“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“

So begins the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, the document signed by 56 men at the risk of their lives in 1776, to express and declare the reasons for their dissatisfaction with the rule of the king of England. The document concludes:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Penned by Thomas Jefferson, redacted and approved by Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and the other 53 delegates to the Continental Congress, the document amounted to a declaration of war against the British crown, making its signers little more than traitorous rebels in the eyes of the king, guilty of treason and punishable by death.

This document, more than any other, even the Constitution, expresses the courage and hope of the American people. The words of faith at the beginning and end of the document are not shallow religious sentiments, but a powerful and eloquent expression of theistic political philosophy that has stood the test of time and anchored our nation in absolute truth. We are created. Our rights come from a Creator, not man, and we are protected by Divine Providence.

To the Founding Fathers, these truths were self-evident, in other words, truths so obvious and fundamental as to be beyond logical proof, premises to be used as the basis of all other reasoning. These truths gave them the courage to stand up to the king of England, to risk their lives and fortunes, to conceive a new nation. The Constitution, with its Bill of Rights, written eleven years later, after the bitter war of independence, is a brilliant formulation of government, describing the checks and balances of the three branches of government, delineating the separation of federal and state powers, but it does not reveal the radical and impassioned sentiments that lie at its root, in the Declaration of Independence. The Founders knew this, and did not mention the Declaration of Independence in the Constitution. They assumed that their bold declaration of self-evident truths would continue to stand as a beacon, a vision, guiding the development of a new nation. They could have never imagined that the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which they had written to protect freedom of worship, would be eventually used to drive faith out of all aspects of government, and indeed, out of all aspects of public life. Have times changed so much that we as a nation can afford to lay aside these fundamental truths that were self-evident to our Founding Fathers? Of course not; yet, that is precisely what we are doing.

Modern Court Decisions

Modern court decisions have eroded the place of religious sentiment in anything that is in any way connected to the federal government. In the name of freedom of religion, we have created a nation that is free of religion. Rather than run the risk of offending anyone’s religious sentiments, (or lack of religious sentiments), we have driven any mention of faith out of the public sector, including schools and state universities, municipal and state governments, and any and all aspects of our national life.

The Results and the Dilemma

The results have been catastrophic. The breakdown of the family, the self-centered hedonism of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, the modern decline of youthful purity and enthusiasm, and the cynical materialism of the current age are all attributable to the decline of religious expression following the assault on religion during the mid-20th century. It is not that the majority of people want this state of affairs. Most Americans are deeply religious, and actually share a common belief in a loving Creator. But Americans also have a deep and abiding love for the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and don’t know how to defend a public expression of faith without compromising the First Amendment. Even though the Declaration of Independence seems to express our common national faith quite eloquently, it has had no power to solve the current dilemma. Why?

The Issue

The problem is that the Declaration of Independence has no legal weight, no legal bearing on the decisions that are made daily by Congress and the courts. Although it has a time-honored place in American history, it can be and is ignored with impunity by those who would like to see our nation convert to secularism. The Courts and public officials are sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. Using the establishment clause of the First Amendment as their standard, secular individuals and groups are coercing the Courts and the rest of the nation to accept their position, to accept that God or a Creator has no place in American public life, that any mention of God or faith in God by a public figure is unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment. There seems to be no way around this impasse.

The Current Inflated Role of the First Amendment

Then, what role should the First Amendment play? Indeed, the First Amendment was, is and always will be essential to our way of life, guaranteeing the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and petition, as well as the free exercise of religion by all. It prevents Congress from passing a law “respecting the establishment of religion,” or “prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” In recent years, the Declaration of Independence has been all but forgotten, and many Americans have come to believe that it is the First Amendment that embodies the spirit of the United States, that the First Amendment somehow defines and encapsulates the spirit of freedom in our country. But in honoring the First Amendment as the author of our freedoms, we ignore the parent and root of the First Amendment, the Declaration of Independence, which is the true author of our political freedoms, and we forget that many of the same men who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights had, eleven years earlier, at the risk of their lives, signed a document stating that they believed all men were created equal, that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights… Were the Founders confused, or had they changed their minds in the interval? What were they thinking? Did they now want to drive faith out of the public sphere?

Does the Declaration of Independence Violate of the First Amendment?

No, not at all. The Founders distinguished national faith from national religion. The Founders understood the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independence to be deeper than religion, beyond mere doctrine, indeed fundamental to the fabric of a free society. The truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence are not antithetical to the First Amendment – they are complimentary. Only a nation that understands that its rights, its very existence, come from the Creator, then has the courage and heart to allow and guarantee each of its citizens the right to worship freely. The wisdom and heart to protect freedom comes from the understanding that we are all created equal, and that our individual rights and liberties come from God, the Creator, not man. Without this fundamental paradigm, we are compelled to regard our liberties and freedoms as coming from and guaranteed by a document written by men, and we thus ironically throw away the victory won in 1776, because liberties given by men can be taken away by men, and freedoms guaranteed by men can be betrayed by them, and with such a betrayal, even the First Amendment could be changed or lost.

The Solution

So, what is the solution to this dilemma? How can we stop the erosion of the Founders’ original intent? How can we protect the brilliant formulations of the Declaration of Independence from secular onslaught, and re-establish our nation as a constitutional, God-centered democracy, yet continue to honor and protect freedom of religion?

The solution is to give the Declaration of Independence the same legal weight as the rest of the Constitution, including it as part of our founding legal structure. We must amend the U.S. Constitution to include the Declaration of Independence.

The Vision Statement for the U.S. Constitution

Just as a modern corporation would not consider writing its by-laws, (its “constitution”), without first writing a vision and mission statement, we as a nation cannot stand united with a clear purpose and direction unless we reunite our Constitution with its original vision and mission statement, the Declaration of Independence. We must adopt the Declaration of Independence as the “mission statement” of the Constitution. Just as a body is incomplete without the mind, the Constitution is incomplete without the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence belong together, as part of the same legal document. Let us therefore amend the U.S. Constitution, to include the Declaration of Independence as its preamble, as its Vision/Mission Statement. Let us restore the Declaration of Independence to its rightful place as the spirit of our nation, the head of our body, the vision we share. Let us work together to accomplish this lofty goal, and may God bless us in our efforts!