Americans love liberty and equality. They especially do on the Fourth of July, when they are free to celebrate their nation’s birth with as much or as little pomp, circumstance, and good cheer as they desire. But for all their popularity, these American-forged twins appear in greater need of elucidation these days than perhaps any time in recent memory.
Liberty and equality are famously referenced in the Declaration of Independence — the document drafted by a young Thomas Jefferson, signed by 56 representatives from the various colonies, and formally published to the “powers of the earth” on July 4, 1776. But just precisely how to express, and how to assert, that liberty and equality in the new circumstances of a sovereign and independent nation pursuing the experiment of self-rule has proven to be America’s enduring challenge to the notion of just government.
The truths that each human being is created equal with respect to each other, that each possesses rights or powers as endemic to humanness as blood is to the heart, that those “inalienable” rights further dictate the terms of the best relationship between a formal government and the individual, might be “self-evident” as the signers of the Declaration believed, but they are hardly self-executing. After the physical fighting of the American Revolution was over, the Founding generation learned through the difficulty of a decade’s experience that establishing the meaning of genuine liberty and the obligations of equality through political institutions was the only way to entrench their military victory.
The Declaration of Independence eloquently laid out the guiding theory of government for the new nation. It established the principles, and gave the broad outline of the structure and purposes of government. It didn’t formulize the specific means or ways that the new government would fulfil those purposes, however. This is why American statesmen soon concentrated their efforts on finding a constitutional order that would secure the individual rights of citizens on the basis of consent of the governed. Our notions of liberty and equality are anchored in the Declaration, but they are given their practical grounding and unique American character by the Constitution. This is why our celebration of Independence Day every July should not preclude our celebration of Constitution Day every September.
Yet, as George Washington noted in his letter transmitting the proposed Constitution to the Confederation Congress, there can be tensions between freedom and equality and effective government (“Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. . . . It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved.”). But not one to lose sight of the broader point, Abraham Lincoln noted the essential complementarity of the two works of the Founding generation, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in coming closest to smoothing out that tension. His words are also an eloquent exposition and homage to the animating principles of this nation, and well worth being read on its birthday:
All this is not the result of accident. It has a philosophical cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of “Liberty to all” — the principle that clears the path for all — gives hope to all — and, by consequence, enterprize, and industry to all.
The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity. No oppressed, people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters.
The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, “fitly spoken” which has proved an “apple of gold” to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn, and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple — not the apple for the picture.
So let us act, that neither picture, or apple shall ever be blurred, or bruised or broken.
from AEI » Latest Content http://ift.tt/1CQr3Pn
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