| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
10 May 2004 03:00:00 PM |
| Object: |
DOI NOT LAW |
PART V
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NOR IS THE DOI AS A WHOLE A PREAMBLE TO THE
CONSTITUTION AS SOME HAVE CLAIMED
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OBJECTIONS ADMITTING THE PRINCIPLE INVOLVED, BUT URGED AGAINST
THE EXPEDIENCY OF THE MOVEMENT.
Objection 1. The Constitution already acknowledges God.
The objector says, substantially: "The proposed amendment is
just and proper, but it is unnecessary. God and Christianity are now
acknowledged in the fundamental law of the nation." And what is the proof
of such acknowledgment? The word oath, a passing reference to the Christian
Sabbath in the clause, "Sundays excepted," making th'~ Sabbath a dies non
in the reckoning of days during which the Resident may retain a bill for
approval, the mention of the common law, and the formula of date. These are
all. They hardly require notice. It may be said in brief, however, that the
mention of the Sabbath is simply an incidental allusion, an evidence,
indeed, that there was a Sabbath known; but it is no acknowledgment of the
obligation of the Sabbath. The dating again is no part of the instrument.
It merely marks the time. And more than all else, the name of God was
excluded from the form of the President's oath, incorporated in the
Constitution. Can these features of the Constitution, with a mention of the
common law, be regarded as an adequate acknowledgment of the nation's
subjection to God and his government? It is now almost universally admitted
that they are not religious acknowledgments at all. So completely devoid is
our Constitution of any religious character that multitudes of both
infidels and Christians agree in stating that it is no more Christian than
Mohammedan. As Ex-President Woolsey declared in his paper read before the
Evangelical Alliance, it needs no change to adapt it to a Mohammedan
nation. Admiring, as we do, the many exellencies of our Constitution, we
are constrained to admit this sad defect. If it is still claimed that an
acknowledgment of God and Chris-
3
tianity is in the Constitution, it must also be admitted that such an
acknowledgment, now dimly there at best, should be made so clear and
explicit that no room may be left for doubt. What is there rightfully ought
to be there indisputably.*
_______________________
* For another remark In this connectian, see last page [the following is
the last page referenced]
Since the foregoing pages were stereoyped the First Objection
has been brought to our notice in another form by an eminent citizen of New
England. He says "The Declaration of Independence is really the, full
Preamble of the Constitution. It sets forth sentiments and principles; the
Constitution follows it with rules and regulations. That document, at the
outset, declares it to be a self-evident truth that all men are created
equal and endouved by their Creator with all their rights; and closes with
an appeal 'to the Supreme Judge of the World.'"
We are fully sensible of the value of these expressions in the
Declaration. They prove that the nation then owned her allegiance to God.
They vindicate her right, now strenuously denied, to acknoxvledge God in
public documents. They show that what we propose is consistent with the
spirit and exantple of our fathers, in the noblest passages of our history.
But we must clearly distinguish betwcen these two documents. The
Declaration is not part of the written Constitution. Its value is
historical rather than legal. It is a deed of the nation which has passed
into history; the Constitution, as a law, is an ever-present act of the
nation's will.. The argument which is drawn from the silence of the
Constitution concerning God and Religiou against all Christian features of
our government as contrary to " our political covenant," nut covered by the
bond, cannot be adequately met by an appeal in the Declaration of 1776.
SOURCE: The Christian Statesman Tracts No. 6, ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS to the
RELIGIOUS AMENDMENT of the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. BY THE REV. D.
M'ALLISTER. (1874}
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Concluding Remarks: The Declaration in Modern Context
What place does the Declaration of independence have in modern
political discourse? Is it a basis for the formulation of law and public
policy? Are its principles still binding? Are its themes preserved in the
Constitution? Does it aid in interpreting the religion clauses? What does
it contribute to the debate over original intent?
The first thing that can clearly be stated about the Declaration is
that it is not law. That is, none of its provisions can be law unless
enacted into law. The Declaration is inspiring, but its most inspirational
parts today remain in the realm of politics, not law. It mostly represents
a ringing statement of political philosophy from a past age. The
Declaration did not purport to create a new government or to enact any new
laws. The bulk of it is exactly what it claimed to be: an announcement to
the world of American reasons for renouncing its ties to Great Britain. New
governments and new laws were created later-in state constitutions and the
Articles of Confederation.
The present Constitution depends on the Declaration's theory that
the people are empowered to alter their form of government. The
Constitution was not ratified under the procedures for amending the
Articles of Confederation but instead by a new and independent act of the
American people. The people today could again abandon their Constitution
and adopt an entirely new one. They need not use the Constitution's
amendment procedures unless they wish to leave the present Constitution in
effect."
Constitutional interpretation is aided little by the Declaration.
The thirteen years between the adoption of the Declaration and the
ratification of the Constitution was a period of intense political change.
The Declaration's loose, free-wheeling philosophy of the people's "rights,"
preserved to a large degree in the Articles of Confederation, gradually
gave way to the Constitution's more structured framework that was necessary
to support a strong national government. if today we find tensions between
the Declaration and the Constitution, it is mostly because new views had
come to prevail. Throughout the debates of the Convention, there was
virtually no discussion of Nature's God, natural rights, or consent of the
governed. As Roger Sherman understood it, the question was "not what rights
naturally belong to man, but how they may be most equally and effectually
guarded in society." The Declaration cannot change the meaning of the
Constitution; at most it can make proposed interpretations seem more or
less plausible."
The Declaration might be helpful in construing the Ninth Amendment,
which provides, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Though it is largely ignored in modern constitutional adjudication, this
clause writes the Declaration's philosophy of unalienable natural law
rights into positive law. The Declaration is too broadly written, however,
to be of much help in defining the content of these unenumerated rights.
SOURCE Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, Contributions to
original Intent. Derek H. Davis. Oxford University Press, (2000) pp 112-113
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