Observations©

Donald S. Conkey

Date: June 28, 2007 - # 926 – July 4 – A Toast to America’s Declaration of Independence (828)

As we gather our families around us this year to celebrate the signing of America’s Declaration of Independence let us all raise a toast to that famous unique American document of liberty:   

A Toast

To America’s Declaration of Independence, to Thomas Jefferson, its primary author, and his committee associates, along with each signing Founding Father, and to their boldness in declaring:

… It was time for America to “dissolve its political bands” with its nurturing motherland and “assume among the powers of the earth” it rightful place as a new independent nation;

… Their legal authority was “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God;”

… That “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness;”

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

… That “when a long train of abuses and usurpations . . . reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security,” the ‘Guards’ or the 28 proven Principles of Liberty used by all former righteous governments; and

… Unashamedly appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude” of their intentions “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” as they mutually pledged “to each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor;”

As the Founders dreams for a free government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” began to form they continued to Glean from those whose writings they had studied – the Bible, the Anglo-Saxons, Cicero, Locke, Blackstone, and others, and finally settled on the following:

28 Principles of Liberty*

1 B The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law.

2 B A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.

3 B The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders.

4 B Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.

5 B All things were created by God, therefore upon Him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible.

6 B All men are created equal.

7 B The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.

       8 B Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.

9 B To protect man=s rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.

10 B The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.

11 B The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.

12 B The United States of America shall be a republic.

13 B A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.

14 B Life and liberty are secure only so long as the right to property is secure.

15 B The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy and a minimum of government regulations. (This encompasses the freedom to try, to buy, to sell, to fail.)

16 B The government should be separated into three branches B legislative, executive, and judicial.

17 B A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power.

18 B The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution.

19 B Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to government, all others being retained in the people.

20 B Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.

21 B Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.

22 B A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.

23 B A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.

24 B A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.

25 B Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations B entangling alliances with none.

26 B The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.

27 B The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.

28 B The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.

      *The 28 Principles of Liberty are the subject of Dr. W. Cleon Skousen’s book, “The 5000 Year Leap” and is available at www.nccs.net in both book and CD format.