“The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
“Created equal.”
“Unalienable Rights.”
“To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”
“Consent of the governed.”
All of this, as we have seen in previous columns, is consistent with the Bible.
But now comes the sticky part:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of 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 may seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Alter or abolish? That sounds like rebellion! Is that biblically justified?
Paul commands us in Romans 13:1-7 to be subject to the higher authorities; 1 Peter 2 contains a similar admonition. But Acts 5:29, Exodus 1, and Daniel 3 and 6 can be cited to justify disobedience when the commands of civil authority contradict the higher law of God.
However, America’s War for Independence was actually an act of interposition, as attorney and congressional candidate Hampton Harris explained at a Federalist Society meeting last week. Unlike individual civil disobedience, interposition involves lesser magistrates, such as colonial governments or the Continental Congress, placing themselves between the people they represent and the higher magistrate (the king) when the king has become a tyrant and has violated the people's rights. The lesser magistrates force the king to respect the people’s rights, and if he refuses, they remove him from office.
Harris is correct. An example from Scripture is in Kings 12. After King Solomon’s death, the leaders of the 10 northern tribes, led by Jeroboam, came to Jerusalem to interpose with Rehoboam, urging him to relieve the burdens Solomon had placed upon them. After considering their request, Rehoboam answered, “[M]y father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” The northern tribal leaders responded by seceding from the kingdom. Rehoboam gathered an army to suppress the northern tribes, but a prophet of God told him, “Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me.”
God approved the northern kingdom’s interposition against King Rehoboam.
The Magna Carta is another example of interposition. Faced with King John’s tyranny, Archbishop Stephen Langton gathered the barons and bishops and instructed them on the principles of interposition. They drafted the Magna Carta, presenting it to the king in June A.D. 1215, telling him he must sign this commitment to the ancient God-given rights of Englishmen, or they would remove him from office. John signed, and the Magna Carta stands today as a fundamental document of the English common law.
Jefferson recognized that interposition should be undertaken only as a last resort, noting, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable….”
As Thomas Aquinas observed in “On Kingship,” when people try to overthrow a tyrant, they may fail, in which case the tyrant will become more tyrannical. Or they may succeed, and those who take over the government may fear similar action against them, so they become tyrants themselves. Yet “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,” Jefferson wrote, interposition becomes an obligation.
And so, Jefferson moves into the next section of the Declaration: the statement of grievances. One by one, he lists England’s violations of the rights of American colonists, many of which can be traced to the Magna Carta or the English Bill of Rights of 1689. He notes that the colonists have repeatedly petitioned the king and Parliament for redress, but “Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” He continues, “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
The Declaration then reaches its climax, announcing, “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States.” Those who sign it appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,” affirming their “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” and pledging to one another “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The American War for Independence, then, was not a rebellion. It was an act of interposition by the legitimate governments of the 13 colonies and the Continental Congress, placing themselves between the people they represented and the tyrannical government of England. The colonies rightfully declared themselves independent, and Britain’s attempt to prevent their separation could be called the British War of Aggression.
Samuel Eliot Morison of Harvard described the War for Independence as “The Conservative American Revolution,” saying that it was fought “as a defensive movement to maintain the rights and liberties which the English colonies had always enjoyed, and to which they felt they were entitled.” Alexander Hamilton told a French visitor, “There have been no changes in the laws, no one’s interests have been interfered with, everyone remains in his place, and all that is altered is that the seat of government is changed.”
And so, as we have seen in these recent columns, the Continental Congress produced a Declaration that was fundamentally biblical and Christian. This is not surprising, because the overwhelming majority of those in Congress were Christians, roughly 26 Anglicans/Episcopalians, 13 Congregationalists, 11 Presbyterians, 2 Quakers, 1 Lutheran, 1 Baptist, 1 Roman Catholic, and 1 Unitarian (several others may have later become Unitarians, but what matters is what they believed in 1776).
Together, through the Declaration, they articulated a biblical philosophy of government – that God’s higher law as expressed in Scripture and in nature stands above all human law, that government is ordained by God to promote human equality and to secure the unalienable rights of mankind, that government exists by consent of the governed, and that God authorizes the people to alter or abolish government if it becomes destructive toward these ends. With this philosophy of government in mind, the colonists declared independence, fought for it, and finally secured it in 1783 when England and America signed the Treaty of Paris, which begins, “In the name of the Most Holy & undivided Trinity.”
That is the true foundation of America.
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu), as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law (morallaw.org), and as Chairman of the Board of the Plymouth Rock Foundation (plymrock.org). He lives in rural Pike Road, Ala., and can be contacted for speaking engagements at [email protected].
Attorney Hampton Harris (hamptonharrisforalabama.com) was raised and home-schooled in rural Pike Road, Ala., graduated from the Cumberland School of Law where he served as Chairman of the Christian Legal Society and the College Republicans, and is a candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress from Alabama’s Second District.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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