In recent columns, we’ve explored whether the Declaration of Independence is consistent with the Bible.
So far, we’ve seen that the Declaration says we are entitled to independence by the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
We’ve seen that equality in the sight of God and the law is a biblical concept, and we’ve made the case for a biblical doctrine of unalienable rights endowed by the Creator.
We’ve seen that “to secure these rights,” not to grant them, “governments are instituted among men.”
But “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” … is that biblical? Were Israel’s leaders elected by the people? Yes, sort of.
As Martin Diamond wrote in “The Declaration and the Constitution: Liberty, Democracy, and the Founders”:
[T]he Declaration does not say that consent is the means by which the government is to operate; it says that consent is necessary only to institute or establish the government. … [T]he Declaration says that they may organize government on ‘such principles’ as they choose, and that they may choose ‘any form of government’ they deem appropriate to secure their rights. …
Thus the Declaration, accurately speaking, is neutral on the question of forms of government; any form is legitimate, provided it secures equal freedom and is instituted by popular consent. But as to how to secure that freedom the Declaration, in its famous passage on the principles of government, is silent.
Israel was for many centuries a loose confederation of 12 tribes led by judges. God directed the Israelites, “Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee throughout thy tribes; and they shall judge the people with just judgment.” When the Israelites took possession of Canaan, their leader Joshua told the people, “[Select or choose for yourselves] three men for each tribe: and I will send them….”
About 1125 B.C. the people of Israel demanded a king, and God gave them King Saul, then King David. Each of these men became king by the consent of the governed (Saul, I Samuel 10:24; David, II Samuel 5:1-5), meaning the people initially chose a monarchy and then chose a particular king. This means they consented to that king’s reign, not that they periodically re-elected that king.
Repeatedly we read that God chose rulers through the people:
- “The men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us….” Likewise, Jephthah and Samuel.
- Again, “And all the men of Shechem … made Abimelech king.”
- “Hushai said unto Absalom, Nay; but whom the Lord, and this people, and all the men of Israel choose, his will I be and with him will I abide.”
- “T[]he people … took Azariah … and made him king….”
Again, this does not necessarily mean the people of Israel held regular elections. During David’s contest with Absalom, the people were not watching the returns on election night – and from the early returns David appeared to be in trouble – but later in the night the vote from the countryside came in, and the rural folk liked David’s farm policy and identified with him because he had been a shepherd, so that put him over the top. But in some way God spoke through the people in the choice of Israel’s leaders.
The concept of majority rule is partially rooted in the concept of equality, because if each person’s vote is weighed equally, the majority will have greater weight than the minority. But majorities can be wrong: “thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” As John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1815:
[D]espotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor; equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical.
In response to the slogan of the French Revolution that “vox populari est vox dei”
(“the voice of the people is the voice of God”), Adams asked:
If the majority is 51 and the minority 49, is it certainly the voice of God? If tomorrow one should change to 50 vs. 50, where is the voice of God? If two and the minority should become the majority, is the voice of God changed?
Adams concluded that vox populari est non vox dei, and that the voice of the people was “sometimes the voice of Mahomet, of Caesar, of Catiline, the Pope, and the Devil.”
Some have concluded that democracy (using the term in the broad sense of representative government) is fundamentally anti-Christian because God, not the people, is the Source of government power. The Stuart kings of England (James I, Charles I, Charles II, and James II) believed in the “divine right of kings,” meaning that God gives governmental authority to the king, he delegates it to lesser magistrates, and together they rule over the people. The Puritans in Parliament agreed that God is the source of governmental authority but argued that He gives that authority to the people, who delegate it to lesser magistrates, who in turn delegate authority to the higher magistrate or king. America’s founding fathers definitely took the latter view. God spoke through the people's vote, but only if the people were attuned and listening to God.
Does that leave God out of the equation? Not at all! The motto of my home state of South Dakota, authored by Presbyterian pastor Dr. Joseph Ward at the South Dakota Constitutional Convention of 1885, puts it all together perfectly: “Under God, the people rule.”
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 may be contacted for speaking engagements at [email protected].
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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