead, the courageous spy at Yorktown whose remarkable service considerably shortened the War? Or Oliver Cromwell and Prince Whipple (depicted in several famous Revolutionary War paintings) who served directly under General Washington and the general staff? Or Jordan Freeman, the gallant soldier to whom a monument was erected for his heroic service at the Battle of Groton Heights?

Then there is also African American church history – including the amazing story of the Rev. John Marrant, the first African American to evangelize successfully among American Indians; the Rev. Richard Allen, who gained his freedom from slavery, served in the American Revolution, became a preacher in a church of 2000 whites, and founded America’s first black denomination; and the Rev. Harry Hoosier, who delivered the first recorded Methodist sermon by an African American and drew crowds larger than the great Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury.

And consider African American political history. Who today knows the story of the Rev. Hiram Rhodes Revels, the African American missionary who became the first black U. S. Senator? Or the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, the first African American to deliver a sermon in Congress? Or Joseph Hayne Rainey, who overcame slavery to become the first African American elected to the U. S. Congress, even presiding over the U. S. House? (In the picture of the first seven African Americans elected to the federal Congress – all as Republicans – the Rev. Revels is the first from the left, and Rainey is second from the right.) Or who today has learned that nearly every southern Republican Party was started by African Americans – or that the first 190 African Americans elected to office in South Carolina (and the first 112 in Mississippi, the first 42 in Texas, the first 127 in Louisiana, etc.) were all Republicans, and many were ministers?

I have spent years collecting thousands of original and priceless documents from American history in general and black history in particular; God’s fingerprints are evident throughout. I have been asked why I, as an Anglo, would spend so much time in the study of African American political history. The answer is simple: I am an American; and since the story of African American history is part of American history, it therefore is part of my own history. Furthermore, I am inspired by all stories of sacrifice, courage, and Godly character – regardless of skin color. The stories of African American heroes such as Phillis Wheatley, Francis Grimke, and John Roy Lynch are as thrilling to me as are the stories of Lewis & Clark, Helen Keller, and Alvin York.

The reintroduction of a truthful and complete telling of American history is long overdue. Daniel Webster was right: “History is God’s providence in human affairs,” and it is time for Americans once again to become aware of the remarkable hand of God throughout our history.

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

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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.

Revisionism: How to Identify It In Your Children’s Textbooks

Revisionism Definition & Goals

Revisionism is the common method employed by those seeking to subvert American culture and society. The dictionary defines revisionism as an “advocacy of the revision of an accepted, usually long-standing view, theory, or doctrine; especially a revision of historical events and movements.”

Revisionism attempts to alter the way a people views its history and traditions in order to cause that people to accept a change in public policy. For example, during the 150 years that textbooks described the Founding Fathers as being devout men and Christians who actively practiced their faith, civic policy embraced and welcomed public religious expressions. But in recent years as the same Founders have come to be portrayed as atheists, agnostics, and deists who were opposed to religious activities, public policies have similarly been reversed.

Revisionists generally accomplish their goal of rewriting history by:

Underemphasizing or ignoring the aspects of American history they deem to be politically incorrect and overemphasizing those portions they find acceptable;

Vilifying the historical figures who embraced a position they reject; and

Concocting the appearance of widespread historical approval for the social policy they are attempting to advance.

There are many means that are used by revisionists to accomplish these goals but the most common include:

1. Patent Untruths

Numerous history texts make claims such as: our “national government was secular from top to bottom,” or that the Founders “reared a national government on a secular basis.” Those who have studied the American Founding know that this is a patent untruth. Many Founders proved the opposite, such as John Adams. He declared: “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.” (Even the text of the Declaration of Independence refutes any charges of government secularism.) This approach usually relies on a general lack of public knowledge about that untruth. Consequently, such untruthful claims are rarely made in areas where citizens have broad general knowledge. (For example, claiming that James Madison used an atomic bomb to end the Civil War. Or that the first sub-machine gun was developed in 1536 in Nevada by the Quakers). Revisionism relies on a lack of citizen knowledge in specific areas.

2. Overly Broad Generalizations

This revisionist tool presents the exception as if it were the rule. For example, texts often name Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine as proof of the lack of religiosity among the Founders. Yet they fail to mention the rest of the almost 200 Founding Fathers. Dozens of these men received their education in schools specializing in the training of ministers of the Gospel and were active in Christian ministry and organizations. Some examples include: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Benjamin Rush, Roger Sherman.

Similarly, when discussing religion in America, the Salem Witch trials are universally presented. Rarely mentioned, however, are the positive societal changes produced by Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, and dozen of other religious groups. These organizations worked for the abolition of slavery, secured religious freedoms, and fought to end societal abuses. Also never mentioned is that the American witch trials resulted in some two dozen deaths and were halted by religious leaders. The European witch trials resulted in 100,000 deaths. American Christianity at that time might not have been perfect but it was light years ahead of Europe. European secularism also resulted in thousands of executions in the French Revolution.

3. Omission

Notice the following three examples from American history works:

We whose names are under-written . . . do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politick. MAYFLOWER COMPACT, 1620

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? . . . I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death? PATRICK HENRY, 1775

. . . ART. I.—His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States . . . PEACE TREATY TO END THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1783

What was omitted from these important historical quotes?

We whose names are under-written having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northern parts of Virginia do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick.

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death?

In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts . . . ART. I.—His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States . . .

The omitted segments are those that indicate the strongly religious nature of American government documents and leaders. Also regularly omitted from texts is the fact that gratitude to God was central to the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving. And ignored is that, in 1782, the US Congress approved America’s first English-language Bible. Also, in 1800, Congress voted that on Sundays, the Capitol Building would serve as a church building. (By 1867, the largest protestant church in America was the one that met inside the US Capitol.)

4. A Lack of Primary Source References

The avoidance of primary-source documents is characteristic in revisionism. For example, the authors of the widely-used text The Godless Constitution blatantly announce that they have “dispensed with the usual scholarly apparatus of footnotes.” This is supposed to support their thesis that America’s government is built on a secular foundation. Similarly, The Search for Christian America purports to examine the Founding Era and finds a distinct lack of Christian influence. Yet 80 percent of the “historical sources” on which it relies to document its finding were published after 1950! That is, to determine what was occurring in the 1700s, they quote from works printed in the 1900s.

Identify Revisionism

To locate revisionism in a text, look at its tone, the documents it presents, and the heroes it elevates.

  1. To discover a revisionist tone, find the answers to these questions in the textbook: Is exploration and colonization motivated only by the desire for land or gold? Are those who promoted religious and moral values portrayed as harsh, punitive, and intolerant? Is traditional family ignored? Is government presented as statist — that is, that the state (rather than individuals, families, churches, or communities) is to take care of society’s needs? Is there a victim ideology — a steady diet of those who have been exploited throughout history rather than those who have uplifted their culture? Are other religions portrayed positively and Christianity negatively (if at all)?
  2. Are original documents presented? (Do students see the actual text or only what someone else says about it?) Do they see the Mayflower Compact? Or the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? Are George Washington’s “Farewell Address” and Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address presented? Are the documents edited to present only a few sentences or do they provide a substantive amount of text?
  3. Who are the heroes presented? Do they tend to be angry – fighting an unjust society or government? Do they tend to be modern heroes only? Do they tend to be only secular leaders? For example, the U. S. Capitol displays some 100 statues of the most important individuals in America’s history; a significant percentage of those statues are of ministers and Christian leaders. Will your children receive in their textbooks at least the same view of American heroes that is presented in America’s pre-eminent government building?

Conclusion

When examining a text, always remember that your children do not know as much about history as you do. Consequently, they have no basis for identifying bias. Therefore, examine each text as if you knew nothing at all about history except what is presented in that text. On that basis, will you be pleased with the tone toward America inculcated in your child through that text? If not, then urge your school to get a better text or be diligent to supplement for your children what is missing or wrongly presented in the text.

It is not melodramatic to state that America’s future rests on what is taught to our children, for as Abraham Lincoln wisely observed:

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. (attributed)

Famous American educator Noah Webster therefore rightly admonished:

The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. . . . [It] lays the foundations on which both law and gospel rest for success.

Indeed!

Election 2004: A Moral Mandate?

Most observers were surprised by the scope of President Bush’s winning margin as well as the reasons for that margin. Few expected Bush to:

  • receive more popular votes (60.5 million) than any previous president, and almost 6 million more than Ronald Reagan received in his 1984 landslide victory;
  • become the first incumbent since FDR in 1936 to increase his own vote and the size of his majority in both the House and Senate;
  • be the first president in 16 years to win more than 50% of the popular vote.

Even those who expected President Bush to win did not expect “moral issues” to rank first among reasons for voting. Who could have imagined that moral issues would outdistance taxes, the economy, Iraq, terrorism, education, or health care?

Numerous indicators affirm that the election results were directly affected by voters’ views on basic Biblical issues. Before examining some of those significant indicators, consider the overall demographics of the election.

General 2004 Voter Demographics

118 million votes were cast in the election, up nearly 12% from the 105 million cast in 2000.

Evangelical Voters: 23% (27.1 million) of all votes cast were by evangelicals. Bush received 78% (21.2 million) of those evangelical votes, representing an amazing 35% of his total of 60.5 million votes. (In 2000, evangelicals cast 15 million votes (15% of the total) and Bush received 71 percent of those votes, representing 21 percent of his 50.5 million total votes.)

Undoubtedly, one of the reasons that moral issues ranked so high in this year’s election was the 80% increase in the number of evangelical voters from the 2000 election. (In 2000, 15 million evangelicals voted; in 2004, nearly 12 million more evangelicals voted – a total of 27.1 million). This surge was one of the factors in reelecting Bush and in increasing Republican gains in both the U. S. House and Senate.

Women Voters: The “gender gap” (first measured in the 1980 election) favors Democrats, but in this election the gap was narrowed to only 7%. Among married women, Bush received 54% of the vote to Kerry’s 45%, but Kerry won 62% of the votes of unmarried women.

Jewish Voters: Jewish voters continue to remain a loyal Democratic constituency, although President Bush expanded his support from 19% in 2000 to 25% in this election.

Catholic Voters: Catholics have been a strong Democratic constituency, but in this election, 52% of the 31 million Catholic voters supported President Bush, resulting in 3.3 million more Catholic voters for Bush than in 2000 (up from his 45% in 2000).

Hispanic Voters: Hispanics, another traditional Democratic block, accounted for 12% of the total vote with 7 million voters (1 million more than in 2000); President Bush won 44% of the Hispanic vote – the largest share for a Republican since recording began in 1972, and up from the 35% he received in 2000.

African American Voters: African Americans continue to be the Democrats’ most faithful constituency in recent elections, but President Bush increased his share of the black vote from 8% in 2000 to 11% in this election.

Urban Voters: Urban areas tend to be the most strongly-Democratic geographic regions of the nation (i.e., the blue areas on the map); yet in this election, urban support for Democrats fell from 71% in 2000 to 60%, prompting Democratic observers to lament that the blue areas on the map are becoming less blue.

Youth Voters: There were 4.6 million more youth voters (ages 18-29) in this election than in 2000. (18.4% of youth voted this year, compared with 16.4% in 2000). Youth supported Kerry by a margin of 54 to 44, but the divide was not nearly as great as predicted. The expected gains from “Rock the Vote,” “Vote for Change,” and the “Vote or Die” efforts of MTV and secular entertainment artists were largely offset by the “Redeem the Vote” efforts of Third Day and nearly three dozen other Christian bands.

General Trends: Bush did poorly among single women, the young, and those who rarely attend church, but he made considerable gains in most other areas. And while half of Kerry’s vote came from Hispanics, African Americans, and single women, Bush made gains in two of those three groups compared to his 2000 election numbers.

A Religious Divide Among Voters

Even though most election analyses examined the vote according to traditional demographics (i.e., by ethnic group, gender, age, etc.), it is probably more accurate to analyze this year’s vote according to the religious practice of voters. In fact, numerous polls leading up to the election indicated that the best predictor of how an individual would vote in this election was frequency of church attendance.

This divide first became apparent in 2000, when those who attended religious services more than once a week supported Bush by a margin of nearly 2-1 and those who never attended religious services supported Gore by the same margin. With an eye to the 2004 election, Washington Post writer Thomas Edsall reported: “Pollsters are finding that one of the best ways to discover whether a voter holds liberal or conservative value stands is to ask: How often do you go to church? Those who go often tend to be Republican, those who go rarely or not at all tend to be Democratic.”

The recent election numbers affirm that the same religious-practice divide of 2000 was again present in 2004, and that it extended across ethnic, gender, and age lines. In this election, 61% of Bush’s vote came from people from all faiths who attend services weekly (this group comprised 41% of the electorate); conversely, Kerry received the support of 62% of Americans who never attend worship (accounting for 14% of the electorate); and among occasional church goers, voters were split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats. Among Catholics who attended Mass on a weekly basis, 56% voted for Bush, but among Catholics who did not attend Mass regularly, Kerry won. (Protestants reflected the same trend.) Ultimately, Bush received 52% of the Catholic vote, prompting AP writer Richard Ostling to observe, “The majority of Catholics preferred an anti-abortion Methodist incumbent to one of their own – underscoring that today’s religious divide cuts across denominational lines.” (The exception to this trend is among African Americans, who tend to be active church goers but who vote almost exclusively Democratic.)

State Marriage Initiatives

The most obvious indicator that Biblical issues directly affected the election results was visible in the results of the state marriage initiatives. Many liberal Democratic leaders early acknowledged that this issue might be a determining factor in this election – evidenced by their vigorous efforts to keep the marriage issue off state ballots. In state after state, if Democrats failed to kill the measure in the state legislature they turned to courts to have the issue removed from the ballot.

Democratic fears about this issue were confirmed in Missouri three months before the November election. Even though the marriage issue was placed on the primary rather than the general ballot – and despite the fact that pro-marriage advocates were outspent by a margin of 40-1 – the measure passed with 71% support amidst record voter turnout! Matt Franck of the St. Louis Post Dispatch accurately concluded, “values appeared to beat dollars at the ballot box.” (By the way, the report of this massive victory was relegated to page A-16 of the New York Times.)

If the Missouri results disturbed liberal Democrats and marriage opponents, the subsequent efforts in Ohio were even more distressing. After all, citizens there had only nine weeks to gather 323,000 signatures to place the issue on the ballot; yet at the end of those nine weeks, 557,000 signatures had been submitted – and 54,500 new voters registered to vote so they could express their political voice in support of traditional marriage.

When election night arrived, marriage proposals in 11 states had survived all legal attempts to remove the issue from the ballot, and almost 20 million Americans in those states voted on the marriage issue. Not only did the measure pass in all 11 states by an overall margin of 2-1, but support ranged from a low of 57% support in Oregon (still an impressive number) to an almost unimaginable 86% support in Mississippi. (Interestingly, the marriage measures also passed by wide margins in blue states won by Kerry, and 8 of the 11 states included a ban on civil unions as well as on same-sex marriages.)

Immediately after the results were announced, legal challenges were filed in 6 states to overturn the statewide elections on marriage. (Even if the state courts eventually uphold the election results, the votes could still be overturned by federal courts – which is why the Federal Marriage Amendment is being so vigorously pursued in Congress.) Support for marriage was also a defining issue in several U. S. Senate races – including that of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who was defeated by John Thune (the first time in 52 years that a Senate party leader has lost a re-election bid).

(The interesting counter-trend to the national pro-marriage movement was seen in Massachusetts, where all incumbent state legislators who had advocated same-sex marriage or unions were reelected.)

Clearly, the marriage issue was a powerful influence in state and federal elections; was it also influential in the presidential election? Undoubtedly. Although the mainstream media failed to report on the more than 40 major speeches that President Bush delivered on the marriage issue, voters still learned of those speeches and spoke loudly on Election Day. As Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, noted: “At weddings they used to say, ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace.’ This shows that the people, when given the opportunity, speak very clearly.”

The Pro-Life Vote

In this election, 13% of all voters said they voted for pro-abortion candidates, but 25% of voters said they voted for pro-life candidates, obviously resulting in a distinct advantage for pro-life candidates.

Evidences of pro-life victories in this election are readily available. For example, the Susan B. Anthony List (an organization that endorses only pro-life candidates) placed almost $5 million into pro-life races, and Emily’s List (an organization that only endorses pro-abortion candidates) placed almost $45 million into pro-abortion races. Yet despite being outspent by more than 8-1, 80% of the candidates endorsed by Susan B. Anthony won, compared to only 39% of the candidates endorsed by Emily’s List. In fact, Susan B. Anthony candidates defeated six candidates backed by Emily’s List; 15 backed by Planned Parenthood; five by NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League); 11 by NOW’s PAC; and 11 by the pro-abortion Women’s Candidate Fund. (By the way, the 2002 and 2004 elections have added 19 new members to the U. S. Senate: 15 Republicans and four Democrats; all 15 Republicans are pro-life, but none of the Democrats are. The U. S. Senate has become significantly more pro-life over the last two elections.)

The pro-life as well as the marriage issue helped President Bush make significant gains in the Hispanic community. Bush ran ads on abortion and homosexual marriage in Spanish-language media and received the largest numbers of Hispanic votes ever received by a Republican president. One Hispanic voter seemed to sum up the feeling of many when he explained, “I voted for Bush based on his moral stance. Bush is pro-life, I’m pro-life. He believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, and so do I.”

(One amazing and almost inexplicable aspect of this election was the fact that 26% of those who oppose all abortions voted for Kerry – who opposes no abortions.)

The African American Vote

While the percentage increase of African Americans voting for President Bush appeared relatively small, the gain was actually much greater than it appears. While Bush received 8% support of the 10.8 million black voters in 2000 (that is, 864,000 votes), in this election he received the support of 11% of 13.2 million black voters (that is, 1.45 million votes – nearly a 70% increase in the actual number of individual African Americans voting for President Bush).

As suggested by columnist Gregory Kane of the Baltimore Sun, the cause for much of the African American increase in support for President Bush was his pro-life and pro-traditional marriage position. Just days after the election, Kane explained:

The first inkling I had that Sen. John Kerry would lose Tuesday’s election came exactly a week before, when I participated in a telephone conference call that the Massachusetts senator had with about 350 black clergy. After former President Bill Clinton introduced him, Kerry told the group that the issue of gay marriage was a red herring. “I ask you not to be diverted from the real issue in this case,” as if blowing off the moral issue that would eventually cost him the election weren’t enough, we have to look at what else was wrong with the picture: when you’re telling clergy folks that things many Christians regard as sins don’t matter, you might not want an admitted philanderer to be the guy introducing you. Earlier in the campaign, Kerry shared a stage with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, another fella not yet bitten by the monogamy bug, who [also] said moral issues in campaign 2004 were a diversion.

While overall African American support for Bush was at 11%, it was much higher in many battleground states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania where African American support for Bush reached 16%.

The New Faces Elected

The voters’ support for life, faith, and traditional family produced an outstanding body of freshmen House and Senate members. Consider first the U. S. Senate results: nine new freshman Senators, seven of whom are pro-life (all the Republicans).

Following the election, veteran Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) observed, “In terms of the Republicans, with the exception of Don Nickles, every one of them is more conservative than the person they replaced.” The voting records as recorded by the American Conservative Union (ACU) confirm the truth of Kyl’s statement:

  • South Dakota: John Thune (former House Member; ACU: 92%) will replace Tom Daschle (ACU: 22%).
  • South Carolina: Jim DeMint (current House Member; ACU: 100%) will replace Fritz Hollings (ACU: 15%).
  • North Carolina: Richard Burr (current House Member; ACU: 96%) will replace John Edwards (ACU: 30%).
  • Louisiana: David Vitter (current House Member; ACU: 100%) will replace John Breaux (ACU: 42%).
  • Florida: Mel Martinez (a pro-life, pro-traditional marriage Secretary of HUD under President Bush) will replace Bob Graham (ACU: 20%).
  • Georgia: Johnny Isakson (current House Member; ACU: 96%) will replace Zell Miller (ACU: 47%)
  • Oklahoma: Tom Coburn (former House member; ACU: 97%) will replace retiring Don Nickles (ACU rating: 100%). (This is the seat in which Kyl correctly acknowledged that there would be little change.)

The new Republican Senators are not just conservative votes but rather are committed leaders. As freshman Tom Coburn expressed it:

I believe we have a deficit of moral courage in the United States Congress. We have many learned individuals who know what is right but have not the courage to stand against the moral corruption that is now attempting to undermine our republic. I believe we have lost sight of the moorings of the Constitution in that it was founded upon the principles of a Creator and that we have inalienable rights given by that Creator. We need leaders who are unashamed of their faith and understand its importance in the maintenance of a free society.

On the Democratic side, the two new freshmen Senators – Barack Obama (IL) and Ken Salazar (CO) – are both pro-abortion and both oppose marriage protection.

In the House, there are 39 new members: 23 freshman Republicans, 14 freshmen Democrats, and two undecided (two House races in Louisiana will have runoffs in December). Like the Senate, the Democratic House Members tend to be pro-abortion and the Republicans pro-life, including new pro-life and pro-family advocates Geoff Davis (KY), Bobby Jindal (LA), Patrick McHenry (NC), Virginia Foxx (NC), Jeff Fortenberry (NE), Ted Poe (TX), Kenny Marchant (TX), Louie Gohmert (TX), Michael McCaul (TX), Cathy McMorris (WA), Mike Sodrel (IN), Mike Fitzpatrick (PA), Bob Inglis (SC), Dave Reichert (WA), and many others. (Additionally, the House’s strongest pro-choice Republican was replaced by a much more conservative Member.)

Clearly, candidates embracing Biblical moral values did very well in this election as voters showed their preference for such leaders.

The Specter Response

The day following the election, when even the secular media was acknowledging a moral mandate from the election, pro-abortion Republican Senator Arlen Specterv(likely the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee) appeared to issue a thinly veiled warning to the President to not send conservative pro-life judicial nominees before his committee.

Senate offices were immediately inundated with thousands of calls, asking Senators to deny Specter the committee chairmanship. That unorchestrated, spontaneous, and rapid response was in itself a major victory, demonstrating that citizens intend to remain engaged in the culture war on the policy side as well as the election side. This unexpected response from citizens has already had a profound effect inside the Senate.

As a result, Sen. Specter is rapidly backtracking. It is likely that he will publicly pledge not to oppose any of the President’s nominees, and as a result his fellow Senators may permit him to become chairman. Such a result ensures that the message delivered so clearly by citizens in the election will be paid attention to after the election.

(Interestingly, the new Senate Minority Leader for the Democrats is Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada. Reid’s pro-life record is not particularly strong, but he is one of the strongest pro-life Democratic Senators. Ironically, over the last three sessions of Congress, Reid has actually had a better pro-life voting record than Specter!)

Three Post Election Reactions

There have been three distinct visible reactions (not responses) to the election results from various groups of Democratic leaders and activists. The first reaction is reminiscent of the reaction of Democrats against Republicans 144 years ago.

The election of 1860 was characterized by a cultural divide over slavery. The upstart Republicans (having been founded only six years earlier, in 1854) had issued platforms setting forth bold declarations of equality and civil rights for all African-Americans and, condemning slavery, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Dred Scott decision. The Democrat platforms, however, strongly defended slavery and supported both the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision.

When Americans in that election handed the presidency, the House, and the Senate to Republicans, it was obvious to Democrats what was about to happen: the anti-slavery and pro-civil rights positions of the Republicans were about to become reality. What was the response? Southern Democrats seceded – they left Congress and took their states with them, forming a new nation that described itself as the “slave-holding” Confederate States of America – a nation led by a Democrat U. S. Senator as its president and a Democrat U. S. Representative as its vice-president. (By the way, the fear of Democrats in that election came true: Republicans not only passed a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery while still fighting the Civil War but they also passed two dozen civil rights laws in only a decade, one of which banned all segregation; but the Supreme Court – being as out of touch with the wishes of that generation as it is with today’s – struck down that desegregation law.)

Now, a century-and-a-half later in 2004, with it being obvious to Democrats that Republicans intend to protect marriage, innocent human life, and reign in an activist judiciary, Democratic leaders such as Lawrence O’Donnell, Bob Beckel, and Geraldine Ferraro (as well as many rank-and-file Democrats) are once again making noise about secession. The proposed map they are circulating on the internet demonstrates their understanding of the cultural divide in this election: they propose that the 19 blue states won by Kerry join with Canada to form the “United States of Canada,” and that the remaining 31 red states be named “Jesusland.”

However, not all Democrats are seeking to secede; some are simply seeking psychotherapy. In fact, so many have sought help that mental health professionals have developed a new category for the disorder. According to Rob Gordon of the American Health Association, “We’re calling it ‘post-election selection trauma’.” What are the symptoms of this disorder? “They include feelings of extreme anger, despair, hopelessness, powerlessness, a failure to function behaviorally, a sense of disillusionment, of not wanting to vote anymore.” Gordon warns: “There are definitely people depressed by John Kerry’s loss, and this can easily lead to suicides like the one we saw up in New York this weekend.”

The third apparent post-election reaction is a deliberate attempt to reshape long-held definitions of established words, or doing what the dictionary describes as “new-speak” (the “deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public,” based on the term invented in the famous novel 1984). In other words, many liberals, understanding that they lost the election largely because of traditional moral values, are attempting to redefine the scope and universally understood meaning of those words. For example, the Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, laments: “The religious right has successfully gotten out there shaping personal piety issues – civil unions, abortion – as almost the total content of ‘moral values.’ And yet . . . God doesn’t want 45 million Americans without health care.”

Supporters of same-sex marriage are now asserting that it is “moral” to extend partnership rights to two men or two women who have “committed” themselves to each other, and pro-abortion advocates are now claiming that it is “moral” for a poor mother to have an abortion rather than bear a child she might not want. Since the election, the Left has begun chanting about “morals” and “values,” but giving those words their own new meanings.

Another frequently mentioned “moral value” involves taking care of the poor. As the Rev. Stephen Bouman explains, “One thing Jesus was absolutely clear about was helping the poor.” While it is true that the Bible does have much to say about helping the poor, it is also true that the Bible clearly prioritizes certain issues. Consider the fact that God took over 600 laws and reduced them into His “Top Ten” commandments. The protection of innocent life does make God’s Top Ten (#6), and the protection of the sanctity of marriage also makes God’s Top Ten (#7); however, taking care of the poor does not make God’s Top Ten, and to elevate that issue above what God has elevated is to usurp His authority and that of His Word.

Additionally, when George W. Bush, then Texas Governor first implemented faith-based programs in Texas, CBS News traveled to Fredericksburg, Texas, and reported that the same amount of welfare money that previously had taken care of 4 recipients in the government system was now taking care of hundreds of recipients in the faith-based welfare system. Therefore, it is apparent that the ability to better help the poor is dramatically increased by the implementation of faith-based
programs – something that most Democrats vehemently oppose and most Republicans strongly support.

Statistical indicators in the election – as well as the reactions and rhetoric of those who lost – clearly confirm that “moral issues” were a definitive and major influence in the outcome of this election. So was there a moral mandate delivered by voters on election night 2004? Many indicators would suggest that the answer may be, “Yes.”

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