THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

As we are coming upon July the 4th, and celebrating another birthday of this wonderful country we call the United States of America I find myself looking to find many of the wonderful ideals this country was made of.

Exiles who first fled to America, sought an asylum from royal oppression and priestly intolerance, and they were determined to establish a government upon the broad foundation of civil and religious liberty. The Declaration of Independence sets forth the great truth that "all men are created equal," and endowed with the God given rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Our Constitution guarantees to the people the right of self-government, providing that representatives elected by the popular vote shall enact and administer the laws in accordance with the will of the people. These principles are the secret of our power and prosperity. The oppressed and down-trodden throughout world have turned to this land with interest and hope. Millions have sought its shores, and the United States has risen to a place among the most powerful nations of the earth.

The Declaration of Independence established the core values and principles of our nation. Our Constitution with all its Amendments provide a rule of law for a government to accomplish these values and principles. The Bill of Rights protects the individual rights of American citizens.

Our Constitution was framed to ensure that the United States would be a republic, a will of the people and that the power would rest with its citizens who are entitled to elect representatives responsible to them and to govern to the will of the people. The members of the Constitutional Convention did not wish to produce a pure democracy, a republic would allow for greater deliberation by the people and their representatives in the formation of law, again the will of the people.

Following the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress saw the need for a Confederacy of the States and established a central authority known as the Articles of Confederation, which was drafted on November 15, 1777, and was not ratified by all the States until March 1, 1781. The Continental Congress preserved the independence, rights, and privileges of all States, as they did not want a powerful central government that could lead to tyranny. The Articles of Confederation began: "The Style of this Confederacy shall be the United States of America. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

The Congress of the Confederation operated the U. S. government from March 1, 1781 until March 4, 1789. They passed the final version of the Northwest Ordinance on July 13, 1787. This appropriated land North of the Ohio River and East of the Mississippi River for the addition of five future states, and that law did prohibit slavery in that territory. However, the problem of raising money to pay for the war and the subsequent economic depression, and the need for diplomatic relations with foreign powers created a need for an effective federal government. Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786 made way for a strong national government to provide unity for the American states.

George Washington served as President of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and called the convention to order on May 25, 1787. There were 55 representatives from 12 states during the Convention. The United States Constitution was approved and signed on September 17, 1787 by 39 of 42 representatives present. It was then ratified by the necessary number of states, nine, on June 21, 1788. Our new Federal Government convened on March 4, 1789. While the Articles of Confederation speak of the States, our Constitution begins with “We the People” A study of the opinions and writings of the 55 representatives show that they referred to one document more throughout their lives than any other document, that document was the bible.

The Constitution is the Law of the Land. Our Constitution is unique in that it divided powers among three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, to effect a system of checks and balances. James Madison reasoned in The Federalist writings that it was human nature for powerful leaders to strive for greater power, and a separation of power would place ambition against ambition.

The first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was ratified as part of a gentlemen's agreement among our founding fathers. George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts were at the Constitutional Convention, but would not sign the Constitution because it lacked a Bill of Rights. There was resistance to the approval of the United States Constitution by Thomas Jefferson and Anti-Federalists because too much power was given to the Federal Government, and American citizens were unprotected. The Preamble to the Bill clearly states the Bill of Rights is to prevent abuse of the powers of the Government. The Federalists kept their word and on September 25, 1789, the First Federal Congress of the United States proposed to the state legislatures a series of amendments to the Constitution. All the states ratified ten amendments by December 15, 1791, which became known as the Bill of Rights to protect the individual rights of American citizens.

The Constitution of the United States was written with a Christian culture in place. All 39 statesmen who signed the Constitution were Christians. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, recognized that we needed to govern ourselves by the Ten Commandments of God if we were to survive as a nation. We see this in our public life through the continuance in our oaths of office including the Presidency of the phrase, "So help me God." The phrase “So help me God” was not written into the Constitution, but was used by our first President, George Washington and has been used ever since and has been added to most all other federal oaths. Also not written into the Constitution was use of the bible while taking the oath, but again George Washington used one and with the exception of only a couple of Presidents it has always been used during the oath.

It would take the 1861-1865 Civil War and the religious civil rights movement in the 1960s to fully effect our Christian culture. Abraham Lincoln’s reading of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal. As expressed in the 1863 Gettysburg Address during the Civil War, this Nation under God brought forth a new birth of freedom, as evidenced by the passage of Amendments 13-15 following the War. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is considered the most significant since the Bill of Rights. Originally the Bill of Rights was a set of restrictions on the powers of the Federal Government, but not the States. Over time, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to apply most of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to the States as well as the Federal Government. The Bill of Rights has become available to all American citizens, and provided equal protection to everyone, and limited the power of government to deny life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. This is reflected in our Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, "one Nation under God, with Liberty and Justice for all."

Our founding fathers gave us the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights. All founded for the simple reason that they believed we all had the God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. On July 4th, 2011, this great nation of ours will turn 236 years old. We have experienced wars, depressions and many other enemies thru out that time. But as of today, and hopefully for a long time to come, we are still “One Nation Under God, With Liberty and Justice for All”.

Please look on my page tomorrow for a blog which continues this discussion about America.