Declaration of Independence

Note:

(1) If you have not read the Declaration, you should. If you have not read it in a while, maybe you should consider it again.

(2) All quotations are from the Declaration of Independence unless otherwise noted.

“Men must choose to be governed by God, or condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants.” William Penn

A copy of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and a yellowed scrap of paper with a promise I made many moons before, travel with me wherever I go, secured in my back pocket. I carry those documents as a Christian carries the bible; or how they should carry the bible, not to pound people’s heads to force an impression or compliance, but to understand the beauty and significance of freedom.

Just as theological qualifications are not needed to understand the Sermon on the Mount, degrees in law and political science are not needed to understand the Declaration of Independence. Anyone able to read, with grammar school reasoning skills, can comprehend either text and glean insight into the arterial doctrine of each. They are direct, simple, and clear. They both reveal the mind of liberty; both say, “The people who think and act this way are free; this mindset needs no man-devised overlord to govern, for they rule themselves rightly, establishing peace, effecting harmony, and expressing love in such ways as to inspire more of the same.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident….”

Who needs instruction when the lessons are obvious? There is no mystery here; hierarchy in the status of human freedom does not exist. Though genetic differences be present, that of education and experience also, the Creator allocates no distinction in humans regarding “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Each human has the privilege to be alive and venture this existence. Each one among us has the privilege of independence, emancipation; that is, to live unfettered from the affliction of our fellowman, whether it be physical, psychological, or spiritual bondage. Each individual has the benefit to pursue personal contentment; that quest may not end fulfilled, but the birthright to chase that goal cannot be denied. These powerful three are unalienable; they cannot be challenged; they are indisputable; they are absolute guarantees of freedom. They cannot even be taught with perfect accuracy, for words are unable to express their richness, breadth, and depth; these truths are realized in the furnace of experience. Native to all, no one person, no group of people, no governing body could ever separate a human being from these three; it is impossible – oh, for the eyes with which to see, and the heart to understand that truth.

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

Stated already is that no governing body has the power to actually take control of the individual; this is a matter difficult to know for the power-mad and the defenseless. Declared unmistakably is that governments are not free to do as they choose, not free to follow impulses that differ from those they govern. Truth is, individuals are free and governments are subservient. Listen, governments must acquiesce to the will of the people; they have no right, executive, legislative, or judicial to subvert a majority vote of the populace. Government is for securing the great three unalienable rights and rights like these. Take note: “[Men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (additional emphasis JSM). “Among these”; the entirety of undeniable rights is not listed. It is the obligation of government to safeguard these for her people, so they remain vigorous and cheering, intent to return a supply of greater power to her for the securing of an even greater confidence.

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The government has no other real power than that which is authorized by the people; and only unconscious slaves would think and behave as if they did not know this truth. When government destroys Life, curtails Liberty, or hinders the pursuit of Happiness, its dissolution is essential to freedom. And did you notice the naming of another unalienable right of the people? “[I]t is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government….” A right unchallengeable by meager government, upheld in wisdom by the phrases, “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary…” and “not to be changed for light and transient causes…” and “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, their duty, to throw such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” Indeed, it is no insubstantial matter to engage in seditious philosophy, nor should it be undertaken by those without resolve to finish, no matter the conditions. Nonetheless, with the right cause- that being government which pursues a single “Object” that would render void the unalienable rights of her people, subjecting them to superfluous rule, evidenced by consistent abuse and an undermining of the majority’s consent -a detrimental government is clay fashioned by the people, rewritten and restyled, and sheltered by “new Guards” of freedom.

“[W]ith a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence….”

Never far from the minds of the founding fathers was the true origin of freedom. The temporal alone can become malignant, when not invigorated by the spiritual. Of course, there is profound reason for this. With its death always in view, the heart of the temporal stirs towards artificial glory and begins to form a synthetic immortality. This is first peculiar since the temporal has no concern or warmth towards the spiritual; to seize a spiritual idea, it would seem the temporal had betrayed its own. This grasping for the everlasting is peculiar in a second sense, in that the temporal can never achieve perpetual existence; it does not have the inherent qualities to sustain itself forever, nor could it alone obtain them. Why the temporal seeks for immortality is beyond reason. To be remembered by others, recorded in school books, is at best the hope of fools, for what is not forgotten in years, decades dispose of; what escapes decades is consumed by centuries; what rarity eludes the centuries is devoured by the millennial; what slips beyond the millennial is engulfed by ages; what probably miraculously escapes ages is reduced by eonaeon; what unfeasibly escapes eonaeon is absorbed at the incalculable gap between the end of time and the beginning of eternity, a place where surely no person will hear utterance of any name. For the temporal, to seek remembrance is absurd, perhaps it has stolen the idea as Prometheus the fire did take or caught glimpse of an apparent connection as Emerson relates in his “History” lesson:

“There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn from the great repositories of nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages and the ages explained by the hours. Of universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him.”

Whether myth or truth unverifiable, the temporal longs for something it cannot in fact obtain, something that it will never fully grasp. Therefore, it fashions images of itself and grandiose images of power, and hunts for what it knows is vanity. The emptiness of the temporal depresses and weakens the soul. With nothing, and nothing to hope for, except what is seen and decaying, the temporal seeks to preserve its own, to empower itself at all cost, each person above their fellows. In doing so it casts superiority upon the individual self in imitation of freedom, yet without regard for other individuals, consequently nullifying the true essence of freedom for all and advocating the creation and reign of oppressors.

Therefore, protection of true freedom must come from beyond humanity. A firm reliance beyond the temporal is necessary in achieving the concept of unalienable liberty. It must originate outside of man, from a source eternal, rising from that boundless place, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where no thief breaks in and steals. True freedom thrives and directs an extraordinary course of events that do give birth in the temporal realm, arriving in the thoughts and hearts of humans as possibilities of hope, as integrity and incorruptibility, as justice and security, as purpose and freedom, recognized from the earth by those gazing into the infinite fields of space as evident, benevolent providence.

“No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” – Jesus