A constitution will die if it does not fulfill the purpose for which it was enacted. Not being a living thing, its death takes the form of being ignored, trivialized, or corrupted. The purpose of any constitution is to reflect a set of fundamental principles by which to govern rational and social beings, that is, people. A constitution in a free society is a blueprint for constructing a government fitted to the people’s temper of mind, affections, or passions which I shall call the nation’s central cultural vision or collective worldview. Thus, we have three elements: the people, their central cultural vision, and their constitutional blueprint.

If a constitution is not functioning as intended, one of three things has happened or is happening. First, the constitution as drawn did not reflect the fundamental principles of the people. Second, the fundamental principles of that people changed over a period of time and now stand in contradiction to the principles upon which the constitutional blueprint was originally drawn. Third, the leaders of a society through craftiness and corruption have undermined the intent of the constitution in a manner contrary to the central cultural vision of the people.

The power of the American Constitution to provide prescriptive rules, principles, and ordinances for the American people is waning. Something is amiss, and to determine which of the above reasons is the source of the decline, we must examine our history.

The central cultural vision held by the colonists down through the Founding era was the basis for the set of blueprints for building the American form and practice of government, our national house so to speak. Those blueprints had been drawn largely from the Judeo-Christian tradition and its reliance on a transcendent God, His eternal truths, and His revelation to the Hebrews and first century Christians. To these central elements were added the prescriptions of history, custom, convention, and tradition—in essence, our patrimony. After a number of years certain wings of the house were demolished (e.g., slavery) and rebuilt to better adhere to those original blueprints.

Most of the governance of the house in the intervening years since its construction dealt with routine maintenance, interior decorations, and arrangement of furniture within. But the house was of sound construction, and apart from occasional errors in modification which were readily corrected, the structure served its inhabitants well. The house was large and had many rooms, and many were welcomed to live therein, even those that did not like the architecture and the central vision of its culture—the over-arching banner of the Judeo-Christian worldview.

However, the Founders knew of the fallen nature of man and foresaw a time when men would attempt to change that which they had built on timeless truths. In their great wisdom, the Founders believed they should insure what they had built would not be changed capriciously by its inhabitants. So they drew the Constitutional blueprint to limit those changes so the house would continue to function within the time-tested guidelines, or as Thomas Jefferson said, to “…bind him down with the chains of the Constitution.”

True to the Founders’ prediction, several groups believed that the house should not be just maintained or periodically redecorated but be reconstructed in its entirety. They wished to tear down the structure and build a new house using a set of old blueprints based on the tenets of humanism (which the Founders had judged to be fundamentally flawed and structurally unsound).

For the humanists, the center of the cultural vision would have to be shifted, and the old overarching banner of the Judeo-Christian worldview would have to go. Their demolition efforts began in earnest in the nineteenth century and progressed rapidly throughout the twentieth century. The structural supports of the old house were identified as the first to be demolished—belief in a transcendent God, hierarchy, moral truths, right and wrong, the fallen nature of man, and the sanctity of life to name just a few.

However, the chains of the Founders’ Constitution slowed the humanists’ progress. So they took the Founders’ words and invented new definitions and meanings to attach to those words. Once the new meanings were defined, taught in our schools, and embedded in our media-saturated consciousness, the humanists insisted that the old Constitution was outdated and must be modified and modernized to fit the new progressive understanding of the world and its problems. The old structure still stands, but for how long we do not know. Its future depends on its inhabitants. In spite of humanist assaults, the great majority of the inhabitants still like the original plans but seem to not know how (or care enough to rise from their lethargy) to stop the demolition and rebuild the house as it once was.

Our analysis leads us to conclude that the decline of the American Constitution is primarily due to the third reason listed above—the leaders of the institutions of American life through craftiness or corruption over several decades have undermined the Constitution’s original intent which they now deem to be contrary to the central cultural vision of the people. But, there is also collateral damage from the humanist assault. Because of the unrelenting assault on the biblical worldview for three generations and a lack of truthful teaching in our schools about our Founding, America is seeing a shift by a growing segment of its citizens to a humanistic worldview devoid of belief in a transcendent God, objective truth, and the fallen nature of man. The consequences of such a shift in the American vision were foreseen by our Founding fathers.

“The only foundation for…a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.” [Benjamin Rush – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, attendee at the Continental Congress, physician and first Surgeon General]

“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 – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, lawyer, member of the Continental Congress and first U.S. Senate]

“We have no government armed in power capable of contending in 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.” [John Adams – One of the drafters and a signor of the Declaration of Independence, 2nd President of the United States]

We have only to read the words of the Founders to understand why the power of the American Constitution to provide prescriptive rules, principles, and ordinances for the American people is waning. In summary, our Constitution won’t save America if it’s citizens abandon virtue, morality, and religion. Such abandonment leaves the Constitution powerless to guide the nation as it enters the turbulent waters of humanistic moral relativism. And the ultimate consequence is a loss of liberty.

Larry G. Johnson
Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 401-404.

Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral & Philosophical, (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 93. Online source: http://fromthisconservativesviewpoint.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-only-foundation-for-republic.html (accessed May 9, 2013)

“Letter of Charles Carroll to James McHenry,” dated November 4, 1800. Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907, 475.
Online source: Quoted by Dave Miller, Ph.D., Apologetics Press http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=7&article=1508 (accessed May 9, 2013)

John Adams, “Letter to Zabdiel Adams, Philadelphia, 21 June 1776,” in The Works of John Adams – Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1854). Online Source: http://historicwords.com/american-history/john-adams/ (accessed May 9, 2013)

Pliable like Play-Doh®? Elasticized? Stretchable? No, liberals prefer to use the term, “Living Constitution.” Irrespective of the singular success of the American Constitution in the history of the world and in spite of the intent of the Founders when writing the Constitution, the popular liberal mantra for most of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century is that the Constitution is a “living document” that must be modified or bent to address the modern age and problems never foreseen by the Founders. By living document, the Constitutional liberals believe that its meaning and intent should be an instrument for enlightened social change to meet the needs of the hour.

Now most liberals have difficulty understanding the difference between life and non-life. For the liberal, an unborn baby is merely a “fetus” or “potentiality for life.” Yet, for the inanimate paper and ink document we call the Constitution, the liberals now wish to infuse it with life from which we are to infer that it must continually grow and change. What they mean is that it ought to be elastic or malleable but prefer the euphemistic “living Constitution” which sounds ever so much more dignified, even sacred.

In an April 23rd press conference, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wholeheartedly agreed with the concept of a living Constitution. Speaking of the loss of privacy through the use of an extensive surveillance camera system in New York City and the possible use of drones fitted with cameras, Bloomberg said:

The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry…But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

Now Mayor Bloomberg may have skipped his Constitutional government class the day when Article V was taught. If he had been there he would have learned that Article V outlines the procedures to amend the Constitution. Amendments may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States). But Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t want to mess with that long and laborious process. Let’s just interpret the Constitution the way we want. Times are ‘a changing” and problems are pressing. Furthermore, liberals know what’s best even if the people don’t. That’s because “We live in a complex world where you are going to have to…”

We do agree that judicial interpretation of laws and the Constitution is the courts’ proper role. However, because of decades of significant judicial activism by liberal judges usurping the role of the legislature, thoughtful judicial interpretation of the law is thrown aside in favor of passion and expediency that are employed to make law. Thus, human nature, through its passions, appetites, and desires of the moment, is released from the prescriptions of history, custom, convention, and tradition.

However, this was not the intent of the Founders. Sherwood Eddy wrote that Jefferson “…stood for a strict interpretation of the conservative Constitution to prevent ever-threatened encroachments upon the rights of the people, the legislature, and the states.” Russell Kirk confirms Eddy’s view of Jefferson’s opinion of the Constitution, “Thomas Jefferson, rationalist though he was, declared that in matters of political power, one must not trust the alleged goodness of man, but (in Jefferson’s words) ‘bind him down with the chains of the Constitution’.”

We have established that the Founders preferred a strict interpretation of the Constitution and made it difficult to change based on the whims of the moment. Why did the Founders opt for a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and why do liberals so emphatically disagree?

Jefferson’s remark regarding the Constitution gives us a hint. Ultimately, the disagreement stems from the differences in understanding of the fundamental nature of man. The Founders understood the truth of the fallen, corrupt nature of man and designed the Constitution with separation of powers and other devices to control or mitigate that corrupt nature. The liberals believe that man is inherently good, not fallen and in need of redemption. They also believe man is perfectible, a process whereby he will become progressively better and better. Therefore, as man is perfected and society changes over time, we must update our Constitution accordingly.

As citizens turn from the Christian worldview as held by the Founders, they are unable to guide themselves internally with regard to ethical and moral issues and slide into moral relativism in which there is no right or wrong. Benjamin Franklin recognized the folly of this course when he said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Perhaps Major Bloomberg sees Americans as no longer being virtuous and capable of guiding themselves internally and therefore are in need of more masters and more laws to address the failings of their human nature.

Mayor Bloomberg and the liberals of this world do not stop with diminishing your privacy. Ever the good liberal, Bloomberg is famous for a number of other restrictions of freedom we had back in the “olden days.” Regarding the loss of freedom, his intent could not be clearer when he said, “I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom.” This statement was in response to a question about his fight to control sugary drink portion sizes in New York City and his intentions to go forth in spite of the court’s rejection of his plan. In other words, when Joe Citizen can no longer make good decisions, the Mayor and his fellow elites will make them for him.

The modern humanist-liberal-progressive imbues (reads into or interprets) the Constitution with new rights, laws, and doctrines as well as restricting those old-fashioned rights the Founders thought important so that the modernists can conform man and society to the changes required by a modern world. Thereafter, modernists assure us that the greatest good for the greatest number will be dispensed, all under wisdom of the elites of a socialistic system and blessed by a Play-Doh® Constitution.

However, the modernists travel the same slippery path as those of the French Revolution when they base their societal changes on the ethereal, imaginary, or invented “rights of man” as well as imposing more and more laws to address the failings of human nature. In spite of the French Revolution’s high-minded chorus of “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!”, the French reality was “monarchy, anarchy, dictatorship” all occurring in a little over a decade.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Cheryl K. Chumley, “N.Y. Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Constitution ‘must change’ to give government more power,” The Washington Times, April 23, 2013 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/23/ny-mayor-michael-bloomberg-constitution-must-chang/ (accessed April 27, 2013).

James E. Person, Jr., Russell Kirk, A Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind, (Latham, Maryland: Madison Books, 1999), p. 105, quoted by Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 136.

Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941), p. 124, quoted by Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods…, p. 136.

Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 29, quoted by Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods…, p. 136.

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 247.

Cheryl K. Chumley, “NYC Mayor Bloomberg: Government Has Right To ‘Infringe On Your Freedom’,” The Washington Times, March 25, 2013, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/25/nyc-mayor-bloomberg-government-has-right-infringe-/ (accessed April 27, 2013).