by Dan Itse, Rockingham district 9
Today our nation, though still the freest in the world, is in danger of sliding into tyranny. The reason is best explained in the prelude to the movie “Fellowship of the Ring”. The elf queen Galadriel is giving a discourse on the history of the ring, and man’s lust for power over other men. Near the conclusion she states “...and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth ...” My first and greatest hope for today is to show you the justification for your liberty, that you might fully understand it; to inspire a love for your liberty, and for the Constitutions that articulate it; for you to know that you are the masters of your governments. You will notice that I use the plural because each of you lives with two separate governments, governed by separate Constitutions, that of your State, and that prepared for the United States of America by representatives of the States. Your first and best protections are found in the Constitution of your state.
My first Constitution is the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire. New Hampshire has the distinction of being the first State to declare itself independent from Great Britain. It had the first Constitution as an independent State on January 5, 1776. It also has the last Constitution adopted after the War for Independence adopted in 1784. It allowed the founders to incorporate the best of everything contained in the Constitutions of the other states, and extend the more important ideas. In Federalist Paper 47, James Madison recognized the genius that being written after the other Constitutions afforded the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire. Though Madison was referring specifically to the necessity of commingling the powers of government to preserve liberty, one of the specific improvements those who crafted the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire made was to identify what the foundational principles of American Government were.
The Constitution of the State of New Hampshire is the only state Constitution which identified the justification for the American liberty. I use the past tense because its identity was removed in 1968. Part 1, Article 6 stated “As morality and piety, rightly grounded on evangelical principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligations to due subjection;” Evangelical principles are identified as the foundation of our rights. Evangelical principles arise from the work John Calvin and the Geneva bible. The Geneva Bible was what guided the Pilgrims, Puritans, Congregationalists, Baptists and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.
Some of these Evangelical principles are:
1. 1 Samuel 8 The desire for a king is a rejection of God.
2. Acts 10:34 “God is no respecter of persons.” All men are created equally free and independent, there ought to be no partiality before the law, that there is no divine right of kings.
3. Luke 22:26 “... he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.” Leaders are accountable to and subject to the people.
4. Romans 13:1-7 “For he (the governing authority) is God’s minister to you for good.” Public service is a ministry under God.
5. Deut. 1:13 “Choose wise, understanding and knowledgeable men from among your tribes (yourselves) and I will make them heads over you.” Self government.
6. 1 Cor. 6:1-7 “Dare any of you go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints.” Have wise and Godly men for leaders.
The first document which articulated these principles was the Fundamental Agreement of the Colony of New Haven. They were articulated in the Constitutions of many of the states in 1776 and 1777. The best are these of Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Though none of them had all of the elements, they all required a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles of the Constitution. However, none of these Constitutions specified what those principles were, nor what they were called. Only New Hampshire, in retrospect, specified that the source of good government is Evangelical principles.
The first ten Articles of New Hampshire’s Bill of Rights embody Evangelical principles as follows:
Article 1 Legitimate government originates with people and is founded in consent, self government.
Article 2 The right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, and to acquire, possess, and protect property.
Article 3 Without reciprocal protection the surrender of natural rights is void.
Article 4 Certain natural rights are unalienable because nothing of equivalent value can be given or received for them.
Article 5 All men have the right to practice religion as they see fit.
Article 6 Evangelical principles will give the best and greatest security to government and lay in the hearts of men due subjection. Schools ought to be established to teach Evangelical principles. All religions are equal under the law.
Article 7 The people have the right to govern themselves, and therefore, create a sovereign state.
Article 8 All legislators and magistrates are accountable to the people, they the people's servants.
Article 9 There are no hereditary or divine right rulers.
Article 10 The people have a right to throw off tyrannical government.
If they had only wanted to impart social mores, they could have said Christian. If they had only been concerned with man’s individual accountability before God (Hebrews 9:27), they could have said Protestant. But, they said Evangelical which extends to man’s individual responsibility and authority. (Psalm 82:3, Isaiah 1:17, Galatians 6:5 and 2 Thessalonians 3:10) It is not only a theology, but also a philosophy for church and civil government.
Looking at Part 1, Article 2, it states that all men have natural, essential and inherent rights among which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property. Protestant principles would have led them to enjoying life and liberty, and acquiring and possessing property. But, one must go to Evangelical principles to reach defending life and liberty and protecting property.
We must ask what did mean they when they said that these principles would lie in the hearts of men due subjection. By including Article 10 which says, “therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.”, they obviously were more concerned that the people would be too subservient rather than not subservient enough. They pointed out man’s subjection to God, and the subjection of legislators and magistrates to the people. Why does this give the best and greatest security to government? Because legislators and magistrates who are aware of their subjection to God and the governed, the people, will not make laws or act in a way that would inspire the people to rebel.
Let us see in their own words how the founders saw their government by looking at an excerpt of the Election Day Sermon, to the Joint Session of the New Hampshire House and Senate, by Rev. Dr. Samuel Langdon. Rev. Landgon was a patriot Pastor of the American Revolution. Election Day sermons were common then, where a prominent minister would exhort the newly seated legislators to govern wisely and to select their leadership circumspectly. It was June 5, 1788, Organization Day, the day when legislators take their oath of office and elect their leaders and the constitutional officers. The title of the chief executive of New Hampshire was still President, though eight States had already ratified the Constitution for the United States of America. Rev. Langdon was also a representative to the New Hampshire Ratification Convention. Fourteen days later, on June 21, New Hampshire would be the ninth State to ratify the Constitution, putting it into force. He exhorted as follows:
[quote] “Preserve your government with the utmost attention and solicitude, for it is the remarkable gift of heaven. From year to year be careful in the choice of your representatives, and all the higher powers of government. Fix your eyes upon men of good understanding and known honesty; of knowledge, improved by experience; men who fear God, and hate covetousness; who love truth and righteousness, and sincerely wish the public welfare. Beware such as are cunning rather than wise; who prefer their own interest to every thing; whose judgment is partial, or fickle; and whom you would not willingly trust with your own private interests. When meetings are called for the choice of your rulers, do not carelessly neglect them, or give your votes with indifference, just as any party may persuade, or a sordid treat tempt you; but act with serious deliberation and judgment, as in a most important matter, and let the faithful of the land serve you. Let not men openly irreligious and immoral become your legislators; for how can you expect good laws to be made by men who have no fear of God before their eyes, and who boldly trample on the authority of His commands? And will not the example of their impiety and immorality defeat the efficacy of the best laws which can be made in favor of religion and virtue? If the legislative body are corrupt, you will soon have bad men for Councilors, corrupt Judges, unqualified Justices, and officers in every department who will dishonor their stations; the consequence of which will be murmurs and complaints from every quarter. Let a superior character point out the man who is to be your head; for much depends on his inspection and care of public affairs and the influence of his judgment, advice and conduct, although his power is circumscribed; in this choice therefore, be always on your guard against parties, and the methods taken to make interest for unworthy men, and let distinguishing spirit always determine your vote. And when all places in government are filled with the best men you can find, behave yourselves as good subjects; obey the laws; cheerfully submit to such taxation as the necessities of the public call for; give tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor, as the gospel commands you. Never give countenance to turbulent men, who wish to distinguish themselves, and rise to power, by forming combinations and exciting insurrections against government: for this can never be the right way to redress real grievances, since you may not only prefer complaints and petitions to the General Court, but have the very authority, which you think has been misused, in your own power, and may very shortly place it in other hands.” [/quote]
Now for you and I, unfortunately, the founders neglected to teach their children, and their children’s children the connection that Evangelical principles had to the design of their government. Even as the founders died, those in government began hungrily usurping the peoples rights. As early as 1819, the New Hampshire judiciary exempted their decisions from scrutiny by redress of grievances before the legislature. Redress of grievance is the first purpose for which the General Court of the State of New Hampshire assembles Part 1, Article 31, and an enumerated right of the people, Part 1, Article 32. During the first 30 odd years of our republic, the redress of grievances committed by the judiciary, restoring a person to their law, was one of the most common activities of the General Court.
In 1874, the judiciary ended the peoples right to a trial by jury in new types of civil suits, a right that was defined as sacred in Part 1, Article 20. This set the stage for the 20th century in which the state would begin to take civil action against the people, such as traffic violations, and some criminal offenses would be converted to civil offenses, such as child neglect.
Between 1921 and 1925, the laws governing the introduction of petitions for the redress of grievances to the General Court disappeared. I don’t mean they were repealed, I mean they disappeared. They were simply not incorporated in the recodification of the statutes. As the century progressed, the judiciary, an unelected body, over which the people have no direct control, usurped the roll of hearing petitions for the redress of grievances committed by the government. Finally, in 1963, the General Court created Legislative Services to draft legislation. Legislative Services was specifically authorized to draft Bills and Resolutions, but not Petitions for the Redress of Public Grievances. Thus the mechanism for the people exercise their enumerated right to bring grievances directly before their Representatives and Senators (servants) in the General Court was denied.
As we walked through the 19th century, we forgot the definition of Evangelical principles, thinking that they had only to do with religion. As we meandered through the 20th century, we came to believe that American government was based upon the inspiration of men. We came to accept that there is and ought to be a wall between church and state. We forgot that our vision for government was actually derived from our understanding of the Scripture.
Edmund Burke stated, “Society can not exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” When we as a nation no longer depend on God, to allow governance from the inside, we must by our very nature replace that dependence with government by men. And, as governments are comprised of men, individual men must eventually fill the roll that previously was once filled by God. Inevitably, if we cease to see ourselves as servants of God, we must make ourselves the slaves of men looking to them for our sustenance and direction.
For the last hundred years American government has been gradually, inexorably progressively supplanting God and community and family with government; cold, objective, dispassionate government. Rather than defending private property, government is used to redistribute wealth to those presumed to be less capable, or whom the government believes will give the government the greatest return. No one would phrase it this way, but there is a belief that we are entitled to one another’s wealth, property and ingenuity. We have forgotten a founding principle: no man, king or common, has a right to, or is entitled to, another man's wealth; that one of the first purposes of government is to punish those who steal, not to participate in the theft.
Every time we let the government restrict the ability of the people to govern their own lives; it steals a little of their liberty. Every time we let the government take a decision out of the hands of the people; it makes them less responsible for themselves and their families, destroying their independence. Every time we let the government take away the risk of failure; it makes the people less self-reliant, less resilient, robbing them of the ability to succeed. Every time that we allow government to do for the people what they should do for themselves, or each other; it makes them a little bit more the slave.
There is no difference between tyranny at the point of a gun or the point of a knife and tyranny at the point of a pen, especially when that pen is backed the power of the sword.
So where do we go from here? Who is the enemy? I tell you the enemy is not the republicans, nor the democrats. The enemy is those who would steal the people's liberty. The enemy is those who would rob them of their God given sovereignty.
So what must we do? Part 1, Article 38, of the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire states that the people ought to frequently study and discuss the fundamental principles of the Constitution and all the social virtues. We know now that when the people adopted that Constitution they understood the term fundamental principles of the Constitution to be Evangelical principles. The same Article states that the people have a right to require of their legislators and magistrates an exact and constant observance of these principles in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for good government.
I know this task seems daunting, but I want you to take some encouragement from Tolkien’s Trilogy of the ring. Tolkien’s objective was to teach biblical principles in allegory so that when people read the Bible the concepts would be familiar.
Frodo is wishing that he never came into possession of the ring and his mission had never been given to him and Gandalf says, “So do all who to live see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
Then, after an intense skirmish Frodo says, “I can’t do this anymore.” and Sam replies to Frodo, “I know, it’s all wrong, by rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, the ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger they were. And, sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand, I know now; the folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world, and its worth fighting for."
What must we do?
We must learn Evangelical principles.
We must study our Constitutions.
We must take ownership of our Constitutions and our governments.
We must stand up as men and women, sovereign before God, and take control of our government, as it was designed.
We must elect leaders who will abide by our Constitutions and enforce our Constitution upon the unelected leaders.