Two Founding Documents-Written by Jefferson & Madison

Two Founding Documents

TWO FOUNDING DOCUMENTS. Last week we saw how author Dinesh D’Souza summed up the essence of three Founding Fathers. John Adams promoted the pursuit of virtue as America’s key to success. Ben Franklin used that key to become the nation’s leading writer, publisher, scientist, inventor & diplomat. And Alexander Hamilton used that key to develop a free-market economy in which anyone can succeed.

This week we consider the two Founding Fathers who set America’s system in stone. Dinesh says, “Thomas Jefferson not only laid the foundation stone for a new nation. But he also set that new nation, the United States of America, on a path we still follow today.”

See below how to pray about this

In the Declaration of Independence, he wrote possibly the most influential words outside the Bible. Specifically, “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The Bill of Rights and 14^th amendment declaring equal rights for former slaves depend on that statement.

Yet progressive scholars call Jefferson the most hypocritical of Founders because he owned slaves. In 1857 Chief Justice Roger Taney used Jefferson’s hypocrisy to allow slavery in the new territories. But Dinesh points out that Jefferson follows up his famous statement with an equally crucial principle. That governments derive their legitimacy from the “consent of the governed.”

Under King George, slavery was legal in all the former colonies who framed the 1789 Constitution. So how could the members outlaw slavery without the consent of the people in their new states? “In that case,” Dinesh says, “they would be overthrowing democracy” before it even began. Some states would not join such a union. Thus the US would have begun as the Disunited States of America.

Instead, they “temporarily allowed slavery in practice.” But they constructed a constitutional framework based on anti-slavery principles. Those principles won out only when the pro-slavery states surrendered after a long and bloody Civil War. The US still struggles with racism of diverse kinds. But in the US the idea that all men are created equal “is closer to reality than anywhere else in the world.”

James Madison, the principle writer of the Constitution, begins it by writing “We the People…” But did he trust that the majority of the people would choose right most of the time? No. Rather he said when people have “an interest and a power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.”

The first and longest enduring constitution

Government by the majority can become as tyrannical as other types of government. The majority too can become tyrannical. How then can a nation limit the power of the majority or any faction to lord it over other factions?

By a written constitution. The US Constitution became the first such in world history. Now after 250 years it has become by far the longest enduring constitution, thanks largely to Madison.

How did he limit the power of the government? By spelling out its areas of authority, and leaving the rest to the states. And later, in the Bill of Rights, by spelling out the rights of individual citizens too.

Therefore, “we the people” rule, but indirectly, by electing representatives. First, an elected legislature for making laws. Second, an elected executive for carrying out those laws and its constitutional areas of authority. And third, an appointed judiciary which resolves disputes over those laws. These three branches work by checks and balances preventing either one from exercising tyranny.

If we want to avoid falling under tyranny, we had better learn and practice this Constitution well. Unfortunately, immigrants, public school students, and even elected representative too often don’t. judges and representatives swear to uphold the Constitution without knowing what a precious thing they are holding.

Pray that we will learn the equal rights and responsibilities our Creator has granted us. And know Him better, so we can better represent Him.

PRAY WITH US about two founding documents:

Father God, we declare You as the ultimate Founder of this nation. For from You every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. But You gave the Founding Fathers a special grace for founding documents largely based on Your Word. Thank You for their wisdom in applying biblical principles, which we are still learning from today.

By them both the government and its individual citizens have exercised great freedom within needed limits. So show us how to do so to grow in public virtue and not public vices. To expose evil and not to call evil good and good evil. For we see the majority often set itself against Moses, the prophets, Christ and the apostles. But they remained free to speak and do Your will because Your power is sovereign over any tyranny. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. In Jesus’ name, amen.