1989 Issue 8 - The Rise and Fall of American Liberty - Counsel of Chalcedon

8/12/2019 1989 Issue 8 - The Rise and Fall of American Liberty - Counsel of Chalcedon

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America, once a Chtistian republic and the

bastion of

freedom, has,

over

the past 200 .

years, devolved into a socialistic democracy.

The

author traces

The Rise and Fa

E

onomics is vitally , related to

liberty. That 'whiclt controlS

your :purse, controls

you. F.A.

Harper has aptly observed: It seems

correct to say that economic l i b e ~

pervades

the

entire problem ofliberty.

This

being

true

any study

of

economics

(whetherdescriptive or theoretical)

is

n

exercise bl futility

i

t is severed from a

working knowledge of political theory.

Furthermore, a proper understanding of

political theory necessitates an

w r e ~

ness of the prevailing cultural and his

torical climate of a given era. Political

systems -- and their resultant economic

systems

do

not appear

x nihilo in

hiStory. Various historical forces

are

constantly active either maintaining

established politico-economic systems

or spawning new ones. At the root of

any given politico-economic system

there lie . particular causative

forces

sufficient to account for the genesis of

the

system.

Unfortunately, history, political s c i ~

ence and econorn1c theory

are

either

being glossed over

ot

grossly distorted

in

our

society today via the educational

system, the news media, political ver

biage, etc. Consequently, liberty, whi ch

cteplimds

so strongly on the understand

ing and the commitment

of

anational

people, is being progressively eroded. It

is doubtful whether a significant

m1nor

ity of Americans can define the .

differ

ence that exists betweenarepublic and a

democracy.

Or

to even properly' teii'

which

AmerU:a

was intended

t

be. -

F

rthennore, there

are probably

even fewer still who are aware

of the .influence of colonial

America's Christian faith on

the

form

of

government which the Constitution

the Counsel of

Chaleedon October; 1989

page

2

estab'Ushed. Yet it is not too bold

to

claim that the original historic Chris

tian faith was

the

key element which

determined the direction he

young

na

tionwas

to

take politically, ecortomical

ly, educationally and soon. ,

n

this article

an

attempt ,

will

be

made to briefly demonstrate the relation

ship

of

the Christian faith to the colon

ization and building of the A r n e r i c ~ n

Republic. And a few key laws will be

piripointed which were most instru

mental in transfomung the Christian

republic into a socialistic demoCracy.

Such an introductory historical study

should be beneficiat in stirring

the

silent majority into a clearer realiza

tion

of

the radical nature of the politico

economic metamorphosis that

has

oc- .

curred in the United States.

If

a people

is ignorant of its political orgins, that

people will certainty'not be able to dis-..

cern its

p p r ~ h i n g

political destiny.

Christian

Influence

.

On

Early

America

P

ritanism,

an

intensely Biblical

and dynamic movement

in'

Christianity, contained the pri-

mary driving force in the early e t t l e ~

nient and building of colonial America.

J.M. Blum has noted that an important

religious motivation instigated the bold '

and rapid colonization

of

wilderness

America: the persecution of the

PUri

tans 'and Separatists under Archbishop

William Laud in England: n despair.

and hope the puritans turned their

thoughts td America,where theY.

mi

ght

escape God's WI'ath, .worship purity

and gather strength for future vtctory. 2 .

Puritanism

was

not only a vibrant re

ligious faith, but it offered a cotnprehen-


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sive philosophy of life complete with

an eschatology of victory. The proto

type of all early American civil law was

the Massachusetts Civil Bay

Code

(1648) which

was

based on Puritan

theo-

logian John Cotton's

Body

o

Liber-

ties.3

This law code even went so far as

to incorporate Scripture references

as

moral justifications for specific

laws.

The first charter of South Carolina

(granted by Charles II in 1662) declared

that a zeal for the propagation of the

Gospel had motivated the king and the

colonists in that particular adventure. In

the same year the Legislature

of the Pro

vince of Pennsylvania declared govern-

ment

to

be a venerable ordinance of

God and it was a principle concern of

Pennsylvanians to make and establish

such laws

as

shall best preserve

true

Christian and civil liberty. Over and

over again legislature p r o n o u n e ~ ~ ~ -

legal codes, monarchichal chartersoetc.,

were framed

in

terms of the Christian

faith. That pristine Christian commit

ment molded the several young meri-

can colonies.

S

dney Ahlstrom, in his important

A Religious History

o the

merican People has stated:

Among other things,

the

merican

colonies had the most thoroughly

Protestant, Reformed, and Puritan

commonwealths in the world. Indeed,

Puritanism proved the moral and

religious background offully

75

percent

of he people

who

declared independeoce

n

1776

. 4 A contemporary French

historian, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrofe

in 1834: Among the Anglo-Americans

there are some who profess Christian

dogmas because they believe them and

others who do so because they are afraid

to look

as

though

they did not believe

them. So Christianity reigns without

obstacles,

by

universal consent. 5

In

1833

Supreme Court Justice

Joseph Story wrote in his

Commen-

taries On The Constitution o the

United States: Probably

at

the time of

the adoption

of

the Constitution . . . . .

the general

if

not the universal senti

ment n America was that Christianity

ought to receive encouragement from

the state . . . . Historian C. Gregg

Singer has noted that Puritanism, the

prevailing theological and philosophical

system . . . . . in most of the colonies

founded in the

17th

century, is the key

which unlocks the meaning of colonial

history as a whole. It pervaded not only

the religious life and thought of most

of th.e early colonists, but their politi

cal, social and economic life

as

wen:6

Colonial Christian

Political

heory

N

merous

other resources could

be drawn upon n support of

the historic fact of the strong

influence of Christianity on American

history

1

But these

few

samples should

suffice as illustrative of the fact The

driving faith-outlook of colonial Ameri

ca was certainly Refonned Christianity.

What needs to be realized at this junc

ture

is the precise

effect

of

this

faith on

early American political theory. Re

duced to its simplest statement, that ef

fect was the framing and establishment

of a government which was a limited,

decentralized, constitutional republic.

Contrary to popular misconceptions,

America

was

not founded as a demo

cratic state. Rather, it was to be a repub

lic in keeping with the essential ele

ments of the prevailing Christian thea-

The Counsel of Chalcedon October 1989 page 3


3/4

logy of the day. The influence of Chris

tian theology was often directly felt,

as

in

the cases of epistemologiCally self

conscious' Christian leaders. Or, in

other instances, (e.g., Ben Franklin and

Thomas Jefferson); it was indirectly in-

fluential via

an

inconsistent, culturally

perceived, intellectual Christian out

look.

Theologian

RJ

Rushdoony

has

writ

ten: The concept of a secular state was

virtually non-existent in

1776 as

well

as

in 1787,

when

the Constitution was

written,

and

no less so when

the

Bill of

Rights was adopted. To read the Consti

tution

as

the charter for a secular state

is to misread history, and to misread it

radically. The Constitution was de

signed to perpetuaie a Christian otder. 8

Verna M. Hall bas

noted:

Each reli

gion has a form of government Chris

tianity astonished the world by estab

lishing self-government . . . . . the

foundation stone of the United States

of

Arnerica. 9 In an 1846 work, The Pwi

tans and Their Principles E. Hall

wrote: Christianity, in its essence, its

doctrines and its forms, is republican.

This theological republicanism was

held as a basic commibnent by the bulk

of

America's founding fathers. Our po-

litical o r ~ ~ a r s had a deep disdain f >r a

democratic

State,

as is easily detected in

so many

of

the Federalist Papers. tO

T

he government established by

the

Constitution

was an expres

sion of historic Christian theo

logy. Some of the more fundamenial

doctrines which undergird our systemof

constitutional law were: (1) the

sovereignty

of

God, (2) the depravity

of

man, and (3) the covenant

First, the doctrine.ofGod's sovereign

ship strongly emphasized that sovereign

ty rests only in

the

Omnipotent Creator

not in individual men (which would

promote anatchy) not in the corporate

state (which would promote totalitarian

ism). Thus, state power was

to

be

se

verely limited. Furthermore, since God

was

alone absolutely

and

perfectly o v ~

reign, Law was an abiding, unchanging

principle of a moral universe. lt was

not subject to the whims of political

leaders or fifty-one percent majorities.

.And finally, the Bible

as

the revealed

will of the Sovereign Lord must be an

indispensible guide for a just political

system (e.g., representative government

is founded upon the explicit teaching of below. B\Jt

first an

important

fact

mqst

Deuterooomy

1).

be kept in

mind:

The

Christian concep-

Second, the

awful

truth of the inborn tion

of

a unified and continuous flow of

depravity of man demanded a decencral- history has been forsaken in favor of an

ization of power

in

the form of

federal

e ~ s t e n t i a l interpretation of constitution-

checks and balances (The Constitution, allaw. As a result, the flow of political

Articles I.

l

II.l; ID.l), individual

per

power, which origirtally flowed

from

sonal

liberty

(Amendment

IX)

and .

the

people

and

traveled

~ p w a r d

has

states' rights (Amendment X),

In

.bar- ~ n exactly reversed. Legal power now

mony with the Christian doctrine

of

in- flows

from

the federal

g ~ > V e m m e n t

herent depravity, James Madison wrote downward.

in one of

the

Federalist Papers: A de- True Olristian historiography

empha-

gree

of depravity in mankind requires a sizes .the importance and unity of ob-

certain degreeofcireumspection anddis- jective history. The importance

given

trust Alexander Hamilton spoke of histOry is due to the influence of

three

thefolly and wickedness

of

mankind. key 'Christian doctrines: Creation (God

Aiid John Jay stated that men tend to

pwposefully and directly

creakid

'the

swerVe

from good faith andjustice. physiCal universeand governs

history),

These pronouncements reflect a Chris Incarnation (God has entered the

p h e n o ~

tian anthropology. They are a far cry .menologicat rea1in in the person of

from modern talk

of

the innoCence Jesus Christ) and Resurrection

(eternity

trustworthiness and brotherhood of will reinstitute

the

physical

realm).

Not

man.

only

is

histOry deemed important, but

T

the idea of covenant is

the basis for

the American

Constitution

in whiCh

powers and responsibilities of the

government

and

the people are explicit

and expressly enumerated. The Dec ara- .

tion

of

Independence d e t a i l ~ a plethora

of

atrocities commited

by

King George

min

the form of a breach-of-contract

dictment. The Constitution was SQ

.

writ

ten as

tO clearly de-limit

federal

power

and prevent such

tyraimy.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in his

Resolution Relative to the Alien and

Sedition Laws: True government is

founded on jealousy, not in confidence.

It is jealousy and not confidence which

prescribes limited constitutions, tO ~

those we are obliged tO trust withpow

er. In questions of power, let

no

more

be heard of confidence in man but bind

him down from mischief by

the ctiains

.

of

the constitution.

Tbe Erosion of the

Republic

w

en the Constitutional

Convention was closine,

Ben

Franklin is repOrted

ta have told a lady inquirer:

You

have

a republic, madame. If you can keep.

Winmve not

kept

it

Pour particular laws which

have

ser

ve:d

to .dismantle our

d e ~ c e n t r a l i z e d

re- .

public in favor

of

a highly centralized

democracy will

be

briefly summarized

there .

S a basiC structural unity

in .his

tory due to the providence

of.God

.

Such a Christian view of

history is

essential

to

a republican system of gov

ernmental law. The legal documents of

the past (e.g. the Constitution; h

Bill

of Righis etc.) must be

inteipreted in

terms

of

their

original

i n t e n t i o n ~

The

e)tistential

moment

cannot

be

allowed

to devoid the law of the land

and its

histOric

intent and validity.

Through

legal ploys

and

an unconcern (and even

disdain)

fot

objective history, the

o -

stitution

is today

being remodeled

nto

a

ool

for .

he

promotion of

the socialist

democratic ideal, rather than

'remaining

a

bedrock

of

binding

republican law.

The cunent democratic ideal rather

than returning poWer to

the

people

per the

definition of

democracy

- is

combined with socialist heresy,

Thus it

vests .

nassive and innumerable

federal

bureaus with

almost unlimited

power

.

This cauSes a constant sapping of

the

strength and integritY

of

local

authority

and personal liberty rights. ; . .

T

he

four

particular laws which

h ve been

s )

useful

in

void-

, ng the

historic intent of

the

Constitution and reversing the

fl()W

of

P wer are the Fourteenth,

Sixteenth,

and Seventeenth Amendments and

the

Federal ReseiveAct

On : tile surface, the

.FOurteenth

Ameridment

(1868) seems to be a quite

nal;)le and equitable taw. Who among

The

CounS81

of

Chillcadon October, 1989

page

4


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Documents

1989 Issue 8 - The Rise and Fall of American Liberty - Counsel of Chalcedon