Part of Newt’s plan is to protect our inalienable rights of life, liberty, religious freedom and the pursuit of happiness to reign in a judicial system which is out of control. This white paper is 54 pages long and provides Newt’s solution.

PDF: Reign In The Courts

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WND Exclusive

What did Congress know about ‘natural-born citizen’?

8 tries at eliminating requirement suggests organized strategy in place

Published: 07/01/2011 at 8:17 PM

by Bob Unruh Email | Archive

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after spending nearly three decades writing on a wide range of issues for several Upper Midwest newspapers and the Associated Press. Sports, tornadoes, homicidal survivalists, and legislative battles all fell within his bailiwick. His scenic photography has been used commercially, and he sometimes plays in a church worship band.

There were eight attempts by members of Congress during the years Barack Obama was developing a power base and running for president to remove the Constitution’s requirement that a president be a “natural-born citizen,” suggesting an organized strategy, according to a new video.

The video documentary was produced by Carl Gallups, the senior pastor at Hickory Hammock Baptist Church for more than 24 years with a long history of community and law enforcement involvement.

Gallups was a Florida law enforcement officer for 10 years, a youth minister before that and is a national and international youth evangelist with outreaches across the United States and in Canada since 1989. He’s also on the board of regents at the University of Mobile and hosts several weekly radio programs in the northwest Florida region.

Get the New York Times best-seller “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to be President,” autographed by Jerome Corsi, Ph.D.

Documentation for his video comes from a variety of congressional records showing that beginning June 11, 2003, and continuing through the most recent effort, Feb. 28, 2008, there were eight proposals targeting that constitutional requirement.

The video:

He outlines the specifics:

• June 11, 2003, Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., brought HJR 59. It was intended to “permit persons who are not natural born citizens of the United States, but who have been citizens of the United States for at least 35 years, to be eligible to hold the offices of president and vice president.”
• Sept. 3, 2003, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., brought HJR67, which would have done the same as Snyder’s, only the requirement to be a citizen was lowered to 20 years.
• Feb. 25, 2004, Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., brought S.B. 2128 to “try to counter the growing Democrat onslaught aimed at removing the natural born citizen requirement.” But it defined NBC as someone who was born in and is subject to the United States,” which was not the understanding of the framers of the Constitution.
• Sept. 15, 2004, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., brought HJR 104, “to make eligible for the office of president a person who is not a natural born citizen of the United States but has been a United States citizen for at least 20 years.”
• Jan. 4, 2005, Conyers, D-Mich., HJR2, the same as Rohrabacher’s.
• Feb. 1, 2005, HJR15, Rohrabacher, to require only 20 years citizenship to be eligible for the office of president.
• April 14, 2005, Snyder, HJR42, requiring 35 years’ citizenship.
• Feb. 28, 2008, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., tried to attach to SB 2678, Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act, an amendment clarifying what “natural-born citizen” includes. Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., were sponsors.

Gallups reports that finally, on April 10, 2008, “unable to alter or remove” the requirement, the Senate changed the focus of the issue, with Senate Resolution 511, which addressed Sen. John McCain’s qualifications as a “natural-born citizen.”

Obama’s qualifications never were reviewed.

After his election, Gallups points out, Obama held a secret meeting with eight of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court – from which no public information was released. The meeting was held even though there were legal challenges in which Obama was a defendant pending before the Supreme Court at the time. The attorneys for the plaintiffs never were told of the meeting or invited to participate in what critics have described as extrajudicial contact between the court and a defendant.

JB Williams, on The Patriot News, also examined the circumstances of the proposals in Congress, and carried the sequence a step further.

“As a result, the DNC was forced to remove the ‘constitutionally eligible’ language from the 2008 DNC certification of the Obama-Biden ticket, omitting from the certification the following language – ‘and that the following candidates for President and Vice President of the United States are legally qualified to serve under the provisions of the United States Constitution.’
Instead, the DNC only certified that the Obama-Biden ticket was duly nominated for the offices of President and Vice President, using the following language – ‘THIS IS TO CERTIFY that at the National Convention of the Democrat Party of the United States of America, held in Denver, Colorado on August 25 though 28, 2008, the following were duly nominated as candidates of said Party for President and Vice President of the United States respectively:’”

WND previously reported on another link between Obama and a campaign to change the constitutional provision. It came from an associate lawyer in a Chicago-based firm whose partner served on a finance committee for then-Sen. Barack Obama. She advocated for the elimination of the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that a president be a “natural-born” citizen, calling the requirement “stupid” and asserting it discriminates, is outdated and undemocratic.

Barack Obama and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga

The paper was written in 2006 by Sarah Herlihy, just two years after Obama had won a landslide election in Illinois to the U.S. Senate. Herlihy was listed as an associate at the Chicago firm of Kirkland & Ellis. A partner in the same firm, Bruce I. Ettelson, cited his membership on the finance committees for both  Obama and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., on the corporate website.

The article by Herlihy was available online under law review articles from Kent University when it originally was the subject of reports but later was removed.

Herlihy’s published paper reveals that the requirement likely was considered in a negative light by organizations linked to Obama in the months before he announced in 2007 his candidacy for the presidency.

The natural born citizen requirement in Article II of the United States Constitution has been called the “stupidest provision” in the Constitution, “undecidedly un-American,” “blatantly discriminatory” and the “Constitution’s worst provision,” Herlihy begins in her introduction to the paper titled “Amending the Natural Born Citizen Requirement: Globalization as the Impetus and the Obstacle.”

She concludes that the “emotional” reasons to oppose changing the Constitution will prevail over the “rational” reasons demanding a change.

The current American perceptions about the effects of globalization and the misunderstanding about what globalization actually is will result in Americans deciding that naturalized citizens should not be president because this would, in effect, be promoting globalization, Herlihy wrote.

“Although this argument is admittedly circular, because globalization is the thing that makes the need to abolish the requirement more and more persuasive, Americans’ subsequent perceptions about globalization are the very things that will prevent Americans from embracing the idea of eliminating the natural born requirement.

“Logical Americans are looking for a reason to ignore the rational reasons promoted by globalization so that they may vote based on their own emotions and instincts,” she wrote.

In the body of her argument, Herlihy said the constitutional provision simply is outdated.

“Considering that the Founding Fathers presumably included the natural born citizen clause in the Constitution partly out of fear of foreign subversion, the current stability of the American government and the intense media scrutiny of presidential candidates virtually eliminates the possibility of a ‘foreigner’ coming to America, becoming a naturalized citizen, generating enough public support to become president, and somehow using the presidency to directly benefit his homeland,” she wrote.

“The natural born citizen clause of the United States Constitution should be repealed for numerous reasons. Limiting presidential eligibility to natural born citizens discriminates against naturalized citizens, is outdated and undemocratic, and incorrectly assumes that birthplace is a proxy for loyalty,” she wrote.

Many of the reasons for keeping the limit, she wrote, “are based primarily on emotion.”

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Source: http://www.wnd.com/2011/07/317705/

Given the social state that was emerging, Tocqueville believed that a “new political science” would be needed. According to him, it would:

. . . instruct democracy, if possible to reanimate its beliefs, to purify its mores, to regulate its movements, to substitute little by little the science of affairs for its inexperience, and knowledge of its true instincts for its blind instincts; to adapt its government to time and place; to modify it according to circumstances and men: such is the first duty imposed on those who direct society in our day.^[5]

The remainder of the book can be interpreted as an attempt to accomplish this goal thereby giving advice to those people who would experience this change in social states.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America

PDF: Democracy In America

Self-evident Truths: The Discerning Before Declaring Independence

Message from the President

July 15, 2010

As I reflect over the festivities of this month during which many of us in the United States celebrated the birth of our country with parades, picnics and fireworks, I am reminded of John Adams’ foresight in a letter to his wife Abigail:

I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more (sic)¹.

Adams’ prophetic statement was correct about everything but the date. He was speaking of July second, the day the Continental Congress formally passed the resolution for independence, rather than July fourth, the day Congress approved the careful wording of its public declaration.

Independence Day shifted from the second to the fourth almost by accident. During the 1770s and 1780s it was celebrated infrequently. In 1777 Congress neglected to mark the day until July third, but by then it was too late to celebrate July second. As a result, the first anniversary of our independence was celebrated on the fourth of July, complete with patriot songs played by the Hessian band captured the previous winter². Apparently the Fourth of July stuck.

Initially it seems that the Declaration of Independence itself fared little better than the celebrations. Most viewed the document as a mere formality necessary to announce independence. For example, John Adams called it “dress and ornament rather than body, soul or substance.”³  John Wilkes, an American supporter in England described it as “the most awkward and uncouth dress of language.”⁴ Additionally, almost all attention was focused solely on the last paragraph, the words that actually declared independence. The principles in the first two paragraphs were largely overlooked. However, by the mid 1790s the Democratic Republicans, led by Jefferson, began to see the Declaration as much more—a statement of their rights and a barrier to the expansion of government power promoted by the Federalists. Eventually, the Federalists also began to also view it as a powerful document that described the rights of all men. By the 1820s the Declaration was recognized by almost all Americans as the expression of the fundamental principles of our county. This sentiment was expressed by Jefferson, who called it “the best guide of the distinctive principles . . . of the United States,” and “the fundamental act of union of these States.”⁵  The heart of these principles is found in the first two sentences of the second paragraph, which reads:

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. That to secure these rights governments were instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

I hope we are familiar with these principles. Equality before the law, natural rights, and popular consent form a foundation of our liberties. But underneath these principles lies a footing upon which this foundation rests. First, that there is a standard of right and source of truth superior to any man or group of men—be he king or be they parliament. Second, that one might know these principles with a certainty sufficient to take up arms in their defense.

Jefferson’s original wording, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable⁶,” suggests a divine source of these truths, which he directly stated elsewhere in the document. Likewise “undeniable” underscores the surety with which one could know them. The change to “We hold these truths to be self-evident” removed the religious language, but kept the surety. For self-evident does not simply mean obvious, as a one might assume. Rather, it describes a truth that is inherent in the principle itself, without external proof. Such principles are true, not because of empirical evidence or logical disquisition, but because our intellectual and moral sensibility say they are true. Or to look at it inversely, such principles are true because our intellectual and moral sensibility cannot comprehend the opposite proposition, that God created some men to rule and others to be oppressed.

Whereas self-evident truths are not dependent upon empiricism and logic, this knowledge lies above them, not below. This distinction is vital in understanding the power of a liberal education. Plato may give the best description of this process.⁷ Quoting Socrates, he speaks of learning as a journey with identifiable stages: training the physical body and the moral sense, understanding the world though learning and experience, development of reason through mathematics, and finally knowing⁸ fundamental principles through dialogue with oneself or others. In pondering these stages, it appears that this ability to know is developed sequentially after years of searching for truth, as a combination of moral discernment, general knowledge, the ability to reason, and the ability to ponder and discuss. In Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis seems to recognize this sequence as he first argues for the development of the one’s heart and then for the development of one’s reason.⁹

Developing moral character and the ability to know truth is the primary aim of the classics, and any institution devoted to their study.

Self-evident truths form the moral foundation of society. Yet, historically our ability to know these truths has been impeded by human weakness and error. Hence, whether right or wrong, many acts that one generation has felt morally justified in committing have been deemed immoral by subsequent generations. These adjustments in the moral canon¹⁰ are seen by some as reason to reject the idea of truth, or to despair of ever knowing it. Many even promote the idea that the search for truth is dangerous. President Obama spoke for this relativistic mindset when he alleged:

It was not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent. Implicit in [the Constitution's] structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or “ism,” any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course….¹¹

Two objections to this line of reasoning come to mind. First, the very existence of changes in the moral canon over time refutes the claim that it can “lock future generations.” Rather the moral canon challenges the innovator to a respectful duel of ideas. One may propose new moral ideals, but in so doing must grapple with thousands of years of argument. To evade the rigor of this challenge by simply denying absolute truth is an intellectual shortcut, and a cheat to the great men and women who have lived before and passed to us their wisdom.

Second, a rejection of truth risks throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. How are we to judge our actions or those of any government without a standard? If we have no standard of truth, then by default, self-interest becomes the standard by which to judge. You may have heard the argument, “I will respect your rights in the hopes that you will respect mine.” Said in other words it amounts to, “I’d abuse your rights, except for fear that you would abuse mine.” Consequently, threat of force replaces reason and morality as the compelling motive of men and governments. I do not deny that that self-interest has always been a powerful motivator in the lives of men, possibly even the primary motivator. But with whom would you feel most secure? A ruler who only recognizes self-interest and force as legitimate, or one who seeks to temper his own interest and power with a higher moral standard—a standard that has been debated and discussed for thousands of years?

The self-evident truths affirmed in the Declaration of Independence—initially overlooked by nearly everyone—have become the lens through which the Constitution is interpreted and the primary safeguard of our liberties. Yet their ability to discourage government abuse of power is dependent upon the extent we recognize the veracity of these truths. In the last century, nearly every expansion of government power has been justified by a rejection of the self-evident truths restricting it. In 1926 the eminent economist, John Maynard Keynes, stated:

Let us clear from the ground the metaphysical or general principles upon which, from time to time, laissez-faire has been founded. It is not true that individuals possess a prescriptive ‘natural liberty’ in their economic activities. . . We cannot therefore settle on abstract grounds, but must handle on its merits in detail what Burke termed “one of the finest problems in legislation, namely, to determine what the State ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual exertion.¹²

Within three years the world would be thrust into the Great Depression. Having rejected the “principles” and “natural liberty” upon which free enterprise was based, mankind sought to determine the extent of government intervention “on its merits.” Within a decade, the annual budget of the United States tripled¹³ and national debt as a percentage of GDP increased from 15% to over 50%.¹⁴This was accompanied by an unprecedented shift of power from individuals and local institutions to the central government. Similar shifts occurred during the same period of time in nearly every other industrialized country.

In his inaugural speech in 2009 President Obama mirrored the words of Keynes:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.¹⁵

Using what “works” as the criteria for government intervention, our federal spending has increased by over 27% in just two years.¹⁶ The national debt is expected to increase from 70% of GDP to over 100% by 2012.¹⁷ New regulations, industry bailouts and government expansion into healthcare are accelerating at a staggering pace. If this trend continues we will see a centralization of federal power that will exceed the welfare states of Europe. Of course, history teaches us another truth as well—one that is based on mankind’s experience and therefore not self-evident—that the political machinery used for wielding such power is almost always abused in due course.

The principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence stand as a bulwark against such danger. I encourage all, whether citizens of the United States or not, to carefully read it and regularly re-read it. But whether we recognize its principles as morally binding the actions of men and governments, or as mere metaphysical ideas to be discarded as they inhibit our particular interests—this will depend largely upon the development of our moral character and intellectual skill. Our goal at George Wythe University is to contribute to this development though the study of the classics and applying the principles found within them. For it is only by engaging in the Great Conversation of the ages and drinking from its wisdom that we refine our hearts and minds to recognize those self-evident moral truths which have stood the test of time.

The fifth president of George Wythe University, Shane S. Schulthies received his Ph.D. in Exercise Science from Brigham Young University where he subsequently taught for 13 years. During his tenure he chaired the Human Subjects Committee, overseeing the ethical standards of all human research at Brigham Young University’s three campuses, and training faculty in ethics in human research across multiple disciplines. He has served on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Athletic Training, as an associate editor to the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, and has been a contributing author for 23 peer-reviewed articles. He has lectured in the United States, Europe and Asia and has been awarded a variety of professional distinctions in research and teaching. Since engaging in a comprehensive personal education in the liberal arts, he has become significantly involved in political and legislative processes, including various roles in leadership, policy, campaign execution, and advocacy. Prior to his current position, he served as provost at GWU. He is married to the former Kimberly Hanson of San Francisco, California.

1. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea/cfm/doc.cfm?id=L17760703jasecond
2. Pauline Maier, Making Sense of the Fourth of July, American Heritage, Aug 1997, http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/1997/August/20050606131757pssnikwad0.3779871.html
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Writings of Jefferson, Bergh editor, volume 19, page 460. See also Pauline Maier, Making Sense of the Fourth of July, American Heritage, Aug 1997, http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/1997/August/20050606131757pssnikwad0.3779871.html.
6. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html
7. See Plato’s Republic
8. The Greek term is gnosis.
9. C.S. Lewis, in Abolition of Man, Harper, San Francisco, 1974
10. In Abolition of Man, C.S Lewis called this the Tao, to represent the fusion of Eastern and Western Classics. As it is the basis of morality I will use the term moral cannon.
11. Barack Obama, Audacity of Hope, Three Rivers Press, 2007, page 93
12. John Maynard Keynes, End of Laissez Faire, http://www.panarchy.org/keynes/laissezfaire.1926.html
13. Historical Tables, Budget Untied States Government, 2006, page 21, found at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/pdf/hist.pdf
14. These numbers were calculated by dividing the national debt figures found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt by the GDP figures found at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yCN4e1UaFooJ:www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls+gdplev&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari.
15. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html?pagewanted=all
16. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/budget/tables.pdf
17. These numbers were calculated by dividing the national debt figures found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt by the GDP figures found at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yCN4e1UaFooJ:www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls+gdplev&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

Source: http://newsletter.gw.edu/a/FeaturedArticle/161?PHPSESSID=adb42711372a7016df6f74ef93f03e8d

Earlier, Kevin Theriot blogged about the Supreme Court’s decision in EEOC v. Hosanna-Tabor.  The case was a phenomenal win for religious freedom and has far-reaching implications.  In analyzing the opinion, one important implication is that the Supreme Court has announced heightened protection for the internal affairs of a church and for situations that affect the faith and mission of the church.

In a court decision from 1990 called Employment Division v. Smith, the Court allowed the government greater latitude to restrict the free exercise of religion.  The Court held in Smith that if a law was neutral as to religion and if it was generally applicable to all people, then the government was allowed to burden the free exercise of religion.  The Smith case marked a drastic departure from the Supreme Court’s earlier precedents which uniformly held that any law, even if that law was neutral and generally applicable, could not burden the free exercise of religion unless the law was justified by a compelling governmental interest that was advanced in the least restrictive means available.  This test is the strongest test available under the constitution.  In applying this test over the years, the Court candidly acknowledged that the test was strong medicine and that many laws burdening the free exercise of religion did not meet this test and were invalidated because they violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Critics of Pulpit Freedom Sunday frequently cite to Smith and say that the Johnson Amendment is a law that is neutral and generally applicable so churches have no valid legal argument that the Johnson Amendment violates the Free Exercise Clause.  The Hosanna-Tabor decision changes that analysis, though.  In Hosanna-Tabor the Supreme Court retreated some from its analysis in the Smith case.  It stated: “Smith involved government regulation of only outward physical acts.  The present case, in contrast, concerns government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself.”  Essentially, the Supreme Court created a “church exception” to the Smith case.  This means that a law that may in fact be neutral and generally applicable will now have to meet the pre-Smith compelling interest standard if it interferes with internal church matters that affect the faith and mission of the church itself.  The Supreme Court, in effect, broadened and strengthened the Free Exercise rights of churches.

This is good news for pastors chafing under the unconstitutional restriction of the Johnson Amendment.  What affects the faith and mission of the church itself more than a governmental restriction on a pastor’s sermon from the pulpit?  By allowing the government to punish pastors for preaching a certain way from the pulpit, we are allowing the government to drive and change the faith and mission of the church itself.  By allowing the IRS to declare certain topics to be off-limits or to prohibit the application of biblical truth to elections and sermons, we are allowing the government to dictate what the faith and mission of the church is and how it should be applied and proclaimed from the pulpit.

The Hosanna-Tabor case means that the IRS will now have to demonstrate a compelling reason for restricting a pastor’s sermon from the pulpit.  They cannot do so.  In fact, there is no legitimate reason for the Johnson Amendment.  And if you take a moment to understand the history behind the adoption of the Johnson Amendment, you’ll understand just how true that is.  Hosanna-Tabor is one more indication that the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional and should be struck down at the earliest opportunity.

Pastors should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent decision.  Now is the time to seize the opportunity and reclaim the right of pastors to speak freely from their pulpits without fearing governmental censorship or intimidation.  If you are a pastor, please sign up now to be a part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  For everyone else, forward this to your pastor and encourage them to sign up for Pulpit Freedom Sunday as well.  Standing together, we can and will make a difference.

Source: http://blog.speakupmovement.org/church/churches-and-politics/supreme-court-case-offers-protection-for-pastors-sermons/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SpeakUpChurchBlog+%28Speak+Up+Church+Blog%29

The CEO of a major American corporation was forced to resign after admitting to a sexual affair with a female subordinate (Merle, 2005). The incident triggered the oft’-debated ethical question: “Should one’s personal behavior in moral matters have any bearing on one’s position in public life?” Conventional wisdom now says, “no.” You’ve heard the claims—over and over again ad nauseam: “What a person does on his own time is none of the company’s business.” “Public life and private life are separate issues.” “After all, you cannot legislate morality and personal behavior.” From the president of the United States and the CEO of a large corporation to the public school teacher, Americans in large numbers have swallowed the baseless and ludicrous assertion that personal conduct and moral choices have no bearing on one’s employment position and credibility. Character, integrity, and ethical behavior increasingly have been detached from job performance as people compartmentalize their lives into separate and distinct spheres.

But such ethical schizophrenia is irrational, nonsensical, and destructive to the fabric of society. When a person manifests immorality in one aspect of his life, he demonstrates a character flaw that has become a part of his being. This circumstance must inevitably and naturally permeate a person’s character. If he is willing to lie in his private life, logically his propensity for lying can know no boundaries. The person who becomes comfortable with lying in one area of his life will eventually feel comfortable lying in other areas as well. Once a person sacrifices her integrity by embracing one illicit behavior (e.g., lying), she instantaneously opens herself up to embracing additional illicit behaviors (e.g., stealing, cheating). If a man cannot be trusted with your wife, why would you trust him with your money or your business?

God’s Word is the only reliable guide for human behavior (Psalm 119). In the Bible, God has given rules for the regulation of human behavior. Only He is in a position to establish the parameters of proper behavior. Without law, humans would have no guidance and no framework for assessing their actions. They would be free to conduct themselves in any manner whatsoever. One person may choose to murder while another may choose not to murder. There would be no ultimate difference between those two choices—no objective basis upon which to assign any ethical or moral significance. The person who engages in immoral behavior would be open to being immoral in any and every area of his or her life. Only incidental circumstances would decide when and where the immorality manifested itself. If a CEO would sacrifice his sexual integrity, given the right circumstances, he would be willing to sacrifice his financial integrity as well.

Human civilization is, in fact, grounded and dependent on the fundamental principle that human behavior can and must be regulated. Laws, by definition, regulate human behavior! Why do we have traffic laws? Why do we require people to drive their automobiles on the correct side of the road, stop at red traffic lights, or yield to pedestrians in crosswalks? Weren’t we told that we could not legislate human behavior? Why do we have laws governing the food industry’s handling of food for human consumption? I thought we could not legislate human behavior? Why do we have laws that make murder, stealing, and perjury in court illegal—if human morality cannot be legislated? The fact of the matter is that human behavior can and must be governed. The very fabric and functioning of society depends on it!

Ultimately, morality must be based on the laws of God, with the understanding that one day all humans will stand before the Supreme Judge of the world Who will “render to each one according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6): “For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil (Ecclesiastes 12:14). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:10-11).

Merle, Renae (2005), “Boeing CEO Resigns Over Affair with Subordinate,” Washington Post, Tuesday, March 8, [On-line], URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13173-2005Mar7.html.

At first glance, the news seemed encouraging. According to a decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court on June 14, 2004, the phrase “under God” will continue to be included in the Pledge of Allegiance. However, this is not as encouraging as it appears. Instead of ruling on the merits of the case, eight of the nine justices (Justice Scalia recused himself from ruling) decided that the respondent did not have the proper standing to bring a case before the Supreme Court, leaving the Pledge of Allegiance open to further attacks.

The case began in 2000, when Michael A. Newdow filed a lawsuit in the Eastern California District of the Ninth Circuit against the U.S. Congress, President Bush, the State of California, the Elk Grove Unified School District, and school superintendent David W. Gordon. In his suit, Newdow, who is an atheist, claimed that requiring his daughter to recite the phrase “under God” every morning in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the clauses of the Constitution that prohibit the establishment of a national religion and the free exercise of religion (Stevens, 2004, p. 4).

The Pledge of Allegiance originated in the 1892 celebrations of Columbus Day, and read: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” The wording was revised several times over the course of the next sixty-two years, the final change coming in 1954 when President Eisenhower approved the addition of the words “under God.” He said: “In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war” (“The Story of the Pledge of Allegiance”).

The district court ruled that the Pledge was constitutional, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals eventually overturned the ruling. Following motions filed by Sandra Banning—the mother and legal custodian of Newdow’s daughter—and a custody ruling by the California Superior Court, the Court of Appeals amended its opinion. The new opinion omitted any statement on the overall constitutionality of the Pledge, but ruled that the school district’s policy—requiring teachers to lead students in reciting the Pledge every morning—did violate the Constitution. The Elk Grove School District then appealed to the Supreme Court, asking if Newdow had proper standing to bring the suit, and, if so, whether the policy of required recitation violated the Constitution (Stevens, pp. 5-7).

Writing for the court, Justice Stevens said: “Nothing that either Banning [the girl’s mother] or the School Board has done, however, impairs Newdow’s right to instruct his daughter in his religious views” (p. 13). The court ruled that Newdow could not bring the case, since he was not the legal custodian of the child, and so overturned the amended opinion of the Ninth Circuit. Thus, this ruling left undecided the merits of the Pledge’s constitutionality.

However, in a concurring opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist: “On the merits, I conclude that the Elk Grove Unified School District (School District) policy that requires teachers to lead willing students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which includes the words ‘under God,’ does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment” (2004, p. 1). In another concurring opinion, Justice O’Connor wrote: “Like the Chief Justice, I believe that we must examine those questions, and, like him, I believe that petitioner school district’s policy of having its teachers lead students in voluntary recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance does not offend the Establishment Clause” (2004, p. 1). In a third concurring opinion, Justice Thomas wrote: “We granted certiorari [certiorari is a review of a decision by a lower court] in this case to decide whether the Elk Grove Unified School District’s Pledge policy violates the Constitution. The answer to that question is: ‘no’ ” (2004, p. 1).

Where does this leave the Pledge of Allegiance? As shown by the concurring opinions above, three of the eight justices who ruled in the case were prepared to decide that it is constitutional to recite the Pledge with the phrase “under God” intact. For now, the Pledge of Allegiance remains a reminder that the United States of America was founded on the belief of a Supreme Being. Whether or not that view continues, however, remains to be seen.

The application to Christians is that taking “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance would put the United States farther down the slippery slope as it heads toward becoming a godless, morally depraved nation. This country was founded upon the common law principles of the Old World, which were, in turn, founded upon biblical, godly morals. If we are not under God, then the sky is the limit to our degeneration.

REFERENCES

O’Connor, Justice Sandra Day (2004), Elk Grove v. Newdow, U.S. Supreme Court, [On-line], URL: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/02-1624.pdf.

Rehnquist, Chief Justice William H. (2004), Elk Grove v. Newdow, U.S. Supreme Court, [On-line], URL: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/02-1624.pdf.

Stevens, Justice John Paul (2004), Elk Grove v. Newdow, U.S. Supreme Court, [On-line], URL: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/02-1624.pdf.

“The Story of the Pledge of Allegiance,” Flag Day Foundation, [On-line], URL: http://www.flagday.org/Pages/StoryofPledge.html.

Friends and Citizens,

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.

The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.

In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it 7 It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils 7 Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the twenty-second of April, I793, is the index of my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.

The considerations which respect the right to hold this con duct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all.

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.