Calvin Coolidge and the Declaration of Independence

As I am sitting at my desk at work, eating lunch, I came across an article on the internet (specifically on Breitbart.com) about a speech that President Calvin Coolidge gave regarding the United States and the Declaration of Independence.  I have never come across this speech before, but that is understandable, considering President Coolidge is not one of our better-known Presidents.

Anyway, in this speech, President Coolidge talks about the Declaration as not only a founding document, but also as a spiritual document.  Could you imagine if any politician would give this speech today, much less the President of the United States?  (Well, we know that the current President of the USA would never give a speech like this, but you know what I mean.)

President Coolidge delivered this speech on July 5, 1926 (88 years ago today).  Once cannot help but scratch their head and wonder what has happened to this country from the time this speech was delivered until today.

Here is the excerpted speech (copied from Breitbart.com).

"We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in acknowledgement of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.



It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound.


We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.


The Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.


It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance.


No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.


This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.


In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish.


Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments.The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.


Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.


There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes.


No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first."

Now, don't you think they ought to teach stuff like this in our public schools today?  Maybe, if they did, the future of this country would look much brighter than it does right now.

Do we need another Declaration of Independence?

For some reason, I pulled out a copy of the Declaration of Independence a couple of weeks ago and read it. Now, I am sure that I have read through it before, but I do not think that I paid attention to it like I did this time. I tried to absorb the words, to get an understanding of the situation that the Founding Fathers were confronted with. I would like to share some of my thoughts with you.

One of the first things that caught my eye is that our inalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are not guaranteed happiness, only the freedom to pursue it. I do not see health care as a right, a new car as a right, a house as a right. We have the freedom to pursue those things, ot the right to own them.

The following text I find interesting: "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

I put the emphasis to the above sections. If these sections do not speak about today's government, then I do not know what does.

The writers of the Declaration then go on to list the many grievances that they had against the King of England, several of which apply to today's national leaders. Among them are:

• "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."
• "For imposing taxes on us without our consent."
• "For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments."

The signers then go on to declare their independence from Great Britain due to these grievances. They did not do so flippantly. They did this with great solemnity. They then conclude the Declaration with this phrase: "...with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Many of the men who signed this document eventually went on to fight for America's independence. Some of them lost their property and their wealth due to their stand. Some of them lost their lives in the Revolutionary War. These men took a stand, and our country is better for it today.

We do not face the same kind of persecution today. Thanks to our Constitution, we have the freedom to speak out when we believe the government is wrong. We can do this without fear of reprisal (for now). We can speak up without fear of being arrested. We do not have to go to war to fight for independence, because we already have it.

Since this is the case, then I only have one question to ask. Why are we so afraid to stand up for what we believe in? These men who signed the Declaration knew what was coming when they signed that Declaration. They know their lives were going to become more difficult. They know that they might lose everything they owned, possibly even their own lives. But they did it anyway.

We now have an opportunity for a revolution. No, not one that is fought with guns and swords. Rather, it is an ideological revolution, one for the hearts, minds, and values of the American people. It is time for us to stand up to our representatives, senators, and even the President to let them know the will of the people. If they do not listen, then we need to remove them. Even if they do listen, it may be time to remove them.

Our government is on that is "Of the people, By the people, For the people." It exists because of us, not in spite of us. It is time our government officials realized that.