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The Founders' Key

Thomas Nelson

Contents

1. Eternal, Yet New.....................................................................................................................................................32. Divide and Conquer...................................................................................................................................................73. Divorce: The Declaration and the Constitution Estranged?.............................................................................................................204. The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God...............................................................................................................................385. That All Men Are Created Equal.......................................................................................................................................496. Hypocrisy............................................................................................................................................................647. The Marriage of Many Causes..........................................................................................................................................758. The Soul Writ Large..................................................................................................................................................97Conclusion..............................................................................................................................................................115The Declaration of Independence.........................................................................................................................................127The Constitution of the United States of America........................................................................................................................133Federalist No. 10: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (Continued).......................................................................160Federalist No. 39: The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles..................................................................................................169Federalist No. 48: These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No Constitutional Control Over Each Other................................................177Federalist No. 49: Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention.....................183Federalist No. 51: The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments........................................189"Property" by James Madison.............................................................................................................................................195Notes...................................................................................................................................................................199Suggested Further Reading...............................................................................................................................................213Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................................................................215About the Author........................................................................................................................................................217

Chapter One

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more. —John Adams writing to his wife on July 3, 1776, the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress

IT IS NOT SO COMMON FOR NATIONS TO HAVE BIRTHDAYS. What is the birthday of England, for example? When did there begin to be a France or a China or an India? Old and wonderful places, their beginnings are lost in the mists of time. What they are today is connected to their past in ways we can hardly guess.

In the United States we have a birthday, the Fourth of July. This birthday is unusual simply for the fact of its existence, but also for another reason. On the one hand, it is a specific day, marked in memory of specific things done by specific people in a specific place. On the other hand, it is a day for the ages and for everywhere. What these people did, they did in the name of something universal and transcendent. In the combination of these two qualities, our birthday is unprecedented.

The story of our great nation has unfolded under the influence of this combination. Our great controversies and struggles have hinged on our allegiance to it. Our survival has sometimes hung by a thread of attachment to it. It does so right now. Our form of government, I will argue, was established in our Constitution to institute and to guard this combination.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are commanding things for Americans because of this combination of features. On the one hand, they are ours, made by our own fathers. They provided the pattern according to which we have settled a continent and become a great nation, significant to all peoples. Our children, like our fathers and mothers, learn (even if not well) of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as they grow up. The way we talk, the way we stand, the way we dance or sing—all are influenced by the laws of our land and the principles behind them, and our laws and principles spring from these two documents.

On the other hand, the document adopted on our birthday speaks with a voice far beyond our fathers and their particular situation, even though that situation was urgent to the point of life and death. Its language is so elevated that its meaning cannot be confined to the situation of its own time and place, to the situation of our own time and place, or to the situation of any time and place. This at least is what it says. If it is wrong about this, then it is wrong about the most important thing.

This universal feature of our birthday reinforces the strength of its calling. If your father gives you an instruction from your upbringing, and then he repeats that instruction in his will, this is powerful. If he himself has risked all that he has to sustain this instruction, and if he has lived his entire life in support of it, this is more powerful. If in addition this instruction claims that it is the right instruction, not just for his life and for yours, but for all lives and for all time, that is most powerful. And yet you cannot base your allegiance to the principle solely on the testimony of your ancestors. You must base your allegiance on the...