U.S. should use philosophy of government in Declaration

Most American citizens would agree that the moral climate in the United States has dramatically deteriorated since 1960. The U.S. government is predicated upon two documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Those documents create our absolute foundation consisting of moral laws and truths that the officeholders are required under their oath to recognize and honor. The country's name, “ United States of America ,” was first used in the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence contains the foundational Rule of Law, synonymous with “Philosophy of Government,” upon which the legal fabric of this nation was constructed and was incorporated into the Constitution and its subsequent amendments.

There is a fundamental distinction between this nation's legal philosophy of government and religion.

Consequently a “philosophy of government” is built upon a foundation that establishes the source of rights, the purpose of and restraints on government, the source of power of government, and the source of a standard of morality to be incorporated into its legal system.

Quoting James Madison from the Virginia Constitution, “Religion is defined as the manner of discharging our duty to our Creator, and is to be specifically distinguished from a philosophy of government.”

The pronouncement of the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. Beason (1890) resonates the distinction between religion and the Rule of Law that is the in the Declaration.

“The term religion has reference to one's views of his relations to his Creator, and the obligation they impose of reverence for his being and character, and of obedience to his will.” Davis v. Beason .

Justice Douglas in McGowan v. State of Maryland , (1961): “The institutions of our society are founded on the belief that there is an authority higher than the authority of the State; that there is a moral law which the State is powerless to alter … and the body of the Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights enshrined those principles.”
John Quincy Adams stated on April 30, 1839:

“The Declaration was America 's charter … the act [Constitution] … forming with it one entire system of national government. … All this is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, which of course presuppose the existence of a God, …. that was the platform upon which the Constitution of United States had been erected … consisted in its conformity to the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence ….” 

John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said, “Natural law was given by the Sovereign of the universe to all mankind, nature is a rule of conduct … established by the Creator … denominated in Scripture. …”

President Truman stated after World War II that our greatness was because of our legal system:

“The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul . I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!”

The Congressional Record on the adoption of the 1954 amendment to the Pledge of Allegiance adding the words under God: “This is not an act establishing a religion … a distinction must be made between the existence of a religion as an institution and the belief in the sovereignty of God. The phrase under God recognizes only the guidance of God in our national affairs.”

Speaking before the Massachusetts Legislature in 1791, Chandler Robbins declared:

“The Supreme Governor of the World rewards or punishes nations and civil communities only in this life…. Political bodies are but the creatures of time. They have no existence as such but in the present State; consequently, are incapable of punishments or rewards in a future. We can conceive no way in which the Divine Being shall therefore manifest the purity of His nature.     ... toward such societies but by rewarding or punishing them here, according to their public conduct.”

President George Washington warned this nation in his Inaugural Address of that principle: “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven Itself has ordained.”
What are we educating the minds of our young people with and where are we going as a nation?

It is time that we returned to the philosophy of government established in our Declaration of Independence or reap the consequences of “man-made reason” exercised without that foundation. The following is an illustration of man-made reason.

Hitler's objective was to capture the minds of the young people of Germany . His words, which are hung on a wall in Auschwitz, one of the barbaric torture chambers in Germany during the Nazi reign, reminds the visitor of the hell unleashed on the world when Germany's goal was realized:

“I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality. … We will train young people before whom the world will tremble; I want young people capable of violence — imperious, relentless and cruel.”

Bernard Reese of the law firm Reese & Reese is a trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society.