Founding Wisdom—Part II: George Washington and Others

I heard someone mention this week that the way to get people—mainly young people—to love this country is for them to learn its history. They might have been talking about learning to love the Constitution and Declaration of Independence by studying them. I’m not sure whom to credit now, but it may have been David Barton of Wallbuilders—check out their extraordinary Signers of the Declaration resource page. 

Anyway, with the intention of increasing love for the ideals of this country, I’m continuing the celebration of Independence Day with words from our founders.

I had so many quotes from Thomas Jefferson that I gave him his own day, in the last post. Today will be a few others of the 56 men who signed the Declaration back in 1776, risking their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, plus others who weren’t among those signers, but who nevertheless took those risks for our freedom.

 

George Washington

Washington Praying painting by Arnold Friberg
image from Wikipedia

"I have often expressed my sentiments that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."—George Washington (To the General Committee of the United Baptist Churches in Virginia)

 

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.—George Washington (First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789)

 

Washington's inauguration by Howard Pyle
image found here

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."—George Washington (First Inaugural Address)

 

Your love of liberty, your respect for the laws, your habits of industry, and your practice of moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.—George Washington

 

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington

 

 

James Madison

James Madison portrait by John Vanderlyn
image from Wikipedia

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."—James Madison

 

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.”—James Madison (Federalist 45)

 

“I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse.”

—James Madison

 

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”—James Madison

James Madison engraving by David Edwin
image from Wikipedia

 

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”—James Madison (Federalist 51)

 

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”—James Madison (Federalist 51)

 

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others."—James Madison.

 

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow."—James Madison (Federalist 62)

 

 

John Adams

John Adams portrait by Gilbert Stuart
image from Wikipedia

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”—John Adams (A Defense of the Constitutions of Governments of the United States of America, 1787)

 

I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration [of Independence], and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not."—John Adams, July 3, 1776

 

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.—John Adams (1770, closing argument in defense of a British soldier)

John Adams portrait by John Trumbull
image from Wikipedia

 

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the 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."—John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

 

“All are subject by nature to equal laws of morality, and in society have a right to equal laws for their government, yet no two men are perfectly equal in person, property, understanding, activity, and virtue, or ever can be made so by any power less than that which created them.”—John Adams (Discourses on Davila—XV, 1776)

 

"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."—John Adams

 

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.—John Adams

 

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations... this radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.—John Adams (John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, Feb. 13, 1818. Cited in The Works of John Adams, vol. 10, p. 282)

 

 

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams portrait by John Singleton Copley
image from Wikipedia

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."—Samuel Adams

 

"Here therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man."—Samuel Adams

 

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"—Samuel Adams

 

“All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.”―Samuel Adams

 

Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.—Samuel Adams

 

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.—Samuel Adams

 

 

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin portrait by Joseph Duplessis
image from Wikipedia

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."—Benjamin Franklin

 

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."—Benjamin Franklin

 

It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.—Benjamin Franklin

 

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."—Benjamin Franklin

 

 

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton miniature attributed
to Charles Shirreff, image from Wikipedia

"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."—Alexander Hamilton

 

“Here, sir, the people govern.”—Alexander Hamilton

 

"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws—the first growing out of the last.... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government."—Alexander Hamilton (Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, Aug 28, 1794)

 

 

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine portrait by Laurent Dabos
image from Wikipedia

"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue."—Thomas Paine

 

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”—Thomas Paine (American Crisis)

 

Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.—Thomas Paine (The America Crisis)

 

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.—Thomas Paine (Common Sense)

 

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”—Thomas Paine

 

All the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.—Thomas Paine

 

 

Benjamin Rush

Dr. Benjamin Rush
image found here

“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty.”—Benjamin Rush

 

"Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."—Benjamin Rush (1788)

 

“Unless we see medical freedom put into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitution the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush, MD (this is a paraphrase of his sentiments, developed after his death in 1813, not an actual quote)

 

When describing 24 “causes which have retarded the progress of our science,” this was number 24:

“Conferring exclusive privileges upon bodies of physicians, and forbidding men of equal talents and knowledge, under severe penalties from practicing medicine within certain districts of cities and countries.

"Such institutions, however sanctioned by ancient charters and names, are the Bastilles of our science.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush

 

 

Patrick Henry portrait by
George Bagby Matthews
image from Wikipedia

Patrick Henry

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." — Patrick Henry

Passionate Pastor Rafael Cruz

Pastor Rafael Cruz
speaking at the Cherry Tree Republicans forum

This past Saturday I got to attend a series of speakers on the Constitution and conservative ideas (thanks to the Cherry Tree Republicans). The keynote speaker was Pastor Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. I’ve heard him a number of times before, and it’s always an exciting ride.

This was the day after his 80^th birthday, so we sang Happy Birthday to him. His energy is almost overwhelming. He’s nowhere near an age at which he might consider slowing down.

He’s not a pastor with a brick-and-mortar church. He travels and speaks. His purpose is to wake up the churches. As he told us,

I talk to pastors all the time, trying to shake them out from staying behind their pulpits, scared to death of not being politically correct. And I tell them, “You need to be biblically correct, not politically correct.” And they give me all kinds of excuses. One of the most common I hear: “Politics is a dirty business. I don’t want any part of it.” I’m sure everybody in this room has heard that, perhaps some of you have even said it. “Politics is a dirty business. I don’t want any part of it.”

You know Proverbs 29:2. It says, When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, people mourn. If the righteous, the people of principle, the people who stand on the Judeo-Christian principles that made America the greatest country on the face of the earth—if those people are not running for office, if those people are not even voting, what’s left? The wicked electing the wicked. And it becomes our fault.

He just returned from a trip to Romania, a mainly atheist country, as the Soviet states were. They need a religious reawakening, so he was talking to pastors there:

Romania only has 17 million people. Yet they have one year with a million abortions.  Now, we have a million abortions a year in America, but we have 330 million people. So they have 20 times more abortions than America. So my main reason to go to Romania was to wake up the church.

In the process of waking up Christians, he talked about the US Constitution, and how exceptional it is. He pointed out,

The average age, the average lifespan of a constitution around the world—you know how much it is? Seventeen years. Our Constitution has lasted over 230 years.

I agree with him; America, with our Constitution, and our foundation on an idea, rather than an ethnicity, is truly exceptional. He wasn’t the only speaker on the Constitution for the day. I arrived halfway through. I missed a Constitution expert, and my Congressman Dan Crenshaw (sorry to have missed him). But former Speaker of the House Tom Delay spoke on what’s in the Constitution as well.

Let’s start with a bit of history from Pastor Cruz:

The Declaration of Independence did not originate with Thomas Jefferson. I count nineteen grievances against King George in the Declaration of Independence. Did you know that each and every one of those grievances were preached in the churches of America for ten years—ten years, the preachers, from the pulpit, calling out King George for the atrocities that the British were perpetrating on the American people?

As a matter of fact, my friend David Barton says that you could consider the Declaration as a series of sermon summaries.

Going on, he took a history tangent, just for fun:

By the way, how many of you know there was a black patriot riding with Paul Revere? His name was Wentworth Cheswill. He was the first African-American to occupy public office in America. And he held nine different posts in public office before the year 1800.

Now Tom [Delay] also talked about people like George Whitfield, and Jonathan Edwards. But you know, along with—   a little bit later there was a black preacher called Harry Hoosier. From Indiana. As a matter of fact, most people in Indiana don’t know why they are called the Hoosiers. Because of a black preacher called, in the early 1800s, the greatest orator in America. See, all of that has been erased from history books.

We lived in Indiana when son Political Sphere was born, for just a couple of years. Loved it there. But he’s right, we didn’t know—and no one around us seemed to know—where the name Hoosiers came from. Now I know.

Returning back to the story of the Constitution, he tells the story about a tough time during the summer of the Constitutional Convention, about four weeks in, when Benjamin Franklin makes an important suggestion. He roughly quotes Franklin here, sometimes paraphrasing him (my transcription will look like it’s all an actual quote, for simplicity):

Anyway, it was falling apart. And it was none other than this so-called Godless Benjamin Franklin that addresses the president of the convention, George Washington. And Franklin says,[i] “Sir, how is it that we have not once called upon the Father of Lights to illuminate our understanding? Or, have we forgotten, when we first started our struggle against Great Britain, how we met in this very chamber every morning for prayer, seeking His protection? Sir, those prayers were graciously answered. Are we to think that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived a long time, and the longer I live, the more sure I am of this truth: that God governs the affairs of men.

“If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His knowledge, is it probable that an empire can be built without His aid? As the holy scriptures tell us, ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that built it.’ If we proceed to build this endeavor without Him, we will fare no better than the builders of Babel.”

He concluded, and I paraphrase, “I beseech you therefore, that from now henceforth, before we proceed to our deliberations, we meet in this chamber on our knees for prayer, seeking His wisdom and direction.”

They left the Constitutional Convention under the leadership of pastor John Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration. They met together for prayer and fasting. They came back to the Constitutional Convention in a totally different mood. Totally harmony, on their knees, seeking wisdom.

Seven weeks later they gave us the greatest document that has ever been written in history outside of the Bible: the Constitution of the United States of America.

I am convinced without a shadow of a doubt the reason our Constitution has lasted 230 years is because it is a divinely inspired document, because it was born on the knees of the framers. We need to honor our Constitution.

I’m convinced of that as well. I’m used to hearing these words among my church leaders. For example, J. Reuben Clark (for whom the Brigham Young University's law school is named), said, 

My faith teaches me that the Constitution is an inspired document drawn by the hands of men whom God raised up for that very purpose; that God has given His approval of the Government set up under the Constitution “for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles”:[ii] that the constitutional “principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before” the Lord….

So far as my knowledge goes, this is the only government now on the earth to which God has given such an approval. It is His plan for the government of free men.[iii] 

On my way out, Rafael Cruz was standing
at the door, no line, shook my hand
and looked at me like he knew me.
So kind. So I asked for a photo. The
event photographer was nearby and offered
to do that for me. I hope I have this much
energy when I am 80.

Point one is, the Constitution is divinely inspired. Point two is, we should read it and learn what it says. And what it doesn’t say:

Article I Section 8 of the Constitution only has 18 enumerated powers of Congress. If it ain’t there, the federal government’s got no business being involved in it.

You need to read Article I Section 8. The word education—nowhere in Article 1 Section 8. The Department of Education is unconstitutional. Marriage or the family—nowhere in Article 1 Section 8. Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to talk about marriage. But you see, we don’t know the Constitution.

Here’s a rule of thumb he shared with us: “The bigger the federal government, the lesser is your freedom.”

As he puts it,

You know, I must have told my son two dozen times, when he was growing up, when I lost my freedom in Cuba, I had a place to come to. If we lose our freedoms here, where are we going to go? There is no place to go.

If you’re not familiar with his story, he escaped Cuba nearly 60 years ago. He tells this story with a purpose:

One of the greatest things about America is the American dream. Just look at my life. When I came to this country, I didn’t have any money. I couldn’t speak a word of English. But I’ll tell you what; I worked my butt off. I worked full-time, went to school full-time. Got my degree in three and a half years, working in a restaurant 8 hours a day, going to school full-time. Seven years later I owned an oil exploration company. That’s America. And, within one generation I saw my son become a US senator and a candidate for the presidency of the United States. Only in America! Only in America! Only in America!

Rafael Cruz is a high energy speaker. Quintessentially passionate. His purpose is to wake us up, inform us, and motivate us to take action. I don’t think there’s any keeping up with this octogenarian. But I agree with him that the stakes are high. He repeated a warning Reagan quote,

You know, Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is not free. Freedom is not passed down from generation to generation in our bloodstream. Every generation has to fight to protect it and defend it. Or we may find ourselves in our later years, talking to our children and our children’s children about what it was like when men were free in America.” I don’t know about you; I’m not willing to have that conversation. And neither should you.

I’m not willing to have that conversation either. This exceptional country, with its exceptional, inspired Constitution, is worth doing what it takes to conserve.

---

[i] Benjamin Franklin’s prayer speech can be found here: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/benfranklin.htm

[ii] The scriptures quote are from Latter-day Saint scripture, the Doctrine & Covenants 101:77, 98:5.

[iii] President J. Reuben Clark, Stand Fast by Our Constitution, pp. 7, 172.

Words to Inspire Wise Voting

Here it is the day before Voting Day in America. There’s a great deal of interest for a midterm election. Other than 2010, when there was a backlash against the underhanded, unilateral imposition of Obamacare on us, I don’t remember interest being so high for such an election. It could be that I’m just paying more attention, but I think a lot of us recognize there’s a lot at stake.

There has been record amounts of early voting in many states, including my own. We don’t actually know the results of those early votes, but when those particular voters have voted in a primary, we have their party affiliation as an indicator. Right now, that data tells us there’s more Republican interest than Democrat, and more rural and suburban interest in most places—with my state as an exception, where urban voting has surged. I don’t know how they measure that, because Houston is definitely urban, but it’s also huge and made up more of suburban areas than urban. So we'll see.

chart from NBC News

There’s a lot at stake. After a very long near decade of economic malaise and social decay, we’ve been getting our hopes up that improving freedom and prosperity are more than just temporary. But that’s at risk.

A lot of our future depends on how we and the people around us vote.

So, maybe this is a day for inspiring words, pulled from my ever growing Spherical Model quote file, about this experiment in self-rule called the United States of America. Remind yourself how vital it is to vote wisely. Then go forth and do your duty tomorrow.

Samuel Adams
painting by J. S. Copley

Here therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.—Samuel Adams (The Life of Samuel Adams, 1:22)

What country can preserve its liberty if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? —Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787

I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom.—James Madison, Federalist Paper 11:163, June 20, 1788

The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.—George Washington

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.—Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis”

Benjamin Franklin
painting by Joseph Duplessis, 1778

In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in this struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men; and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in sacred writings, that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.—Benjamin Franklin, Debates in the Congress of the Confederation, from February 19, 1787, to April 25, 1787, p. 984

[T]he framers of the Constitution probably assumed that religious freedom would establish religion as a watchdog over government, and believed that free churches would inevitably stand and speak against immoral and corrupt legislation. All churches not only have the right to speak out on public moral issues, but they have the solemn obligation to do so.—M. Russell Ballard, Ensign, October 1992

Men can exercise freedom only if they possess the following:

(1) life, (2) liberty (the absence of restraint), (3) property, and (4) knowledge.

When men become wicked, they act to destroy these necessary elements rather than preserve them, and freedom becomes impossible to maintain no matter what the form of government. There is an inexorable law of nature in operation which decrees that no man can act with the purpose of destroying another’s freedom without losing his own. The operation of this divine law of retribution is easily observed in a society of self-governing people.

Selfish, needful man is restrained from forcibly taking the life, liberty or property of his neighbor by these considerations:

(1) conscience, (2) fear of retaliation (3) fear of condemnation of others.

When men act through government, they do so without fear of retaliation or condemnation, and conscience alone remains to curb the propensity to abuse power.

Therefore, when a nation of people who have had the power of government placed in their hands become evil and without conscience, they will use that power to plunder and enslave one another until freedom is destroyed. It is a truism taught by the sages and prophets and proved repeatedly in the history of nations that wickedness and liberty cannot exist side by side.

Equally fatal to freedom is the ignorance or indifference of the voting majority. Unless they perceive with clarity that line which divides right from wrong in government action, and resist with firmness any attempt to cross it, the natural tendency of men to abuse power will cause those in office to enlarge their functions until liberty is crushed under the weight of bureaucratic despotism.

Therefore a nation must not only remain moral to remain free, but it must also be alert and informed. Furthermore the people must have a standard by which to distinguish with precision those functions which preserve freedom from those which destroy it. The standard which is used must be widely known, universally acceptable to moral people, and easily applied.—H. Verlan Andersen, Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen, Ezra Taft Benson Society, special re-printing: 2017, ch. 1

Take Social Justice. Justice means getting what you deserve without favor. Social justice means getting what you don’t deserve because you are favored.

—Michael Knowles, “Control the Words, Control the Culture,” PragerU

We need to become more tolerant of the imperfections that come with freedom, and we need to give up the illusion that somehow putting government in charge of anything is going to improve its workings, much less bring on utopia.—Ron Paul

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.—George Washington, First Inaugural Address

The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great Providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world!—Samuel Adams, speech at Philadelphia state house, August 1, 1776

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

—Thomas Paine

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.

—James Madison, Federalist Paper 45

Albert Einstein
image from here

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

—Abraham Lincoln

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it.—Albert Einstein

Quote File Sampling

The Spherical Model quote file keeps growing. The Fourth of July got me thinking, even more than usual, about how the political, economic, and social spheres all interrelate. So, with that in mind, here’s another sampling from the quote file:

"Declaration of Independence"
painting by John Trumbull

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration [of Independence], and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not.—John Adams, July 3, 1776

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

—Benjamin Franklin, July 4, 1776

Happiness, whether in despotism or democracy, whether in slavery or liberty, can never be found without virtue.—John Adams

All the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.—Thomas Paine

Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life.—Dwight D. Eisenhower

No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.—Samuel Adams

This is still God’s world. The forces of evil, working through some mortals, have made a mess of a good part of it. But it is still God’s world. In due time, when each of us has had a chance to prove ourselves—including whether or not we are going to stand up for freedom—God will interject himself, and the final and eternal victory shall be for free agency.

And then shall those complacent people on the sidelines, and those who took the wrong but temporarily popular course, lament their decisions.

To the patriots I say this: Take that long eternal look.

Stand up for freedom, no matter what the cost. Stand up and be counted. It can help to save your soul—and maybe your country.—Ezra Taft Benson

Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”—Martin Luther King, Jr. (quoting 19th Century abolitionist Theodore Parker)

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." — G.K. Chesterton

No enactment of man can be considered law, unless it conforms to the law of God.—William Blackstone

The only way we can keep our freedom is to work at it. Not some of us. All of us. Not some of the time, but all of the time. So if you value your citizenship and you want to keep it for yourself and your children and their children, give it your faith, your belief, and give it your active support in civic affairs.—Spencer W. Kimball, Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 405; from an address given at the Rotary Club, SLC, UT, June 8, 1976

Enlightenment

Hillsdale College has a growing list of free college-level classes online. Right now I’m into History 102, American Heritage, and lesson three is “Enlightenment and Natural Rights.” The lecturer is Hillsdale history professor Terrence Moore. He shares with us stories of the life of Benjamin Franklin as a kind of exemplification of the American Enlightenment.

Benjamin Franklin
image from Wikipedia

Ben Franklin’s life is always enlightening to learn about. I enjoyed the biography The Real Benjamin Franklin[i] some years ago. He was a marvel of creative thought and energy, as well as good humor. So the review of Franklin was interesting in itself. But there were connections made in the lecture that I think are worth looking at, especially in our day.

This is from the introduction:

Franklin was important in creating the American character and also the American ideas of self-government. And Franklin always started at the bottom, from the bottom up, you might say. He would form a library based on his friends’ needing books. He would conduct scientific experiments just with his friends that ended up being profoundly important in the history of electricity. Franklin never thought for a minute to write London for a grant to help him buy his jars and his kite and his key. Franklin never thought about writing London to deliver a bunch of books for free for these poor colonists. He scraped together what books he had with his friends, and that became a library. And they didn’t need an overarching directive from London telling them what to do.

If you look at the list of things that Franklin created, that in some cases had never been created before, even in London, you see that a native genius with a lot of freedom and with belief in oneself and one’s capacities of self-government can lead to great things.

We see some particularly American virtues in Franklin. He wasn’t content to be stuck in anything he didn’t enjoy. On a second or third try at apprenticeship, he learned the printing trade. When, at 17 years of age, he disagreed with his master (who was his older brother), he left Boston and showed up in Philadelphia. And worked his way up from the bottom—always confident that he could succeed.

He saw things that could be improved, and did something about them. He wasn’t a loner; he studied with other young tradesmen who also didn’t get to go to college, covering everything a college could have given them. When he had a good idea, he recruited others to his view, using the media and his own persuasive skill.

He grew, and learned, and flourished, and improved. And so did Philadelphia. And so did the American colonies. As Professor Moore says,

The larger point I wish to make is that Franklin’s many activities in Philadelphia were a microcosm of what was then taking place throughout the colonies, what we might call an apprenticeship in self-government. In fact, this apprenticeship of colonial Americans had been going on for some time. But in its later stages, as seen in the life of Franklin, the apprentice was beginning to surpass the skills of the master. The improvements and growth taking place in American civil society, unrecognized and unwelcomed by the mother country, would prepare the colonists to declare independence and go on to create a more perfect union.

Among Franklin’s scientific studies included what we now call demographics. He observed the growth rate of the colonies, as compared to the mother country, and realized that eventually there would be more Englishmen in the colonies than in Britain. He wasn’t, at that point, a revolutionary; he hoped there would be Englishmen smart enough to recognize the situation, and who would see the value of a mostly self-governing transatlantic empire.

But there were reasons that wouldn’t happen, mainly having to do with Britain’s, and all of Europe’s, premise of aristocracy.

It was assumed that men and women of birth were superior to those of humbler origin. The American colonies were populated overwhelmingly by men and women who did not have a social edge in their home countries, by younger sons of gentlemen, by the lesser gentry, by the various religious refugees, by what were called the middling sort of merchants and other professionals, and by artificers and servants.

Americans had the ability to rise—as high as their efforts and ingenuity could take them.

[Franklin] once said that in America, a man becomes known not for who his is—that is, what his name is, or his social pedigree—but by what he can do…. In Britain, to get anything done, no matter how worthy a cause or project, you almost always needed aristocratic patronage. In Philadelphia, as Franklin showed time and time again, all you needed was a good idea, some common sense, and a lot of hard work.

That sounds quintessentially American.

When the lecture started talking about the Enlightenment, I wasn’t sure exactly what that referred to. In Wikipedia, it is, in short: “an era from the 1650s to the 1780s in which cultural and intellectual forces in Western Europe emphasized reason, analysis, and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority.”

The Enlightenment had a different flavor in the American colonies, embodied by Benjamin Franklin. Kind of like Franklin’s self-education, there was an energy, a freshness, and an excitement to use the discovered truths to improve personal human lives. Not so much in Europe:

Whereas enlightened political and moral ideas were being generated by great European thinkers, those in charge of European institutions did not always take these new discoveries of old truths to heart. The Americans did.

Terrence Moore uses a drawing of a neoclassic structure, with the pillars representing parts of thought, to describe the American Enlightenment. Think of the architecture of Thomas Jefferson.

The neoclassicism shows that the American revolutionaries did not consider themselves to be inventing something new, but rather discovering things that had always been true though mankind had not always been able or eager to know them.

In Europe there was more skepticism, even cynicism, and a tendency to throw out essentials of a civil society—mainly religion. That was not so in America. Both continents move toward an increase in science, but we need to define that term, because it’s different from what comes immediately to mind:

We must be careful with this word, since in the 18th Century the term science still meant knowledge in systematic inquiry generally. It was not confined to research in the physical world. The Scottish philosopher David Hume, for example, set out to create a science of man; that is, an account of human and human activity in its social, political, and economic spheres.

This more than anything caught my attention here at the Spherical Model. How about that? What we’re about here is the science of man.

So, science, for Franklin and most educated Americans, studied both human and physical inquiries, as hobbyists, but also offering valuable discoveries. Moore reminds us that the foundation of scientific study was the great Isaac Newton. And that is a key point:

The importance of being Newtonians is that American colonists, and later the founders, thought of the universe as an ordered, balanced cosmos created by a benevolent deity who governed according to fixed and discoverable laws, “the laws of nature and nature’s God,” as Jefferson put it.

How vital Newton’s conception of the physical universe was may not be clear until you realize that the nation’s first progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, abandoned the authority of the Constitution by saying it was “accountable to Darwin, not to Newton.” In other words, the balanced world of Newton, in which natural laws were predictable, and in which men, by implication, could lead lives reasonably, was either a figment or fairytale compared to the survivalist nature of Darwin’s world, wholly indifferent to man’s well-being. Who, then, should remain faithful to a fixed constitution when mankind must continually reinvent himself just to remain alive? That was how the progressives thought, not the founding fathers.

That explains a lot. Progressivism (not to be confused with actual progress) has a hateful prejudice against the past, no matter how true and instructive. So there’s an assumption among them that the Constitution is irrelevant, just because it was created in the past. And they don’t believe in principles, so they throw them out for whatever new thing they want to try.

I remember a science class that introduced Einstein’s relativity. The teacher explained that there are situations in which Einstein’s physics are more accurate than Newtonian physics—such as when approaching the speed of light. But in normal circumstances, Newtonian physics is accurate enough for our typical human purposes. I don’t know enough to know if that is true. But the point is, Einstein’s theories added to, rather than wiping out, Newtonian theories of the physical world. So I’d assert that, if there were truth to Darwin’s theories, they would add to, not wipe out, known and ever useful truths.

So far, this covers only about 2/3 of the lecture. Much of the rest covers the four pillars of the American Enlightenment: religious liberty, political liberty, economic liberty, and moral responsibility. We could spend a full day on each of those; in fact, from time to time we have done so.

For now, it will do to be grateful that our heritage proves so many eternal truths: freedom, combined with self-control and moral responsibility, leads to growth, success, ingenuity, and human thriving. People like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson lived the proof.

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[i] W. Cleon Skousen and M. Richard Maxfield, The Real Benjamin Franklin (Vol. 2 of the American Classic series) © 1982.