Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: February 28, 2008 - # 8807 - Title:  Principle of Good Government # 2 (814)

As President George W. Bush closed his annual report to Congress on January28 his last words were “God bless America.” I appreciated that but then wondered if using “God bless America” in such situations has become more a cliché than a plea for Godly help?

If it has, then shame on us. America needs divine assistance today as much, possible more, that at any time in its history.  The enemies of America’s liberties lurk both within and without its borders. Those within are potentially more deadly than those without. How, by pushing to destroy America’s fundamental liberties and freedoms?

Those freedoms we cherish so greatly are at risk. Benjamin Franklin spoke to these risks when he said “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupted and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Has, or is, America a corrupted nation? Each of us has our own beliefs on this issue.

Dr. Skousen’s ‘second principle’ of free government also reflects on this subject. It states “A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.”

As I listened to Bush utter “God bless America” I thought of how America was created in the crucible of hotly contested debate much as we are still doing 221 years later.  The Founders debates, however, only lasted four months, with no TV coverage, while we suffer through 18 months of often repetitious debate and debate analysis. 

However, even after 221 years open debate to an educated populous is still the most effective way to elect our leaders:  outside perhaps of having God reveal to his prophet, as He did David through Samuel, who to anoint as our next leader. As I pondered these thoughts my mind recalled the words of George Washington who in 1792, while reflecting on the miraculous birth of the United States, said “I am sure there never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe, that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested  during our revolution or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God, who is alone able to protect them.”

But in giving his farewell address in 1796, as Bush recently did, Washington voiced a warning that reflects on this second principle. His warning stated: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…. Let it simply be asked, where is security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. What ever may be conceded to the influence of refined education…. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

John Adams also made his voice heard on this subject by stating: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

How different our Congress is today than it was in 1787 when it passed the Northwest Ordinance, a law that spelled out how a territory could become a state. That bill specified that schools should be built and that the schools must teach “Religion, Morals, and Knowledge.” How removed that principle is from the “political correctness” that dominates our nation today.

In subscribing to today’s political correctness are we as a nation separating ourselves from that source of divine guidance that Washington, along with the other Founders, depended upon?

The only reference to religion in the Constitution is in Article VI and in the first amendment. The cornerstone of the Constitution is the Declaration of Independence – and the cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence is God and his Laws, the Laws of Nature and His “perfect laws of liberty.” Should American’s not take another look at the direction we as a nation are traveling and perhaps turn back to our nations spiritual roots – those roots Washington, Adams, Franklin and Jefferson all relied upon – the foundation of freedom and His guiding and protective hand.

Bush, near the end, reflected on the Preamble’s first three words, “We the people.” As with the people in Washington’s day, so too today, ‘We the people’ have many reasons “to acknowledge” the divine blessings we as a nation have received, first in establishing, then in preserving our precious liberties for  221 years.

But a pertinent question still remains: Do America’s modern moral standards still warrant God’s Divine protection?