Hannah Krauss receives the Second Prize of $500 for this essay
Second Prize (Two Winners) $500
by Hannah Krauss
There are a myriad of political changes that are currently going on in our country that are wreaking havoc on our American political traditions. We are moving away from these traditions, which started at the Mayflower Compact and continued to blossom and change gradually through the years until the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. According to Willmoore Kendall and George W. Carey in their book The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition, we are not honoring the political traditions of American law and government because we are no longer acknowledging or following the basic symbols of our American political tradition. The basic symbols Kendall and Carey mention in their book are ‘the representative assembly deliberating under God’ and the ‘virtuous people’ who are, according to the authors on pg. 154, “virtuous because deeply religious and thus committed to the process of searching for the transcendent Truth.” Our American law and government are based on these two symbols. When these two symbols and those derived from them are no longer being followed, there is no reason to honor the original political traditions of American law and government. That is what is happening today. Further symbols have resulted from these two basic symbols and thus are also very important to our traditions of law and government.
The first basic symbol, the representative assembly deliberating under God, originated during the composition of the Mayflower Compact in 1620. The men who wrote this document were, while representing their whole company of settlers, making a compact, or a contract, between themselves and God. The purpose of this covenant between God and men was to bind themselves to a government whose highest goals were to glorify God, advance the faith and better order themselves. The Compact says, “And by Virtue, hereof, do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.” The symbols formed from the original representative assembly deliberating under God were focused on laws that they knew would be “most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony”. The settlers promised to submit to these just laws because they would be founded on God’s word, the Bible. Comparing the current friction between religion and government in our country to the Compact’s steady reliance on God to deliberate what is just should be enough to give Americans a hint that we have drastically changed the way we look at American law and government.
Fast-forward nineteen years after the writing of the Mayflower Compact to the time of the writing of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. As short a time span as that is, the basic symbol had already branched out into several others. The representative assembly deliberating under God blossomed into the resolution of those in Connecticut to maintain the peace and to maintain union. “That to maintain the peace and union of such a people” says the Fundamental Orders, “there should be an orderly and decent Government established according to God.” (http://www.constitution.org/bcp/fo_1639.htm) According to those who composed this document in Connecticut, the only way to maintain the peace and union of the people was to establish an orderly and decent government “according to God,”. Because Americans now believe that there is supposed to be a separation between church and state, we as a country are no longer able to honor that as a symbol and thus we are also not able to honor the original political traditions of our law and government.
Jumping ahead in history just two years after the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was written, one would see another document that takes the first basic symbol even further. The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was written in 1641 and in it we begin to see mention of individual rights and freedoms that the people of Massachusetts would enjoy. Rights and freedoms had not yet been mentioned in the previous documents, presumably because the framers of those documents found it unnecessary due to the fact that they were basing the government and laws on the Bible and felt no need to restate what it said. Another symbol derived from the original representative assembly deliberating under God in this document tells of what this representative assembly owes the people. The Massachusetts Body of Liberties says (without modernization of spelling), “The free fruition of such liberties Immunities and priveledges as humanitie, Civilitie, and Christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion without impeachment and Infringement.” (http://history.hanover.edu/texts/masslib.html) Carefully examining this symbol, it is found that it guarantees the “free fruition” (or enjoyment) of certain liberties, one of which includes Christianity. When one considers the censorship concerning Christianity in our modern day in this country, all can agree that we are no longer honoring this symbol that is in the family tree of the representative assembly deliberating under God symbol. Most Americans today do not honor or respect God and the Bible. Therefore, the government, which is made up of modern Americans, reflects these choices.
Another symbol found in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties resulting from the first basic symbol is spoken of on pg. 53 in The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition: “One might well say that the ‘better ordering’ and the ‘thought-to-be-meet-and-convenient-for-the-general-Good’ symbols of the Mayflower Compact have differentiated out into the symbol of an omnicompetent and legally omnipotent deliberative assembly.” Simplified, we have a new symbol resulting from two of the Mayflower Compact symbols which in turn were from our first basic symbol. This new symbol is a supreme representative assembly. Curiously, this new symbol does not mention that it is under God as our basic symbol does. Not even fifty years have passed since the Mayflower Compact, and already the focus on a Christian government is shifting toward a secular government run by godly men. But even that political tradition is no longer followed today, as we can see each day when we pick up a newspaper and read disconcerting stories about our legislators. For example, most conservative Christians would not want Representative Anthony Weiner to represent them in Congress due to his scandalous actions and poor character. He, as well as many others are examples of how Americans and those in our legislature are dishonoring our original political traditions of law and government.
A few weeks before the Declaration of Independence was written, on June 12, 1776, our first basic symbol branches out again in the Virginia Declaration of Rights. In Section 3 it says, “That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration.” (http://www.constitution.org/bcp/virg_dor.htm). “This,” Kendall and Carey say on pg. 67, “of course, is our old Mayflower friend, the ‘general Good,’ now differentiated into almost the form in which it turns up in the Preamble of the Constitution. All power is vested in, and so derived from the people, so that officials are the people’s trustees and responsible to them—as we have seen them to be, by implication, in Massachusetts.” What we see here in the Virginia Declaration is the beginning of a democratic government. But, like Massachusetts, it is a democratic, secular government that is still run by Christian men. It is secular because the document did not clearly state that the government was under God. A government that is not focused on God is consequently focused on the governed and therefore secular. This is important to understand. Our political tradition of government was, at the beginning, a Christian government run by devout Christians. Between the Massachusetts Body of Liberties and the Virginia Declaration there was a shift toward a secular government run by Christian men. As mentioned before, our current government, while still secular, is being run by mostly non-Christian men. This is not the way the founding fathers of America intended the government to be run. They designed the government for a certain (Christian) society which is a small minority now. Because of this, the system is breaking down into chaos. We have drifted far, far away from our representative assembly deliberating under God.
Upon examining the Declaration of Independence, one finds yet two more symbols that contribute to our American political tradition of law and government from our first basic symbol. The first symbol defines that our rights come from God, our Creator. “We hold these truths to be self evident,” the Declaration reads, “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.” (The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America published by Cato Institute, pg. 9) According to the Declaration, all men are created equal. This political tradition is scrupulously carried out today. But the part about the ‘Creator’ is no longer being honored. We are still allowed the rights of life, liberty and happiness, but Americans don’t hold this truth to be self-evident, that the Creator has endowed these rights upon us. American children cannot currently learn these things in the public schools for fear of offending. This political tradition of government has been stamped out. Because America no longer acknowledges a Creator, the government has taken the place of God and is the authority endowing rights to the people.
The second symbol we identify in the Declaration is that the government derives its power from the consent of the governed. This is also democracy, derived from our first basic symbol. This is still being somewhat honored, but it seems like it is beginning to falter. For example, in every state that gay marriage has been allowed it has been legalized through the courts. The states that refused to allow gay marriage are those democratic states that still believe in the ‘consent of the governed’ and allow the people to vote to decide the matter. While it is encouraging to see that there is still some democracy in the country, it makes one apprehensive to see in how many states the ‘consent of the governed’ is being ignored by legislators.
In summary of the first basic symbol, the “representative assembly deliberating under God” has subsequent symbols from the Mayflower Compact to the Declaration of Independence. These represent our political tradition of law and government. Because these symbols are now ignored or unheard of, America’s political tradition is no longer being honored in those ways.
The second basic symbol is equally important as the first. It is the symbol of the “virtuous people”. This symbol, like the first, also can be found in the beginning of our political tradition during the composition of the Mayflower Compact. There are two symbols, branching off of the “virtuous people”. “Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith,” the settlers went and established the colony at Plymouth. The glorification of God and advancing the Christian faith isn’t priority today in American government, where one cannot pray before a county council meeting without ‘offending’ anyone.
The writers of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut changed the two symbols from the Mayflower Compact slightly, saying “to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also, the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said Gospel is now practiced amongst us.” This is not quite the outreach of the gospel that is found in the Compact, but upon examining of the current state of government and laws in America, it is all too apparent that what was written in Connecticut is far from being revered today. Also found in the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut is the quote, “To maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require.” This new symbol of an orderly government established unto God, in order to accomplish its means, requires a virtuous, God-fearing people to carry it out. Our political tradition of establishing a government unto God is now politically incorrect. This is being supported by a people who seem less virtuous upon examination.
During the Massachusetts Body of Liberties the second basic symbol of the virtuous people varies into yet another. Kendall and Carey speak of this on pg. 55 in their book: “One of the high symbols it evokes is, as we have seen, humanity, civility, and Christianity, which, we are told, “call for” certain things, which the Body of Liberties is about to perform. The people of Massachusetts understand themselves, then, as servants of humanity, civility and Christianity, as called upon to do that which is humane, civil and Christian.” Unfortunately, modern Americans no longer consider themselves servants of humanity, civility and certainly not Christianity. So therefore, they cannot be expected to act accordingly, thus dishonoring the political tradition of our law and government which is made up of those symbols.
Another example of the second basic symbol is found in the Virginia Declaration of Rights. “That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights.” The problem enters in when you no longer have a godly, virtuous people who will grant men their rights. We see evidence of this in our modern culture as the right to practice Christianity is being greatly infringed upon.
The other symbol found in the document states, “That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” Modern Americans in general do not adhere to these principles. Therefore, according to the Virginia Declaration, we no longer have a free government or blessing of liberty and are dishonoring our political traditions.
The Declaration of Independence is similar to the Virginia Declaration because they both mention the symbol of man’s ‘unalienable rights’. The focus on God as being the focal point of government has shifted to man, the governed, being the focal point. Surprisingly, this is one of the few traditions still being observed today, when convenient.
The Declaration also mentions where the government derives its power: “From the consent of the governed.” This, while partially true, is not how the virtuous Christians of the Compact intended government to receive its power. They were focused only on God. This quote can also show why the government is no longer honoring the political tradition of American law and government. Because they derive their power from the people, the blame is not only on the government, but also on the American people for dishonoring the original political tradition.
And so it is time to look at the Constitution. “We the People,” reads the Preamble, “of the United States of America, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty.” John Adams cautioned in this statement, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Is America moral and religious? Our current president says that we are not a Christian nation. Therefore, the Constitution is becoming inadequate for the needs of this currently godless country.
One can turn to The Federalist Papers to see even more symbols. The Federalist was written before the Bill of Rights by several of our founding fathers. We read in Federalist 51, “In the extended republic of the United States and among the great variety of interests parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good.” Our principles are slowly turning into a ‘matter of opinion’. It is no longer ‘justice and the general good’, but what makes you feel good.
In summary of the second basic symbol, all the traditions of law and government derived from the symbol ‘virtuous people’ are being dishonored. Because most Americans are no longer virtuous, the U.S. is sweeping our political traditions under the proverbial carpet where they will no longer trouble our consciences.
In conclusion, because the basic symbols “representative assembly deliberating under God” and “virtuous people” are no longer revered, our original political traditions of American law and government are not being honored. We are no longer the people the Constitution was designed for and the result of this is showing as we watch the chaos grow, such as the lengthy debate on the deficit and how to cut spending. We as Americans need to start at home and begin to teach our children of the political traditions and what the U.S. government is supposed to look like. It says in Deuteronomy 6:6-7, “These commandments that I command you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” If the people of America do not start to obey this command concerning the political traditions of America’s law and government, one can only foresee that the lack of honor will only grow.
On my honor before God the essay I am submitting is my own work and not that of any other.