Declaration of Independence

and

The Faith of the Founding Fathers

State RepresentativeStephen Meeks

Oct. 4, 1774 - The first Declaration of Independence the town of Worcester, Ma.

Oct. 1774 – July 1776 - 90 state and local declarations of independence.

April 1775 – Lexington and Concord – Beginning of Military Conflict.

May 1776 - Virginia declared its independence and sent Rep. Richard Henry Lee to the Continental Congress with specific instructions to put forth a resolution of independence for Congress to vote on.  

July 2 - Continental Congress voted for independence.

July 4 - Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence document.

July 8 - Noon, Colonel John Nixon publicly read the Declaration of Independence for the first time.

August 2 - The official signing ceremony occurred.

Declaration Facts:

Cast your eyes backwards upon the progress of time, sixty-one years from this day; and in the midst of the horrors and desolations of civil war, you behold an assembly of Planters, Shopkeepers and Lawyers, the Representatives of the People of thirteen English Colonies in North America, sitting in the City of Philadelphia. These fifty-five men, on that day, unanimously adopt and publish to the world, a state paper under the simple title of 'A DECLARATION.'

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these 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 whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to 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. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of governments.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

(1)He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

(2) He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

(3) He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

(4) He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

(5) He has dissolved representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people.

(6) He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.

(7) He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

(8) He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

(9) He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

(10) He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

(11) He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

(12) He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

(13) He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

(14) For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

(15) For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:

(16) For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

(17) For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

(18) For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury:

(19) For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

(20) For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to ren-der it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

(21) For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

(22) For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

(23) He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:Josiah BartlettWilliam WhippleMatthew Thornton

MASSACHUSETTS: John HancockJohn AdamsSamuel AdamsRobert Treat Paine

(24) He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

(25) He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

RHODE ISLAND:Elbridge GerryStephen HopkinsWilliam Ellery

CONNECTICUT: Roger ShermanSamuel HuntingtonWilliam WilliamsOliver Wolcott

(26) He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

(27) He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

NEW YORK: William FloydPhilip LivingstonFrancis LewisLewis Morris

NEW JERSEY: Richard StocktonJohn WitherspoonFrancis HopkinsonJohn HartAbraham Clark

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

PENNSYLVANIA: Robert MorrisBenjamin RushBenjamin FranklinJohn MortonGeorge ClymerJames SmithGeorge TaylorJames WilsonGeorge Ross

DELAWARE: Ceasar RodneyGeorge ReadThomas McKean

MARYLAND: Samuel ChaseThomas StoneWilliam PacaCharles Carroll of Carrollton

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

VIRGINIA: George WytheRichard Henry LeeThomas JeffersonBenjamin HarrisonThomas Nelson, Jr.Francis Lightfoot LeeCarter Braxton

NORTH CAROLINA: William HooperJoseph HewesJohn Penn

They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

SOUTH CAROLINA:Edward RutledgeThomas Heyward, Jr.Thomas Lynch, Jr.Authur Middleton

GEORGIA: Button GwinnettLyman HallGeorge Walton

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States;

that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliance, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

The Faith of the Founding Fathers

How Did We Get Where We AreFounder’s View of Religion in

GovernmentThe Role of ChristianityA Warning

GoalsUnbiasedIn Their Own WordsDifferent Men – Different Opinions

Everson v. Board of EducationFebruary 10, 1947. 

5-4 decision

United States Supreme Court applied the Establishment Clause in the Bill of Rights to State law.

Issue: New Jersey law authorized payment by local school boards for the costs of transportation to and from schools - including private Catholic schools.

Justice Hugo Black, “Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'"

McCollum v. Board of Education March 8, 1948. 

8-1 decision

This case related to the power of a state to use its tax-supported public school system in aid of religious instruction.

Issue: The case tested the principle of "released time", where public schools set aside class time for religious

instruction. 

Justice Hugo Black, ”For the First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere.”

Engel v. VitaleJune 25, 1962. 6-1 decision

Determined it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public

schools.

Issue: Voluntary Prayer, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and

our country. Amen.”

Court explained: “[A] union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.”

“[T]hat prayer seems relatively insignificant when compared to the governmental encroachments upon religion which were commonplace 200 years ago.”

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment 1

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Amendment 14

Danbury Baptist Association - letter, dated October 7, 1801To: President Thomas Jefferson "Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty — That Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals — That no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious Opinions — That the legitimate Power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor..."

Behind the “Separation of Church and State”

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

President Jefferson's Reply: January 1, 1802

The Founding Fathers View

The Role of Religion and Government

It was his custom to retire to his library at nine or ten o'clock where he remained an hour before he went to his chamber. He always rose before the sun and remained in his library until called to breakfast. I never witnessed his private devotions. I never inquired about them. I should have thought it the greatest heresy to doubt his firm belief in Christianity. His life, his writings, prove that he was a Christian. He was not one of those who act or pray, "that they may be seen of men" [Matthew 6:5]. He communed with his God in secret [Matthew 6:6].

Nelly Custis-Lewis George Washington's adopted daughter

President Washington

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.

Address to the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in North America, October 9, 1789.

George Washington

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 man and citizens.

Let it simply be asked, Where is the 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?

Address to the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in North America, October 9, 1789.

George Washington

[T]he primary objects of government are the peace, order, and prosperity of society. . . . To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are therefore objects of legislative provision and support: and among these . . . religious institutions are eminently useful and important. . . . [T]he legislature, charged with the great interests of the community, may, and ought to countenance, aid and protect religious institutions. Oliver Ellsworth

Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court

Connecticut Courant, June 7, 1802Oliver Ellsworth, to the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut

[It is] the duty of all wise, free, and virtuous governments to countenance and encourage virtue and religion. I therefore recommend a general and public return of praise and thanksgiving to Him from whose goodness these blessings descend. The most effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the source from which they flow. 

 John Jay Original Chief-Justice U. S. Supreme Court

Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.

Fisher AmesFramer of the First Amendment

[A] free government. . . . can only be happy when the public principle and opinions are properly directed. . . . by religion and education. It should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality. Abraham Baldwin, Signer of the

Constitution, A Framer of the Bill of Rights in the First Congress

Faith of the Founding Fathers

A Christian Nation

“Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”

Justice Joseph StoryCommentaries on the Constitution of the United States 1865 

We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.

Dr. Benjamin RushSigner Declaration of Independence

No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court,1824.  Updegraph v.Commonwealth

"Why... should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and, probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind."  Fisher Ames

Framer of the First Amendment

No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.

President Thomas Jefferson

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of mankind.

To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . .

Jedediah MorsePatriot and "Father of American Geography"

A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1799

[W]ith us, Christianity and religion are identified. It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people our institutions did not presuppose Christianity and did not often refer to it and exhibit relations with it.

John Marshall Founding Father and U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice

One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. . . . There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations. . . . I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. Justice Joseph Story

“Father of American Jurisprudence.” 

Thirdly, the Declaration of Independence announced the One People, assuming their station among the powers of the earth, as a civilized, religious, and Christian People,

John Quincy Adams

 In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity: that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. There is a great and very prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this Government did not legislate on religion.

United States Congress (March 27, 1854), House Committee on the Judiciary

Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohamed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles. But the religion I mean to recommend in this place is that of the New Testament. . . . [A]ll its doctrines and precepts are calculated to promote the happiness of society and the safety and well-being of civil government.

Dr. Benjamin RushSigner Declaration of Independence

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.“

Patrick Henry

The Founding Fathers

A Warning

By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects. . . . It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published. . . . All systems of religion, morals, and government not founded upon it [the Bible] must perish, and how consoling the thought, it will not only survive the wreck of these systems but the world itself. "The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." [Matthew 1:18]

Dr. Benjamin RushSigner Declaration of Independence

Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.

Jedediah MorsePatriot and "Father of American Geography"

A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1799

[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Benjamin Franklin

and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.

Samuel AdamsSigner of the Declaration of Independence

[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.

Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, … are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.

Charles Carroll of CarrolltonSigner of the Declaration of Independence

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

President John Adams 

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself."

"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."Patrick Henry

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever." Thomas Jefferson

"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.“William Penn

"If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity." Daniel Webster

14th & 19th Secretary of State

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln

Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.

Benjamin Franklin

The Founders Solution

Faith of the Founding Fathers

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.Thomas Jefferson

Question with boldness:

Acts 17:11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

Get Informed

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Thomas Jefferson

He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of this country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man....Samuel Adams

Know your Candidates

"If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.“Noah Webster

"Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation ... it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.“

James Garfield, twentieth president of the United States, 1877

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!“Benjamin Franklin

Vote

[T]he [federal] government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, and oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.

George WashingtonIn his Farewell Address to the United States in 1796.

A religious and virtuous people.

Time to get the Salt out of the Box

Matthew 5:13Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it besalted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

25. Protection of religion.

Religion, morality and knowledge being essential to good government, the General Assembly shall enact suitable laws to protect every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship.

Arkansas State Constitution

Faith of the Founding Fathers

Representative Stephen Meeks

www.stephenmeeks.org