5000 Year Leap (12 page)

   The Founders considered the whole foundation of a just society to be structured on the basis of God's revealed law. These laws constituted a moral code clearly distinguishing right from wrong. This concept was not new with the Founders. This was the entire foundation of all religious cultures world-wide. It was particularly emphasized in the Judeo-Christian structure of the English law. No authority on the subject was more widely read than William Blackstone (1723-1780). He established the classes for the first law school at Oxford in 1753. His lectures on the English law were published in 1765 and were as widely read in America as they were in England.

   In his
Commentaries on the Laws of England
, Blackstone propounded the generally accepted idea that "when the Supreme Being formed the universe" he organized it and then "impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be."
104

   He then went on to say that the will of God which is expressed in the orderly arrangement of the universe is called "the law of nature," and that there are laws for "human" nature just as surely as they exist for the rest of the universe.
105
He said the laws for human nature had been revealed by God, whereas the laws of the universe (natural law) must be learned through scientific investigation.
106
Blackstone stated that "upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human lives...."
107

   As we shall see later, the attitude of the Founders toward God's law (both natural and revealed) gave early Americans a very high regard for the "law" as a social institution. They respected the sanctity of the law in the same way that it was honored among the Anglo-Saxons and by ancient Israel.

   It is also important to note that the Founders did not look upon God as some mysterious teleological force operating automatically and indifferently in nature (as modern Deists claim), but they believed in a Creator who is both intelligent and benevolent and therefore anxious and able to respond to people's petitions when they are deserving of needed blessings and engaged in a good cause. Days of fasting and prayer were commonplace in early America. Most of the Founders continually petitioned God in fervent prayers, both public and private, and looked upon his divine intervention in their daily lives as a singular blessing. They were continually expressing gratitude to God as the nation survived one major crisis after another.

   George Washington was typical of the Founders in this respect: Charles Bracelen Flood discovered in his research that during the Revolutionary War there were at least sixty-seven desperate moments when Washington acknowledged that he would have suffered disaster had not the hand of God intervened in behalf of the struggle for independence.
108

   After being elected President, Washington stressed these sentiments in his first inaugural address when he said:

   "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."
109

   Madison was equally emphatic on this point when he contemplated the work of the Constitutional Convention and saw the guiding influence of God just as Washington had seen it on the battlefield. Said he:

   "The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted ... with an unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."
110

   From all of this it will be seen that the Founders were not indulging in any idle gesture when they adopted the motto, "In God we trust." Neither was it a matter of superfluous formality when they required that all witnesses who testify in the courts or before Congressional hearings must take an oath and swear or affirm before God that they will tel] the truth. As Washington pointed out in his Farewell Address: "Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?"
111
In fact, it was not at all uncommon, as Alexis de Tocqueville discovered, to look with the greatest precaution upon an individual who had no religious convictions. He wrote:

   "While I was in America, a witness who happened to be called at the Sessions of the county of Chester (state of New York) declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit the evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all the confidence of the court in what he was about to say."
112

   In a note de Tocqueville added:

   The New York
Spectator
of August 23, 1831, related the fact in the following terms: "... The presiding judge remarked that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the sanction [in law, that which gives binding force] of all testimony in a court of justice; and that he knew of no case in a Christian country where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief."
113

   This now brings us to the next important principle enunciated by the Founders.

   The Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that some truths are self-evident, and one of these is the fact that all men are created equal.

   Yet everyone knows that no two human beings are exactly alike in any respect. They are different when they are born. They plainly exhibit different natural skills. They acquire different tastes. They develop along different lines. They vary in physical strength, mental capacity, emotional stability, inherited social status, in their opportunities for self-fulfillment, and in scores of other ways. Then how can they be equal?

   The answer is, they can't, except in three ways. They can only be
treated
as equals in the sight of God, in the sight of the law, and in the protection of their rights. In these three ways all men are created equal. It is the task of society, as it is with God, to accept people in all their vast array of individual differences, but treat them as equals when it comes to their role as human beings. As members of society, all persons should have their equality guaranteed in two areas. Constitutional writer Clarence Carson describes them:

   "First, there is
equality before the law
. This means that every man's case is tried by the same law governing any particular case. Practically, it means that there are no different laws for different classes and orders of men [as there were in ancient times]. The definition of premeditated murder is the same for the millionaire as for the tramp. A corollary of this is that no classes are created or recognized by law.

   "Second, the Declaration refers to an
equality of rights
.... Each man is equally entitled to his life with every other man; each man has an equal title to God-given liberties along with every other."
114

   John Adams was in France when Jean Jacques Rousseau was teaching that all men were designed to be equal in
every
way. Adams wrote:

   "That all men are born to equal rights is true. Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has.... But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is as gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people, as ever was practiced by monks, by Druids, by Brahmins, by priests of the immortal Lama, or by the self-styled philosophers of the French Revolution."
115

   The goal of society is to provide "equal justice," which means protecting the rights of the people equally:

   At the bar of justice, to secure their rights.

   At the ballot box, to vote for the candidate of their choice. At the public school, to obtain their education.

   At the employment office, to compete for a job,

   At the real estate agency, to purchase or rent a home.

   At the pulpit, to enjoy freedom of religion.

   At the podium, to enjoy freedom of speech.

   At the microphone or before the TV camera, to present views on the issues of the day.

   At the meeting hall, to peaceably assemble.

   At the print shop, to enjoy freedom of the press.

   At the store, to buy the essentials or desirable things of life.

   At the bank, to save and prosper.

   At the tax collector's office, to pay no more than their fair share.

   At the probate court, to pass on to their heirs the fruits of life's labors.

   Admittedly, equal rights have not been completely established in all of these areas, but the Founders struck a course which has thus far provided a better balance in administering the equality of rights than has occurred at any time in history. The breakdown occurs in connection with the treatment of minorities.

   Minorities in any country consider themselves "outsiders" who want to become "insiders," As long as they are treated as outsiders they do not feel equal. The interesting part of it is that
every
ethnic group in the American society was once a minority. We are a nation of minorities!

   There is no spot on the planet earth where so many different ethnic groups have been poured into the same milieu as in the United States. It was appropriate that America should be called the melting pot of the world.

   Two things are especially notable about this. First of all, it is remarkable that the Founders were able to establish a society of freedom and opportunity which would attract so many millions of immigrants. Secondly, it is even more remarkable that within two or three generations nearly all of these millions of immigrants became first-class citizens.

   As we noted above, newcomers to any nation are not considered first-class citizens immediately. Human nature does not allow it. In some countries "outsiders" are still treated with hostility after they have resided in those countries for three or four hundred years. In the United States, immigrants or outsiders can become insiders much more rapidly. Nevertheless, the transition is painful.

   Being a minority, even in the United States, is painful because acceptance depends on "crossing the culture gap." This means learning the English language -- with an American dialect more or less; attaining the general norm of education -- which in America is fairly high; becoming economically independent -- which often means getting out of the ghetto; and becoming recognized as a social asset to the community -- which always takes time. Usually it requires far more time than the minority group can patiently endure.

   But the impatience of a minority can be an advantage. It expedites their assimilation by motivating greater effort to gain acceptance. In the United States, as a result, many members of a minority group are assimilated in a single generation. Others must wait until the second generation, and a few are still struggling in the third. But these are the exceptions. They can't quite get across the culture gap. It is a fact of life in America, as everywhere else, that no ethnic group are going to be entirely comfortable or treated completely as equals in an adopted society until they have crossed the culture gap.

   As mentioned above, there is not a single ethnic group in the United States but what has been treated at one time or another as a minority, or less than first-class citizens.

   The story of minorities in the United States is a fascinating tale. Beginning with the French in the 1500's and the English in the 1600's (and the Dutch, Germans, Swedes, Scots, and Irish in between), it was one grand conglomerate of tension, discrimination, malice, and sometimes outright persecution. But the miracle of it all is the fact that they fought side by side for freedom in the Revolutionary War, and all of them could boast of descendants in the White House or the Congress as the years passed by. So all of this became America -- a nation of minorities.