Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Twelve Pillers of Freedom...Ask yourself...How is our government doing?...

The Twelve Pillars of Freedom
The American Creed consists of the principles that form the
foundation for the United States of America, including the foundation for its
Constitution, its system of law, and its overall purpose and vision as a
nation. The American Creed is stated in the first founding document of the
United States, that being the Declaration of Independence.
President John Quincy Adams gave recognition to these principles
as forming the foundation of the United States Constitution when he said:
The virtue which had been infused into the Constitution of the
United States was no other than … those abstract principles which
had been first proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence--
namely, the self-evident truths of the natural and unalienable rights
of man … This was the platform upon which the Constitution of the
United States had been erected.
Abraham Lincoln similarly made reference to the importance of
these foundational principles when he said: “I have never had a thought
politically which did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the
Declaration of Independence.”
The Declaration contains 12 such sentiments, or principles. These
principles are also called, “The Twelve Pillars of Freedom.” The principles
are the following:

Principle number 1: National Sovereignty. The Declaration of
Independence begins by saying:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume, among the
Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them …
This declaration that “one people” will now “assume among the
Powers of the earth the separate and equal station” is a clear statement of
national sovereignty. The Declaration of Independence begins with
national sovereignty. It also ends with national sovereignty. Indeed, the
Declaration of Independence could just as well be called the “Declaration
of National Sovereignty” because that is what the Declaration means.

Principle number 2: Natural Law. Our Declaration of Independence
says, as noted above, that the United States has become an independent
nation based on the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” That is, our
nation is based on natural law. Natural law is the universal moral code that
governs all people. Its precepts include equality, justice, the Golden Rule,
the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property, and the Ten
Commandments.
A college-level American government textbook, American
Government: Roots and Reform, (1993 Edition) provides a good
description of natural law as it states:
Where Did our Ideas of Government Come From? …
classical and medieval writers such as St. Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274) argued that …governments were ordained by
natural law--basic and God-given rules that do not have to
be written as much as discovered. Individual rights to life and
liberty were a part of the natural law created by God. [Karen
O’Connor and Larry J. Sabato (New York: Longman
Publishing) p. 6]
(Because natural law is so important to the United States and to all
civilized life, and because natural law is not well understood, Cmod #4 will
provide a detailed description of it.)

Principle number 3: Self-evident truth. The third pillar of freedom
asserted in the Declaration of Independence is self-evident truth. The
Declaration states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” That is,
the Declaration views truth as genuine, knowable and fundamental to the
basic principles of government—in contrast to the modern and radical
view of truth which see it as a mere “construct” in the minds of individuals
(called “constructivism” and/or postmodernism).

Principle number 4: Equality. The Declaration of Independence says:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal
…” The Declaration states that all people are equal because they were
created that way by God. As a consequence, all people are to be equal
before the law, that is, the legitimate claims of all people shall have equal
standing including their legitimate claims of life, liberty and property.
The term “men” is here used in the generic sense and means
human beings regardless of race, gender, social standing, income,
disability and the like. The liberal interpretation of the Declaration which
asserts that it is a racist and sexist document is blatantly false.

Principle number 5: Inalienable Rights. The Declaration of
Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights …” Our forefathers understood that our rights have
been given to us by God, and for that reason these rights are
“unalienable.” Today we say “inalienable.” Our forefathers recognized that
the fundamental human rights, such as life, liberty and property, are not
granted by government; they have been granted by God. The role of
government, then, is to protect these God-given rights.
In this way the founders of our nation clarified that government had
a lower level of authority than the inalienable rights of its people.
Governments do not grant rights, nor do rights depend on government. On
the contrary, government rests on the human rights, some of which are
allocated to government by the people for the sake of good order.

Principle number 6: The inalienable Right to Life. The Declaration of
Independence states: “… they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness …” The first right mentioned is that of life since other rights
mean nothing without the right to life.

Principle number 7: The Inalienable Right to Liberty. The Declaration
of Independence states: “… they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness …” Liberty, or freedom, is the second listed right. In
this way the colonists declared their independence from Great Britain and
also stated in principle their opposition to slavery. This principle was not
fully put into effect until the Civil War, the reason being that the Southern
states would not have joined the union otherwise.

Principle number 8: The Inalienable Right to Private Property. The
Declaration of Independence uses the term “pursuit of happiness” for
this right. Amendments 5 and 14 to the United States Constitution state
that no person may be deprived of “life, liberty, or property” without due
process of law. That is, the Constitution clarifies that “pursuit of happiness”
refers primarily to the right of personal property. The founding fathers
defined “property” broadly so as to include much more than physical
property, but also time, talents, opportunities, freedom and life itself.

Principle number 9: The primary purpose of government is the
protection of the inalienable rights. The Declaration of Independence
states it this way: “That, to secure these Rights, Governments are
instituted among Men …” That is, government has one over-arching
purpose--protecting the inalienable rights of all people.

Principle number 10: Popular Sovereignty. The Declaration of
Independence states this principle with the words: “That to secure these
Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed.” That is, the people have a
higher level of authority than government, and government has only those
powers delegated to it by the citizens (as guaranteed by Amendments
nine and ten to the Constitution). For this reason, the Constitution of
the United States was created to be a social contract by which the states
and the people designated some of their powers to the federal
government for the sake of good order and national defense.

Principle number 11: Federalism and States’ Rights. The last
paragraph of the Declaration of Independence says: “That these United
States are, and of Right ought to be, Free and independent states; that
they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all
political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and
ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States,
they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances,
establish Commerce and do all other Acts and Things which Independent
States may of right do.”
In this way the Declaration of Independence emphatically affirmed
the sovereignty of the federal United States and the sovereignty of the
separate states. The Declaration envisioned a federal system of
government with the states delegating some of their power to the federal
government while retaining other powers for themselves. The federal
system of government is explained in the Tenth Amendment to the
Constitution which stipulates that any powers not specifically delegated to
the federal government by the Constitution are reserved for the states and
the people respectively.

Principle number 12: Divine Providence. The Declaration of
Independence ends with this sentence: “And for the support of this
Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence,
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred
Honor.” That is, the colonists stated their conviction that there is a God in
the Heavens who governs in the affairs of men. The signers of the
Declaration were convinced that their cause was just and that the just
God, earlier in the Declaration referred to as the “Supreme Judge of the
world,” would be on their side.

It was largely because of this conviction that they believed they
would be successful against what was arguably the most powerful military
force in the world at that time.

1 comment:

  1. Before 1620in America, concepts of individual liberty would be expected alongside slavery. Individual freedom, for 400 years in the New World, has proven far better than a few thousand years of tyranny, the rule of the few over the many. We have only to look at the Federal Government as an inept and corrupt center of organized crime to see how bad it will be to return to the Old World way. A new book, SAVE PEBBLE DROPPERS & PROSPERITY describes it, on claysamerica.com.

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