The United States Constitution Day – September 17th
By Bob Shillingstad
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on to them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” – Ronald Reagan
Constitution day commemorates the formation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by thirty-nine brave men on September 17, 1787. These men met for the last time this day to sign the document they had created which is the birthday or our United States of America government. To prevent the abuses of power they felt subjected to under the British monarchy, the Founding Fathers framed the Constitution carefully, distributing power between three branches of government. The Constitution outlines the government’s powers, the limitations on those powers and the rights of citizens. It also outlines an amendment process for making changes in the future.
The influence of the Bible on the Constitution was profound but often not appreciated by secular historians and political theorists. Two decades ago, Constitutional scholars and political historians assembled 15,000 writings from the Founding Era (1760-1805). They counted 3154 citations in these writings, and found that the book most frequently cited in that literature was the Bible. The writers from the Foundering Era quoted from the Bible 34 percent of the time. Even more interesting was that about three-fourths of all references to the Bible came from reprinted sermons from that era. The Bible was quoted most often in the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention.
The Bible and biblical principles were important in the framing of the Constitution. In particular, the framers started with a biblical view of human nature. James Madison argued in Federalist #51 that government must be based upon a realistic view of human nature.
“But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
There is so much to learn about man and government and as we prepare to acknowledge Constitution Day here are some resources to gather beforehand. Aaron Ferguson has a marvelous new book called The Liberty Pyramid which delves into the reason the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is there to restrain government.
My wife and I have watch the video series “John Adams” multiple times and it is outstanding based on the fine biography by David McCullough. You can pick up the series on eBay for less than $12 and a great investment to watch with your family. Wallbuilders with David and Tim Barton is a great resource and they have published a new history called The American Story and will give you the “real” story from Columbus to current events. Most of our grandchildren are homeschooled and I taught history and government to them over Skype and used the textbooks from Bob Jones University and I would recommend those to any homeschool families.
With the unconstitutional actions by all levels of government and the indoctrination in our schools of CRT and other lies there is no more important time to ground ourselves in our history. As Ben Franklin reminds us, “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics…. derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.” The Constitution exists to protect rights not to undermine them.
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