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This is a tail end excerpt from Bruce Walker's American Thinker article about the Declaration of Independence.
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The
brave men in Philadelphia were engaging in unconstitutional
action. Britain had a constitution, albeit a largely unwritten
one, and Jefferson knew that he was defying our equivalent of the
Supreme Court. He and his colleagues defied the moral power of a
system which no longer treasured liberty above advantage or
caprice. Rulers making decisions which did not really affect
them, living thousands of miles from their subjects, lacked the moral
authority to wield law.
Moral authority was the heart of the Declaration as well. It
lacked a separation of church and state and instead there was a unity
of God and government. All men were created equal by God.
That is the foundational point of the Declaration from which all else
flows like the spring of liberty. If all men are created
equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
politics is clear and simple. If that is true, then -- of course!
-- protecting these inalienable rights is the only reason that
governments are instituted among men. These were truths which, in
the magical pen of Jefferson, the brave authors and signers held to be
"self-evident." There is a Creator. He made us. He
made us, specifically, free in body and in conscience. We
are not sheep or some sort of oddly self-domesticated animals. We
are creatures in the image of a Creator, unique in reality, and given
the power to choose.
The men who wrote and signed the Declaration are all dead, long, long,
dead -- they never expected otherwise. If we met their ghosts
today, they would not ask about our technological marvels or our global
economy or our medical breakthroughs or space travel. If we told
them about our partisan debates or the new King in Washington, they
might cringe like a father over an addled child.
But when speaking of what they wrote in 1776 -- signing their own death
warrants, in some respects -- they might ask us this: "We did not
mean to confuse you. That is why the words we chose were so
clear. You are free creatures of God. Government is your
creature, your chattel, your tool -- nothing more. We studied
history long before we wrote our brief statement of liberty. You
own government or rather the spirit of free men owns
government. You fret about ‘stuff.' Why? We are all
dead now, as we knew we would be. But we chose to die free,
following our consciences - that is the only real choice in life.
What confused you?" The principle of liberty is easy.
All it requires is courage and honor.
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I'll
tell you what. I've been ready to join any pitchfork toting,
torch bearing, musket waving march on Washington for a long time.
Now I'm getting damned close to being the first one there.
I mean that in the good way, of course.
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