Principle #2: A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong

As I was reading principle 2 from “The Five Thousand Year Leap” I couldn’t help being amazed at how far our country has strayed from the very basic principles that shaped our Constitution and the people it represented. According to Skousen’s words, the question of American independence from England was intrinsically related to the question of Americans being able to have the morality and virtue to govern themselves and be a free people.
Numerous notable figures of those times voiced their opinion and concern on what it meant to be a moral and virtuous people, and the ramifications this would have to the future government of our country. Benjamin Franklin wrote,
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
George Washington later said the American Constitution could only prevail “so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.”
With so much argument about morality and public virtue, I wondered what the Founders’ concept of them were. Skousen states that “morality is identified with the Ten Commandments” and that early Americans associated virtue with maturity in character and service in accordance to the Golden Rule. Many early Americans also associated lack of public virtue with non-involvement in the affairs of government. It’s self-evident that religion and moral conduct were an essential part of the people, and that our Constitution reflects that fact.
James Madison said,
“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend upon their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.”
According to his words, the Founding Fathers trusted that America would remain virtuous and moral enough that the elected government officials would represent the morality and virtue of the people in general.
The Founders knew that as time passes, societies evolve, but the principles that inspired our present form of government are immovable and unchangeable. Right would remain right, and wrong would still be wrong. Do we see this belief in society today, a time when a minority can decide how the majority will be governed, and when the very principles of what is good and right change from year to year? For the sake of freedom of speech and expression, we are witnessing all kinds of changes in the government and society denying the very essence of our Constitution, which was created to help our people remain a free people.
Samuel Adams’ voice resonated in me when I read, “...if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.”
For those who proclaim our Constitution is outdated and not in accordance to our days, maybe they are right. But maybe it’s not the Constitution that needs to be changed to mirror our society, it’s society that needs to reflect on the values that govern our actions and revert to the ones that shaped our Constitution and our country. That is, if we still want The United States of America to be what they were supposed to be, a haven for a free and happy people, moral and virtuous.
by Yamile Saied Mendez

Principle 1: Natural Law

In thinking about Natural Law, I have come to the conclusion that most everyone accepts it as a reality. We don’t talk about the words ‘Natural Law’, but we do act and think in terms of it. How many people have heard the expression, “What comes around, goes around”? How about the phrase, “Cosmic Justice”? Innately, people seem to understand right and wrong. In how many cultures is theft from one’s neighbor condoned? How many people believe in punishment without an offense?

Cicero, a Roman consul, wrote extensively on Natural Law and what he called ‘right reason’. This is the reasoning that is consistent with that of the ‘Creator’. Throughout history, people have been trying to explain Nature and the laws that she follows. The myth of Persephone was an attempt to explain the seasons. As we have learned more about biology, chemistry, and physics, we have developed a greater understanding of those laws. We have developed mathematical equations to help us determine the result of these natural laws. By the same token, humans naturally understand the concept of Justice. Cicero said, “…surely there comes nothing more valuable than the realization that we are born for Justice, and the right is based, not on men’s opinions, but upon Nature. " This is the concept of Natural Law.

Most all major philosophies and religions agree on a few main points. The first is the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” As a corollary to the Golden Rule, you do what you have agreed to do. Whatever laws of man are consistent with Natural Law are valid. Those that are not are invalid. And one party is not above another in terms of Nature or of Natural Law. Hence, “[w]e 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." All men, regardless of position, station, ability, mental acuity, are endowed with these rights. These rights do not come from the government.

The English recognized these inalienable rights when they forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, guaranteeing their rights. The idea of natural rights were assumed and passed onto the American Colonists. The Founders were not rabble-rousers intent on destroying the King’s Peace. They just wanted the rights to which they were born, and to which, the King, himself, was subject. When the King ignored their petitions, they justified their separation by acknowledging “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them”.

Societies and individuals may try to curtail the natural rights, but they will meet with the consequences of those actions. In the same manner, one may try to avoid the law of gravity, but at some point, you cannot repeal or modify that law. Cicero said, “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting….It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times…” Jefferson, who studied Cicero, stated, “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”

There are essentially two forms of government. One form is where all rights are derived from the government itself. The people are subject to the whims of those in power. When another takes over, the laws can be completely changed. There is no firm basis for those laws. The other form is one that is based on Natural Law. The laws are consistent because they must adhere to the tenets of Natural Law. In addition, the people have rights that cannot be removed by those in power, because those rights do not come from government. Our Constitution guarantees these rights, and provides for only explicit governmental powers that are derived, as the Declaration says, “from the consent of the governed”. The government has no rights or powers except those that are delegated to it from the people.

For thousands of years of human history, government operated under the philosophy that “might makes right”. Only through our understanding of Natural Law can we maintain those rights granted to us at our creation and not from the divine right of kings or the will of the majority. "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" (Thomas Jefferson) Without understanding that our liberties come from Natural Law, they are arbitrary and subject to the will of those in power. It is only through obedience to Natural Law that our liberties can be preserved.