Posted on 12/10/2004 3:38:41 PM PST by Ed Current
Those are general statements about the need for the populace to have a religious foundation since the Constitution itself is secular. The actual content of most of the Ten Commandments, three of them about monotheism others about not coveting your neighbor's goods and respecting your parents...are not to be found any documents of legal standing in the United States. Unless you're just looking at it as an early example of 'Law Giving'. In which case the Code of Hammurabi and the Magna Carta are bigger influences.
"Those are general statements about the need for the populace to have a religious foundation since the Constitution itself is secular."
It sounds like you have your mind made up about the "secular" Constitution and are just trying to rationalize around what is clearly being said by these founding fathers...
"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 its foundations."
"The law given from Sinai [the 10 commandments] was a civil and municipal ... code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws..."
Of course that is a major anti-biblical statment technically... All authority comes from God alone.
"However since about 85% of the Constitution is English Common Law the traditions you speak of were certainly inherent."
The founders didn't say the ten commandments were inherent as some long gone influence that they would grudgingly have to tolerate as a religious influence from history. They said that the very foundation of the Constitution IS directly based on Christianity and the ten commandments.
There is no mention of a secular basis in the Constitution, so according to your logic that must prove that it is based on God.
All 50 constitutions mention God as the source. Tell me which of the founding fathers (see below) changed the foundation of the Constitution from God, Christianity and the ten commandments to pure secularism completely void of God all of a sudden when it came to the US Constitution?
Joseph Story is THE man to nail this down: "There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations."
Need I say more? Let's hear from a few more important founders...
Thomas Jefferson said, in 1781 just after the Massachusetts constitution was ratified: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.?" -- Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781, p. 237
James Madison: "I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments [of government] and are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way." -- Letter of Madison to William Bradford (September 25, 1773), in 1 James Madison, The Papers of James Madison 66 (William T. Hutchinson ed., Illinois: University of Chicago Press 1962).
George Washington: "... 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. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? -- Address of George Washington, President of the United States . . . Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore: George and Henry S. Keatinge), pp. 22-23. In his Farewell Address to the United States in 1796
Benjamin Rush (Signer of the Declaration of Independence): "...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. -- Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia: Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), pp. 93-94.
Th Jefferson: "I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man [God], and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem." -- Jan. 1. 1802.
Thomas Jefferson: "The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of mankind." -- The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1904), Vol. XV, p. 383.
See: http://www.wall-of-separation.com
Why shoud we? By that very logic those same founding fathers should have obeyed their King over the issue of a very minor tax, instead of sinning against the will of God by rebellion.
"Why shoud we? By that very logic those same founding fathers should have obeyed their King over the issue of a very minor tax, instead of sinning against the will of God by rebellion."
So that's why they revolted, over a "very minor tax"? Last time I checked, there was religious oppression and injustice.
You seem to be comparing obeying God under unjust conditions with obeying God under friendly and biblically conducive conditions.
"Why should we?" Christ commanded us to influence our world for God. That is why. We are to be salt and light. The founding fathers of America incorporated these principles into the Constitution so that we could obey Christ.
We have been given freedom of religious speech. Each individual has been given leadership obligations by the Constitution, i.e., governing officials are now your agents and my agents for us to influence for the cause of good. Since you have been made a leader by your government to influence your legislators and also made a leader by Christ (if you are a Christian) to "make disciples" and influence society, then you can't just do hardly anything and expect the blessing of God. Therefore "give unto Caesar".
Not against those same founding fathers, who where not truly religious. George III was very anti-Catholic, never-the-less, even tho I myself am a Catholic, had I lived at the time I would probably have sided with the Loyalists.
You seem to be comparing obeying God under unjust conditions with obeying God under friendly and biblically conducive conditions.
So you maintain that democracy and republicanism will encourage biblically conducive conditions? I don't see it, not here and now, nor in the history of said government. God said he made Kings and Emperors to do his will... nowhere did he claim authorship of republics. If democracy is a valid form of government should the peoples' voice have superseded that of Moses when they sought to worship a golden calf? Beware of relying on a majority to justify yourself, for many will try to enter through the wide gate that leadeth to destruction.
Democracy is based on the pagan principle that might makes right. Since ultimate power always resided amung the masses, for they can as a group always refuse to obey, or worse, it is assumed that they are also right. Thus legitimacy is based on man not God. And the words of St Paul are forgotten, "For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil."
The founding fathers knew that democracy is dangerious tho they did not really understand why, and to this end they set up multiple "checks and balances." A stopgap for a problem they could not solve, the work of man (and pagan man at that), and thus bound for ultimate destruction.
Education Bump!
He proclaimed that they rule by His will, even those who were seemingly His enemies such as Nebuchadnezzar. And saints Peter and Paul affirm this.
Look at the power our founders gave to Christians to influence our world through our state and US Constitutions.
That "Power's" authority is legitimised by the will of the people. I for one will not put my faith or trust in a majority of the sons of man.
How many times have you visited your legislators? Would they know you by sight? Have you shared God's principles with them?
They likely wouldn't know me, but my mother was a lobbyist at the state legislature. Years wasted pushing and fighting against a bunch of jackoffs who wouldn't know reality if it raped them repeatedly in a dark alley; only to have to do it all over again with each new legislator who thought he was doing something that had not been done before. For a good two years I hardly even saw my mom save for when we went with her to Lansing. Any way it was an educational time for me you might say.
The first treaty was with Morocco in 1786, negotiated by Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin. It was written in Arabic with an English translation. The treaty language assumes that the world was divided between Christians and Moors (Moslems), e.g. "If we shall be at war with any Christian Power ... .", "... no Vessel whatever belonging either to Moorish or Christian Powers with whom the United States may be at War ... .", "...be their enemies Moors or Christians." These along with numerous references to God, e.g., "In the name of Almighty God,", "... trusting in God ...", "Grace to the only God", "...the servant of God ...", "... whom God preserve ...". are the only references to religion in this treaty of Peace and Friendship.
The next was the Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers in 1795,written in Turkish. The only reference to religion was in Article 17 which gave the Consul of the United States "... Liberty to Exercise his Religion in his own House [and] all Slaves of the Same Religion shall not be impeded in going to Said Consul's house at hours of prayer... ." The Consul's house was to function in lieu of a Christian church.
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation with Tunis in 1797 was in Turkish with a French translation. It begins "God is infinite.", and refers to the Ottoman Emperor "whose realm may God prosper", and to the President of the United States "... the most distinguished among those who profess the religion of the Messiah, ...." Other than a reference to "the Christian year", there is no further mention of religion.
The Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli was signed in 1796 in Arabic, and was later translated into English by Joel Barlow, United States Consul General at Algiers. Except for the typical phrases "Praise be to God" and "whom God Exalt", there is no reference to religion other than the aforesaid remarkable Article 11, which reads,
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, — and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan (sic) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
The treaty, with this language, was submitted to the Senate by President Adams, and was ratified. Thus, opponents of the 'Christian nation' concept point to this seemingly official repudiation of the very idea. Yet the language is less a repudiation of the role of Christianity in the nation's heritage than a reminder that there was no national established church in the United States as there was in the European states with which Tripoli had previously dealt. This provided reassurance to the Moslem Bey and his religious establishment that religion, in of itself, would not be a basis of hostility between the two nations. None of the other similar treaties with the Barbary states, before or after this treaty, including the replacement treaties signed in 1804 after the Barbary Wars, have any language remotely similar.
And there is a deeper mystery: As noted in a footnote at page 1070 of the authoritative treatise by Bevans, Treaties and other International Agreements of the United States of America, citing treaty scholar Hunter Miller.
"While the Barlow translation quoted above has been printed in all official and unofficial treaty collections since 1797, most extraordinary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article 11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase 'the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.' does not exist at all. There is no Article 11. The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point" (Emphasis added)
In sum, the phrase was no doubt an invention of Mr. Barlow, who inserted it on his own for his own, unknown, purposes. It was duly ratified without question by the United States Senate, which would no doubt be hesitant to object to any phraseology which was represented as desired by the Bey of Tripoli, with whom the United States wanted peaceful relations. It remains a mystery. - LINK
Article. VII.
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,
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