Is America A Christian Nation, Part XII, Authority From the Declaration of Independence

In our previous installment in the series Is America A Christian Nation, citing evidence already in play we demonstrated that the Supreme Law of the Land in the United States of America actually incorporates the expressions of three documents, not just the Constitution.  That is because the authority that passes to the Constitution originally derives within the expressions of the Declaration of Independence, and then passes through the Articles of Confederation before taking residence in the Constitution.  Because this is true, any conditions placed upon the use of that authority under either the Declaration of Independence, or the Articles of Confederation, must remain satisfied, even today.  That is how these documents are written.

In this installment, using the terms of the first in this series of documents, the Declaration of Independence, we will identify the very source of American sovereign authority. We are going to understand just exactly what that document's author, Thomas Jefferson, had in mind when he constructed the rationale that concluded with the rightful sovereign authority for a new nation, the United States States of America.  And we will also begin to understand how Jefferson's reasoning might affect any rightful use of that authority today, over two and one-quarter centuries later.  So let's get to it!

The Declaration of Independence presents a simple rationale beginning with the following principle:

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, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

That principle indicates that a rationale shall follow declaring the causes impelling one people, the American British colonists, to dissolve the political bands with another, the subjects of the King of England.  According to that principle, it was certain of God's Natural Laws which entitled the colonists to severe ties with the king.  According to the Declaration, the truth of these Natural Laws is self-evident, therefore requiring no particular proof.  The Declaration then asserts the truth of five of those Natural Laws.  Those laws are:

1. that all men are created equal;

2. that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights;

3. that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

4. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

5. 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.

Using these Natural Laws as the foundation of their justification, the Founders assert that human rights, one of which is the authority for men to act on their own behalf, is a gift that flows from God to each person individually, and equally, all men being equal in the eyes of God.

Having documented the basic flow of divine authority to men, the truth of which is self-evident, the founders cite two more specific Natural Laws.  Because God gives rights to all men equally, and because the tendency of men is to violate the rights of other men, it naturally follows that God authorizes men to institute certain means of protecting their God-given rights. Principle # 4 is the Natural Law that authorizes government to exist in the first place.  That principle of Natural Law defines the basic and universal role of government as “to secure these (human) rights.”

After documenting the basic purpose of institutional government, the founders enumerate one more endowed right.  And that right may be thought of as a trigger mechanism of sorts.   Principle #5 states that when any government destroys the basic rights endowed by the Creator, rather than secure them as required by natural law #4, men have the God-given right to abolish that government and establish a new one more “likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Springing forward on the expressions of principle #5, the Declaration cites evidence that the King of England had violated God's Law, “becoming destructive” of God's endowed rights to the colonists.  After listing evidence of the king's infractions, violating God's law, the document concludes with the signers declaring, “therefore…these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”  The use of the term, “therefore” indicates that a legal conclusion of sorts is being drawn from the previous assertions of law and fact, the law of course being God's Natural Law, and the facts being those the Founders assert as evidence against the king for violating God's Law. 

That conclusion declaring "rightful" independence is the “conclusion of sovereignty” for the United States of America.  America depends on that rightful conclusion even today. Without that conclusion, one justified solely from the preceding foundation of reason in the Declaration of Independence, there would be no rational source of authority by which the United States of America could claim its independence from Great Britain, even today. That is because, as we have proven together in previous installments in this series, the America of today is the very same America it was on July 4, 1776.  Nothing has been established that changes or alters the flow of authority reasoned into existence in the Declaration of Independence.  Today, our Constitution depends completely upon the authority reasoned to exist from applying natural laws #4 and 5 above to the facts as they saw them.  Without those natural laws, and without the rationale offered in the expressions of the Declaration, no authority could be or would be in place for any subsequent congress to eventually convene and authorize the Constitution. 

Question: Why did the Founders go to so much trouble to come up with this extraordinary "rationale" to break ties with the king?

Answer: Otherwise, they had no justification to do what they did.  Without Jefferson's reasoning, the American nation would have had no legitimate “right” to claim its sovereignty from the King.  The genius of Thomas Jefferson understood that the thirteen colonies could not “rightly” walk away from Great Britain simply because they wanted to.  An action of that kind would be an act of vigilantism.  Jefferson understood vigilantism to be nothing less than group despotism. And despotism was the root cause against which the conclusion of sovereignty in the Declaration was drawn in the first place.  In walking away, America would be just as bad as the king.  So Jefferson had to give a legitimate reason for the colonists to reject the king's authority, claiming authority of their own in the process, quite an assignment given young Jefferson at the 2nd Continental Congress.  The bottom line is that, in agreeing with the rationale offered by Jefferson to the 2nd Continental Congress, as each stood in line to endorse the Declaration of Independence, representing each of the "good people of the colonies," the Founders claimed authority given to them from God. 

Now this is not to say that Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers did not believe that what each endorsed with their signature as the truth.  We have every reason to expect that in fact they did believe it.
 
But regardless of any facts one might suppose to the contrary, the undeniable fact is that the conclusion of sovereignty for the United States of America depends completely on one fundamental precept at its core.  And that precept is that God exists.  If God does not exist, then human rights do not exist. If human rights do not exist, men have no authority to declare sovereignty and convey that sovereignty to the state.  So it is unavoidable to conclude that, according to America's founding document, if God does not exist, then America itself does not exist. 

And for this reason, for some to argue that God has no place in the fabric of the national and patriotic institutions of America, they must also effectively disavow their own claim to unalienable rights.  Jefferson's logic is circular.  Either Americans have unalienable rights endowed by God or they have only those rights that flow from an agreement among them, namely, the government formed under such an agreement.  To accept a position as authoritative that denies the existence of God in America is therefore to claim no unalienable right to have done so.  To maintain that position, is to argue that the very foundation on which the American society and its primal source of authority are founded was a grave error.  To do so is to argue that men possess no rights that cannot, rightfully, be taken away by a simple act of the majority of force mustered within any particular segment of human society.  And so the lesson to convey in this installment is that

The sovereign authority of the United States of America, as it is designed and defined by the Founders, requires the absolute practical certainty of the existence of God.

In the next installment, we will pick up at this juncture.  And thank you very much for participating!

Hank