In the four-hundred year history of this country, nothing illustrates better than the Civil War that just citizens eventually control civic governance. Yet, “we, the people” shun the civic goals in the preamble and look for personal gods to provide governance and are willing to accept the governance of gods, just or not. The lessons of the Civil War are that 1) injustice against persons cannot persist; 2) no god substitutes for just citizens in the defense of justice; 3) woe comes to the perpetrators of injustice; and 4) prolonged injustice creates consequences that are difficult for just citizens to overcome. The Iraq invasion demonstrates that the lessons are yet unlearned.
The causes of the Civil War stem from millennia-old ethnic discrimination, ignorance, fear, pride in theism, and force among humans. These five great travesties resist the objective truth. The five travesties empower perpetrators to impose regressive reality. Thus, whereas one person can observe connectivity and resist enslavement, they might willingly enslave the other, ruining the fact that each could live in peace. The objective truth that peace is available is changed into the reality of war. Starting four-hundred years ago, white, Protestant Europeans, armed with guns, enslaved Africans. America has yet to turn the harm into good.
The United States of America suffered slavery and faces recovery
The perpetrators of the Atlantic Slave Trade, including England, started importing slaves to the American colonies in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century[1]. The entire period of that awful enterprise extended from about 1490 until 1820[2]. It is beyond the scope of this study to try to discover who is to blame, but apologies have come from European countries, America, and Africa[3]. During about three centuries, slavery and the slave trade were commonly taken for granted except by a minority of people.
By early eighteenth century, colonial American
abolitionists expressed themselves. In 1732, English humanitarian James
Oglethorpe obtained a royal charter for the Provence of Georgia, with slavery
banned.
The Protestant Scottish highlanders who settled
what is now Darien, Georgia added a moral anti-slavery argument, which was rare
at the time, in their 1739 "Petition of the Inhabitants of New
Inverness". By 1750 Georgia authorized slavery in the state because they
had been unable to secure enough indentured servants as laborers.[4]
In 1749, Anglican preacher George Whitefield [claimed] that the territory would never be prosperous unless farms were able to use slave labor[5]. Elihu Coleman of Nantucket, Massachusetts wrote against slavery in 1735[6]. Slavery had no legal standing in England. In 1772 Lord Mansfield decided a case:
The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is
incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by
positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased
from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore,
may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must
be discharged.[7]
Soon afterwards, in 1774 in Philadelphia, Thomas Paine wrote a strong plea
against slavery in the colonies; he covered all four points in his thesis.positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased
from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore,
may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must
be discharged.[7]
To Americans: That some desperate wretches should
be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is
rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the
savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every
principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.[8]
Two years later, 1776, Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of
Independence castigated the king’s imposition of slavery into the colonies, but
the committee authorized by the Continental Congress deleted the subject. Among
the claims against the king’s rule were, quoting Pauline Maier’s summary[9],
“‘all men are created equal’ and were ‘endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable Rights,’ for the protection of which the people had created
governments whose power came exclusively ‘from the Consent of the Governed.’“ These
statements were directed against the king’s claim to hereditary superiority and
right to rule; I think they claimed that the elite patriots in the thirteen states were equal to the kin; the statements do not address the equal
vulnerability [10]in
which each human is conceived and born[11].
The thirteen eastern seaboard states declared war for independence from England.rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the
savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every
principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.[8]
Eleven years later, in the Constitutional convention to establish civic justice within the country and recognition without, slavery was discussed. Delegates could not negotiate abolition, but scheduled ending the slave trade in twenty years from ratification. Abolition would be faced in the future. The document signed in 1787 was civic, with neither authorization of religion nor specification of its opposite, secularism. The preamble to the Constitution for the United States of America is a civic sentence, not a secular sentence. It accommodates people who are anti-religious, anti-faith and anti-doubt as well as the religious people. However, during the ratification debates, amendment by a bill of rights was promised. Ratification by the required nine states happened on June 21, 1788, and the First US Congress ratified the Bill of Rights in 1791, when there were fourteen states. The religious clauses of the First Amendment protect religion, an institution, rather than state the human duty to think.
A revisionist President
Abraham Lincoln, who claimed to defend the Constitution for the USA, in reality, trumped it by citing the Declaration of Independence, both before and throughout his presidency. On June 26, 1857, speaking for the newly formed Republican Party, against the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court of the USA, Lincoln opined, “[T]he Declaration of Independence includes ALL men, black as well as white.” He was thus revising the Declaration’s claim that kings are not superior to the elites in the thirteen states—“all men are created equal,” to contradict himself--Abraham Lincoln, as he considered neither blacks nor American Indians as equal to white men[12]. The 1787 Constitution for the USA held that blacks were property that counted as three fifths of a person. Instead of trumping the Constitution for the USA in 1857, Lincoln could have proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery. Thus, Lincoln could have both 1) exercised civic morality promised by the literal preamble and 2) protected the Constitution for the USA. No one knows if it would have cost him the 1861 presidency and/or saved him from assassination.
Precedent for trumping the Constitution for the USA occurred between its signing on September 17, 1787 and ratification of the Bill or Rights on December 15, 1791. During those four years, some American people cited the Declaration of Independence regarding “Consent of the Governed,” to defend their rights (without extending them to blacks). “John Bingham of Ohio, a principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868),” said that until the Bill of Rights, “Americans turned for a statement of their rights,” by citing the Declaration of Independence. However, since Lincoln’s revisionism, for many Americans, the Declaration of Independence has trumped the Constitution for the USA first to assert that this is not only a theist nation but a Christian nation (despite the deist language in the Declaration), to claim rights, and more recently to claim equal rights according to Christianity. Unfortunately, some citizens cite “all men are created equal” as their recollection of the preamble to the Constitution.
Some citizens don’t appreciate as crucial their contributions to fulfillment of “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble. "We the People," attests to total consensus to use the preamble to establish civic morality. However, a very small portion of inhabitants want to be of "A Civic People of the United States."
Lincoln added to his revisionism in the Gettysburg Address, which references 1776 as the date “our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation.” In 1776, the Confederation of States, not a nation, declared liberty from England. In 1781, England’s Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, VA, to both French forces, whose leaders Rochambeau and De Grasse had planned the strategy. Cornwallis also surrendered to the continental army under General George Washington. In 1783, appropriately in Paris, England recognized the states as free and independent. (Unfortunately, seventy-seven years later, some states would contradict their own perpetual commitments by acting under the king of England’s grant as free and independent states to secede, which I will review below.) George Washington addressed[13] the citizens to say they had won liberty and now needed to negotiate domestic justice with a citizens’ constitution instead of the Articles of Confederation, a states’ constitution, and to establish a nation that would be respected by other countries. In 1787, in the Philadelphia convention with George Washington presiding, laws and institutions to form a citizen’s republic were codified as the United States of America, and on June 21, 1788, the required nine states ratified “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble to the Constitution for the USA. Obfuscation of the preamble’s promise of just civic governance by justly governed citizens is one of the unintended consequences of Lincoln’s use of the Declaration of Independence to trump the Constitution for the USA. Unfortunately, his famous words, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” express a fantasy: Something that has never appeared cannot perish.
An iconoclastic President
Abraham Lincoln frequently used "God" to appear authoritative and appealed to citizens’ religious impulses. However, Lincoln’s religion was not conventional:
From his earliest days Lincoln had a sense that his
destiny was controlled by some larger force, some Higher Power. Turning
away from orthodox Christianity because of the emotional excesses of frontier evangelicalism, he found it easier as a young man
to accept what was called the Doctrine of Necessity, which he defined as the belief ‘that the human mind is impelled to action,
or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.’ Later he frequently quoted to his partner, William H.
Herndon, the lines from Hamlet: There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.[14]
When necessary, Lincoln faced critics, regardless of the subject including
his religious practices, which, if anything beyond reading the literature, were
private.away from orthodox Christianity because of the emotional excesses of frontier evangelicalism, he found it easier as a young man
to accept what was called the Doctrine of Necessity, which he defined as the belief ‘that the human mind is impelled to action,
or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.’ Later he frequently quoted to his partner, William H.
Herndon, the lines from Hamlet: There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.[14]
[I]n his race for Congress in 1846 he was obliged
to issue a formal denial: ‘That I am not
a member of any Christian Church, is
true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in
general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.[15]
true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in
general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.[15]
Yet he used "God," Bible quotation, and religious
appeal masterfully. In his first inaugural address, March 4, 1861, seven states
had already seceded from the union. There were another eight slave states and
eighteen free states.[16] Lincoln implied "God" once in 3634 words, and
his closing, in retrospect seems to invite war:
Intelligence,
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken
this favored land are still competent
to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will
not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to
destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be,
by the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln’s speech has hypocritical elements: 1) an invitation to Christian
dependency—“reliance on Him,” 2) admonishment that the citizens are
responsible, not Lincoln, and 3) return to a noble, if Shakespearean, phrase. He
leads citizens away from personal moral excellence into their mystical god’s
providence. Lincoln’s rhetoric seems marvelous, but 750,000 American soldiers
died in the Civil War that followed. There were about 31 million residents at
the start of the war. With today’s population the same percentage loss would
correspond to 8 million people.to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will
not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to
destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be,
by the better angels of our nature.
The ravages of personal losses and the war increased Lincoln’s use of religion and "God," such that his second inaugural, on March 4, 1865, uses "God" fourteen times and refers to the Bible twice in only 698 words. The memorable sentence again blames the people, both sides, divided by war: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.”
In a letter to Albert Hodges, April 4, 1864, Lincoln seems to blame "God" for the war, but may be referring to the people’s divided use of the Christian god. (The South Carolina declaration of secession, discussed below, claimed the North held “a more erroneous religious belief.”)
Now, at the
end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either
party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending
The latter phrase seems to indicate
belief in God. If so, it seems Lincoln went into the Civil War advocating that
the people rely on God, but saddling them with the responsibility if they
embarked on war. But during the war, Lincoln blamed God. However, at both times, Lincoln made himself
exempt. If he wanted to communicate, Lincoln could have devised sentences delineating personal gods from whatever, if anything, controls the unfolding of what-is, whether that is a god or not.party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending
seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that
we of
the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our
complicity in that
wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to
attest and revere the justice
and goodness of God.[17]
My lengthy coverage of Abraham Lincoln’s religious attitudes is not meant to disparage him as a human being, but to assert that any man’s invocation of "God" should not be followed. Presidents are only men, and their gods always represent a human mind: the President’s mind. The objective truth operates independently.
Residents of South Carolina contradicted themselves
On December 24, 1860 South Carolina seceded from the United States of America. The State contradicted its commitment in perpetuity to the Confederation of States, which, with France’s help, achieved independence from England after a declaration that pledged “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” They contradicted their May 23, 1788 ratification of “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble to the Constitution for the USA. Their agreement to end the slave trade implies they knew abolition would have to be faced.
“During the
Transatlantic Slave Trade, about 40 percent of enslaved Africans brought
into
the country passed through Charleston Harbor. By 1860, there were 4 million
slaves
in the United States, and 400,000 of them -- 10 percent -- lived in
South
Carolina.”[18]
But an era was ending: “On July 1, 1856, the city of Charleston outlawed the sale of slaves on the streets.” In the nation, on average, one in seventy free persons was a slave owner, but only 1% of them owned 20%-30% of the slaves.[19] How did 99% of free persons convince themselves to pledge their lives, fortunes, and honor for slavery by the 1%? What if the people of Charleston had thought of themselves as “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble? They might have told the South Carolina legislation, “Not on my watch will you secede from the United States of America!” It is important for each citizen today to arbitrarily be of “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble.
But an era was ending: “On July 1, 1856, the city of Charleston outlawed the sale of slaves on the streets.” In the nation, on average, one in seventy free persons was a slave owner, but only 1% of them owned 20%-30% of the slaves.[19] How did 99% of free persons convince themselves to pledge their lives, fortunes, and honor for slavery by the 1%? What if the people of Charleston had thought of themselves as “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble? They might have told the South Carolina legislation, “Not on my watch will you secede from the United States of America!” It is important for each citizen today to arbitrarily be of “We the People of the United States” as defined in the preamble.
Ironically, after listing complaints, the South
Carolina declaration of secession concludes that
remedy is not likely, because “public opinion at the North has invested a great
political error with the sanction of more
erroneous religious belief.” Emphasis mine. (Claiming “less erroneous”
religious belief is curious to say the least, but to go to war on “erroneous
belief” is ridiculous!) On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort
Sumter in Charleston Harbor and the Civil War had begun. More American soldiers
died than in all other American wars together.
To preserve a declining
economic system that was based on an immoral human relationship, Confederate
citizens pledged their lives, fortunes, and honor on a “[less] erroneous
religious belief.” In retrospect, the mere mention of religious belief as the
basis for civic governance should convince just citizens to oppose the
leadership being offered. Citizens should be convinced that any politician, from
lowest to President, who would govern according to religious belief, does not
and cannot represent the citizen.
Modern, civic reliance on belief in a godAny citizen who purports to represent "God" is merely asserting that his/her opinion is the morally excellent opinion: believers subjugate, sometimes enslave, themselves. There is no case in history wherein politicians used a god to effect their citizens’ advantage: Politicians use "God" to gain power over citizens. In the relationship the spokesman for "God" is a villain and the believer is a slave. For this reason, "God" should not be a consideration in civic governance, in the United States--civic governance of neither self, nor state, nor the nation. Quoting Lincoln in his first inaugural address, “Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?” Yet "God" remains in civic governance. Why?
Political philosophers (politicians) are well aware of the principle Machiavelli expressed in Chapter 11 of The Prince, 1513--I call it Chapter XI Machiavellianism. He wrote, according to my paraphrase, that when citizens believe in a god, the governors do whatever they want and the citizens do not care, expecting fulfillment from their personal god; no sensible thinker could object, because she/he would have to write about the people's god—the unknown. Lincoln did not abide Machiavelli's advice, as he spoke of "God" often, but I would not say Lincoln proved sensible. I especially question Lincoln’s self-judgment in his letter to Albert Hodges, discussed above, and his self-contradictions regarding “created equal.” Many people theorize that Machiavelli was cynically instructing politicians to be dishonest, but my theory is that he was using irony to warn citizens: “Wake up to political use of theism for civic control!” (The irony was necessary to preserve the writer’s life.) Perhaps a modern example would help the reader understand my point.
Reporting on President George W. Bush’s order for March 19, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bob Woodward reported:
Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White
House. Months later, he told Woodward: "As I walked around the circle, I prayed that
our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty. Going into this period, I was praying
for strength to do the Lord's will. I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God.
Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his
will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness.”
Did
Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? "I asked the president about this.
And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,"
says Woodward. "Then he said something that really struck me. He said of
his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father
to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher
Father that I appeal to.'
President Bush’s chief ally, Tony
Blair, is reportedly an antinomian.[20]
We now know that the decision to
invade was based on false “intelligence” reports. The
cost to American citizens is staggering:
over 2 trillion dollars, 4486 American soldiers killed[21],
and surviving American victims of the war, so far, not completely accounted.Conclusion
We have examined two historic cases: The European slave trade imposed on the American colonies four-hundred years ago and the USA’s failure, so far, to turn it to advantage and the thirty-country invasion of Iraq led by President George W. Bush and England’s Tony Blair. In both cases, political representatives of the citizens used "God" to assuage civically moral objections to the actions taken. This misuse of "God" has existed for millennia. The organization of this country, specified during three months in 1787, debated for nine months before ratification, and in operation now for 226 years, promised just civic governance by justly governed citizens under the force of written law. However, just governance never emerged, because citizens, focused on personal gods, have individually waited for their personal god to deliver justice despite gradually increasing entanglement by laws. Informed by Chapter XI Machiavellinism, elected representatives are aware that the people are bemused by theism, and use gods to empower themselves. Citizens need to accept at last that religion is personal and not a factor in civic self-governance, state governance, or federal governance. Nobody is guilty of anything—it’s just the way the system works. We celebrate the system every Independence Day, when we celebrate liberty from England, always to be commemorated, but long since a completed task.
But if not "God," what?
We need to change our focus from the national freedom
we already enjoy to the domestic justice liberty requires. We need to candidly settle opinions respecting common sense using the ethics of physics, discussed elsewhere in this blog. We need to celebrate
cooperatively autonomous citizens who mutually accommodate each other by
fulfilling the duties of civic self-governance, state governance, and federal
governance, keeping the three endeavors separated and economically feasible. Borrowing
from Abraham Lincoln, “Is there any better or equal hope in the world?"
Let us set aside a holiday to commemorate “A Civic
People of the United States” as defined in the preamble to the Constitution for the USA.
Ratification Day, June 21 and September 17, Constitution day are suggested and planned.
After a few years’ practice we may be a majority of good neighbors—not a utopia, but just citizens working together.
After a few years’ practice we may be a majority of good neighbors—not a utopia, but just citizens working together.
Copyright©2014 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights
reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions
of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised June 21, 2015.
[1]
Online, sharondraper.com/timeline.pdf
[3] Online,
www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Atlantic_slave_trade.html
.
[4]
Online, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#Colonial_America .
[6] Online,
www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1731.html .
[7]
Online, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism#Great_Britain .
[8]
Online, www.constitution.org/tp/afri.htm
.
[9]
Pauline Maier. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.
2010. Page 464.
[10] “Vulnerable”
herein means capable of being physically or emotionally wounded or
hurt. In a March 31, 2014 conversation, Josh Riley commented, as I
paraphrase, that appreciative, emotional vulnerability must be learned and
practiced.
[11]
H. A. Overstreet. The Mature Mind.
1949. Norton. NY. Pages 46-68.
[14] David
Hebert Donald. Lincoln. Touchstone. NY. 1996. Page 15.
[15]
Ibid. Page 49.
[17]
Online: www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/hodges.htm
. Also note: Lincoln claims no sagacity.
[19]
Online: freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ajac/biggest16.htm .
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