Country

I believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.  This is true wherever one might live. For me it is America, and I am grateful to live here.  I have a firm belief that American was established under the guidance of the Almighty God in order to help his work go forward--which includes introducing this liberty-loving form of gvernment to the rest of the world. 

I believe that the Founding Fathers of this great nation knew what they were doing and were far more educated and wise than most people today credit them.  True, they were not perfect men, but it is amazing to me that this group of men, with varying backgrounds, expertise, interests, and beliefs created a constitution that has done so much good for the human race.  I don’t believe that this was possible without divine intervention.  The founding fathers acknowledged divine intervention in the Revolutionary War and in the founding of this great nation.

In my view, America was established, under divine influence, to be the “beacon on a hill” to the rest of the world.  It was to be an example of how government should be established so that the common man could govern themselves. All men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights—god given rights—that government could neither give nor take away. 

Government with proper checks and balances on the people, as well on individual branches of government, needed to be established.  The constitution did just that.  This was necessary because the founding fathers had had a clear understanding about the “nature of man”.  They understood that man had natural desires to do and be good.  But they also knew that men were easily corrupted by the temptations of the world—namely wealth, power, and prestige.  They knew that even the best of individuals, if not checked, could fall into those traps.  Government could be used for good, or bad, depending on who was in power. 

As a beacon on a hill, the founding fathers understood that a republic form of government wouldn’t last without a virtuous people.  Virtue was critical to the success of the American people, then and now.  As history has proven, a true democracy was unsustainable and would eventually fail.

Some of the virtues necessary to sustain a healthy republic are: morality, fear of god, hard work, and personal responsibility.  A quote from a French contemporary of the founding fathers, Alexis de Tocqueville, explains what he saw in the people at that time, and what made America great. 

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there.  Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.  America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”  (Quoted in Ezra Taft Benson, God Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1975], p. 360)

           

Because the people were virtuous they knew that government was not intended to be a mechanism to solve all problems.  Government was there as a necessary evil—to protect the individual’s unalienable rights.  The family was the center of a healthy society.  It was the family where these virtues were to be taught, not by government or any other organization, however well intentioned.  The strength of the people was derived by the moral, religious, and educated upbringing of the children in each family.

I believe that America is only as strong as the virtue, morality, and proper understanding and application of the principles of the founding fathers by the individuals and families which inherit the land.  Too many people know little about the founding fathers’ lives, their struggles, and their intent.  The three-fifths compromise is a worthwhile example. Frederick Douglas, one of the first black founding fathers, who once was a slave himself, said this of the Constitution: 

“I became convinced…that the Constitution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery but, on the contrary, it is in its letter and spirit an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence as the supreme law of the land…

“The Constitution is a glorious liberty document.  Read its preamble, consider its purposes.  Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway?  Or is it in the temples?  It is neither…If the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slaveholding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it?....Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it.  On the other hand, it will be found to contain principles and purposes entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.”  (The Frederick Douglas Papers, John Blassingame, editor, pp 385-386 [as quoted in Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black and White, David Barton, pp. 10-11].  Bold added.)

In closing, I love America and what she stands for.  We have our challenges.  I wish we were staying more true to the principles that the founding fathers understood and tried to lay out for us in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.  America’s most important export has been the principles laid out in the Constitution.  Nations around the world have mimicked, copied, or tried to otherwise emulate the U.S. Constitution to establish their own stable, freedom-friendly governments. 

America has been, and still can be, a beacon on a hill to the rest of mankind.  I believe the best thing we can do now it to teach our children correct principles, behavior, an accurate and thorough history, and personal responsibility.  By doing this, we can preserve our freedoms and unalienable rights for generations to come.