THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
A closer look
When God led Israel out of Egypt by Moses, He taught them to write songs and celebrate feasts in honor of the great deliverance He had wrought on their behalf.
They were to teach them to their children so that generations following generations would remember and celebrate the mighty God of salvation and His merciful works on behalf of their ancestors.
As we can read in the Bible, they often failed to pass these traditions on to their progeny, resulting in long periods of Israel’s history in one bondage or another.
Likewise, the founders of the United States of America sought to honor God and his mighty deliverance of the pilgrims who had sought to align their lives with the laws of God through the eventual establishment of this great nation.
They declared this mission of rebellion against the human, tyrannical rule of kings, with the authoring of the “Declaration of Independence.”
This declaration was created and unanimously ratified by delegates from all thirteen colonies as a letter to the king they had been subjects under.
It was the official ultimatum that precipitated the Revolutionary War, which resulted in the victory of a free people over the world’s most powerful superpower of that period.
This declaration was preserved for their edification and memorial, and was later reinforced by the US Constitution to establish and fortify the self-governance of a free people.
The signers of the Declaration and the framers of the Constitution expected their children and their children’s children to continue in the tradition of honoring God’s deliverance and ratification of godly governance through these most radical documents of liberty.
Early American education was centered around the precepts preserved in the Bible. Every official event and convention began with prayer and allegiance to the God of salvation. Quotes from the Bible were written in stone in official architecture throughout our nation for generations in efforts to preserve this great heritage for future generations.
In the nearly 250th year of our republic, revolutionaries have grown to alarming numbers and displaced many of the patriots who once occupied the offices of official government throughout our country. They defy the efforts of our forefathers and the framers of our Constitution in their efforts to overthrow the intentions of these patriots.
Today, few Americans are familiar with what these founding documents established and are meant to preserve.
Our Constitution is not long. It is not that complicated, nor does it take great instruction to understand. It was meant for every American, regardless of station, brilliance, or education, to know and understand its provisions.
The Declaration of Independence is also not complicated, nor does it require critical education to understand its intentions.
Many have sought to undermine and obscure these truths over the years. Among them are scores of the disciples of Marx, Gramsci, and Alynsky. These followers of Satan have sought to pervert all that was intended by the Christians who braved great perils to establish a society which encourages Christianity and preserves a Godly culture.
It has been the lack of commitment of Christians that has allowed the perversion of our culture, much like the Israelites of Old Testament times.
If the godly governance of this nation is to be restored, we must return to the mindset of our forefathers. We must know their inspiration and motivations.
I believe that a return to our founding documents in an attitude of meekness may enable us to restore a culture of restoration.
Our Declaration of Independence begins;
In Congress, July 4, 1776
“The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,”
The first thing we learn here is that this declaration of opposition to the way these thirteen colonies of Great Britain were being treated by their king was unanimous. We also see that the citizens begin to address themselves as citizens of separate states. Each colony perceives itself as an independent state. Not only do they reject the rulership of a far-off tyrant, but they also recognize the legitimacy of self-rule for the individual communities.
Certainly, we must recognize that this unanimity was not total. They did not represent every person of the colonies, but delegates from each colony had been sent to Philadelphia to represent their society’s opposition, and that they could no longer accept the present circumstances.
We also learn that the members of these colonies had already determined that the illegitimacy of the king’s treatment of them warranted action, and they considered that each of the thirteen colonies should be a separate, self-governing “state.”
“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 of Nature's God entitle them…”
The colonies had predetermined and had sent delegates to communicate their determination that they should separate from the kingdom. There was no more discussion, alternative, or debate. The king’s rule would no longer be tolerated over these free, self-governing states.
We learn in the last sentence of this correspondence that they “mutually pledge[d] to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” In support of this declaration.
These delegates were so committed to the proposition that the king was overstepping his authority and abusing his relationship with the citizens of these colonies, (according to the command of the creator of all things,) that a change was necessary.
Their commitment to this position was so firm that they, recognizing the frailty of their resources and their tiny constituency, believed that the Lord would be their warrior, or they could likely not succeed.
“A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Though they considered that these circumstances were intolerable, this declaration (or letter) was necessary to satisfy the colonists’ obligation to their creator.
They believed that their discontent with their treatment did not relieve them of the duty of common courtesy toward the king.
As we examine the text of the USA’s founding document, we will begin to see the purpose for which it was created.
“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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Our founders stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”
They believed the following statements to be so clearly true that no one could refute them. They were as obvious as the difference between left and right, up and down, male and female.
“… that all men are created equal…”
Each and every human, ever to live, has the same God-given rights. No one is more important than another.
The “Declaration” cites why they believed this;
“… that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—”
Each human being ever conceived is worthy of the right to live, the right to live free of oppression and enslavement, and the right to own property in the pursuit of happiness.
The next phrase states how these God-given rights might be preserved in a society.
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”
It is a government that has the ability to guard the aforementioned rights for the inhabitants of a society.
This brings us to where a government gets its power.
Ultimately, a government’s power originates with God. It is God who holds ultimate power and authority, but He lends this power to governments through the “consent of the governed.”
“… deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
The moral to this story is that every abuse of governmental authority we experience is due to the American citizens’ failure to disallow the abuse.
It is “We the people” who are ultimately responsible for the sadistic abuses of power and theft of our wealth that politicians inflict on our nation because we “consent” to it through our apathy and inaction to hold offenders accountable. We consent to it by inaction against it.
We often look for a “savior,” [someone like Donald Trump, who we hope will do the hard work of restoring our constitutional republic,] instead of acting on the rights and privileges inherent in the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are merely documents. They can not execute on behalf of our citizens; it must be the citizens who execute, based on the truths, rights, and provisions of these documents.
Let me give you a clue: ignoring the abuses, the offenders, and our duty to react faithfully and according to our founding documents can only advance tyranny.
The value of our money is being stolen by a cabal of international and national bankers, elected government officials, and bureaucrats through systematic inflation [fiat currency.] We, the American people, do nothing.
The separation of powers that our founders built into the US government has been undermined and perverted to the enslavement of the American people. We, the American people, do nothing.
We ignore these truths to our own detriment.
Evildoers will never stop on their own; they will require that they be stopped by “We the people.”
As Americans consent to the governance of our nation, we must know that we are not bound to the mistakes of the past. As we have ignorantly consented to tyranny, we can right the ship should we determine to do so.
The Declaration goes on to say;
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”
This is as true of our modern institutions of government as it was of the British Empire.
If Americans realize that we have succumbed to deceptions, allowing for the erosion of our wealth and liberty, we can and should reform our government, even to the dissolution and replacement of such government with one that “shall seem most likely to effect [our] Safety and Happiness”
As Americans, we are not irrevocably tethered to a form of government void of respect and fidelity to biblical and constitutional requirements.
Only Americans can affect the restoration of this nation. We must reacquaint ourselves with our foundational documents, beginning with this Declaration of Independence.
This is my purpose in writing “Expolring Freedom_ A closer look at the Declaration of Independence”
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
The delegates who contributed to this Declaration recognized and stated that it would be imprudent or wrong to “go off halfcocked,” reacting to “light afflictions.”
They valued the virtue of patience.
They argued that the abuses and afflictions had been long-suffered and were quite egregious.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism…”
They noted that these appropriate tolerances had long been exhausted and abused.
“.... it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”
Having “suffered long” the abuses of the crown and having given proper respect to their rulers, they had reached the end of patience. It was time for action.
They then began to list the many offenses of the king against his, thus far, loyal subjects.
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
This document of ultimatum was intended to inform the king, the empire, and the world of Great Britain’s offenses.
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.”
They were convinced that the king’s despotism was in neglect of his proper duties in denying them the proper representation in the making of the laws that were forced upon them.
“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.”
Besides denying legal representation and security, their king was frustrating their efforts to appeal for rectification.
“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”
Their king had refused the notion of self-governance and the “consent of the governed.”
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:”
They themselves were constrained to marshal law.
“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:”
Their experience was that their lives, liberty, and pursuit of economical security were dictated by disinterested entities, without regard for their consent.
“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:”
As we read here, the opportunity for a fair trial is essential to the free people of these United States.
The delegates responsible for the Declaration of Independence had seriously considered not only these violations of their own rights, but the violations of God-given rights of all men and women by the Crown.
“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:”
Winston Churchill is often quoted as having quoted an unnamed predecessor, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
These other forms of government would include empires, kingdoms, and monarchies.
Perhaps this is why the framers of our Constitution chose to create a democratic republic.
“For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”
The delegates made it clear that they resented the corrupt government imposed upon them by those outside of their society. They believed the King to have no true authority to undermine the self-governance of these colonies.
“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”
In essence, they believed the actions of Britain against the states were acts of war, and they had had enough.
“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.”
They intended to hold their “ruler” accountable for his and his subordinates’ ill-treatment of themselves, confronting them with accusations of the most barbaric treatment of their colonies.
This further demonstrates the belief that governments reign only with the consent of the governed, and that, should the governed no longer accept unjust governance, it is within their rights to throw it off in favor of a more acceptable form of government.
“He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
They presented that despite the humility and faithful service of the colonists, the Crown had actively instigated internal struggles and violence to undermine unity and instigate unrest within the colonies.
“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Americans insisted that it was only right for the citizens of these free states to enjoy liberty. No man has a right to the wealth and choices of others.
“Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”
Christians had landed in “the new world” in hopes of escaping the tyranny of despots in favor of liberty and the freedom to worship God as they understood His will in 1620.
Their efforts and aspirations had often been frustrated in subsequent generations; yet, in the late 1700s, these goals had become reinforced in their contemporary society.
“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;”
Once again, we see that these men intended to throw off the ties that bound them to the British Empire.
“… 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 to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. 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.”
The drafters and signers of this declaration thought of themselves as citizens of thirteen independent states, bound only according to the judgment of a just God.
The US Constitution later designated these states as members of a union of states, establishing a nation of united states.
This was demonstrated in the naming of this nation, “The United States of America.” It is not just a name, it is a description.
Each state is governed by an internal government of its citizens’ choosing, in agreement with 49 other states, united for the protection and mutual prosperity of every citizen.
Instead of each state competing independently on the international stage, they unite in competition with the international community while preserving the states’ rights and privileges internally, according to “the will of the people.”
This is a most unique arrangement not seen before 1776, and nowhere else in the world.
It began when the citizens of 13 colonies of the British Empire determined that, with the blessings of God and the courage of their convictions, these Americans would defy the most powerful empire on earth to declare their independence.
I believe it is clear that God fully endorsed the sentiments proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence by these courageous Americans.
The gift of citizenship has been afforded to their progeny through inheritance; the question is, what will we do with it? How will we preserve it for future generations?
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” __Ronald Reagan
God bless you, Dave