“The mass
of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a
favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by
the grace of God.”—Thomas Jefferson
What does the
Fourth of July mean to modern-day Americans?
Is it merely
an occasion for distracting ourselves from the drudgery of our daily
lives with the panacea of patriotic parades, dazzling fireworks,
backyard barbecues and blockbuster sales? If that is all this
Independence Day stands for, then we have broken faith with those
for whom this anniversary meant so much.
Clearly, the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, the birthday of our
independence and political freedom, marked a new beginning for our
nation. It signaled a shift in the balance of power from one in
which the people served an elite ruling class to one in which
government was instituted to serve the people. In this way, the
government’s role would not be to create or define the people’s
inherent rights but rather to guarantee their protection.
As the
Declaration states, “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.”
The
Declaration embodied all the passion, outrage and noble ideals of
the day, and it could easily have ended there. But the Founders
understood that in order for the newly born nation to survive, it
would need more than revolutionary sentiment. It would need a
government that existed to serve the people, not itself, and a
contract to guarantee basic liberties and bind the union together.
Thus was the
U.S. Constitution born in the summer of 1787. It sprang forth out of
the experiences of a revolutionary generation, still wary of the
strong arm of government. And from that wariness came the Bill of
Rights. Indeed, the first ten amendments to our Constitution are
intended as a blueprint to keep the government in its place and off
our backs.
Even so, it
would take another four years before a consensus could be reached on
adding a Bill of Rights, which would guarantee what James Madison,
the father of the Constitution, called “the great rights of
mankind.”
While the
Founders believed deeply in these “great rights” and shared a common
distrust of government, the question of whether to include a Bill of
Rights became a raging debate. Some, like Alexander Hamilton,
believed that the rights of the people were already inherently
protected and feared that a Bill of Rights might later be
interpreted as a list of the only rights belonging to the people.
Others,
however, like Thomas Jefferson, insisted that the Constitution did
not go far enough in protecting basic liberties. They argued that
unless specific rights were guaranteed under the Constitution, the
government could become despotic and violate basic freedoms.
Ultimately, the fear of government triumphed, and on December 15,
1791, the Bill of Rights became a vital part of our Constitution.
Unfortunately,
the colonists had come to value the rights laid out in the first ten
amendments the hard way. Punished for speaking out against the King,
they learned to value their freedom of speech and press. Denied the
right to gather in protest and defend themselves, they learned to
value the right to freely assemble and bear arms. Forced to endure
“warrantless” searches in which British customs officials armed with
“writs of assistance” would enter and ransack people’s homes without
cause for suspicion, they became fiercely protective of their
privacy. Thus, the document—and the rights—that we often take for
granted today was forged in response to Great Britain’s oppressive
regime.
Regrettably,
the lessons learned at the hands of the British crown have been
relegated to school history books. Few Americans know their rights.
Even fewer have read the Constitution. More than 200 years later, as
our government pursues its so-called war on terrorism, many
Americans have come to believe that security is more important than
freedom. But if we do not tread more carefully, we may soon forfeit
all that the Founders bequeathed us.
Freedom is an inherent right, but
there is also a responsibility—even a duty—to maintain it. And
although the scent of gunpowder that permeated the air during the
tumultuous days of the American Revolution has long since faded, the
struggle to safeguard our freedoms is far from over.
Constitutional attorney and
author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford
Institute. He can be contacted at
johnw@rutherford.org.
Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at
www.rutherford.org.
