Expression of the American Mind

The Declaration of Independence was, “intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.” - Thomas Jefferson

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

The, “Laws of Nature and of Nature's God”. Since God is the God of nature, and nature has Laws, therefor these Laws are of God. And what are God’s laws being applied to? God’s laws are being applied to the powers of the earth to ensure the independence and sovereignty of each person that is inherently gifted them by God. Neither God nor nature enslaves. Only man and his laws do that. The Declaration of Independence was a reminder to Britain of that fact and that the colonies were presently exercising that unalienable and self-evident right of independence which was endowed them by the Creator Himself. “Separate and equal station”, or independence of each individual and of their mind, body, soul and spirit. This independence, among other things, afforded each person the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Did you notice how the political bands between colonies and Britain are reduced to “human affairs” while the breaking of those bands comes through evoking God and His Laws? It’s impossible to separate God from God’s (natural) Law. Our responsibility is to adopt, apply, and obey these Laws. God and His Law are not necessarily the same as religion and government. Those are man made devices which have the tendency to evolve into man’s vice.

The only God evoked by our founding fathers was Jehovah. These were Christian men that evoked God and His Laws to be able to first detach from Great Britain, and then found the United State of America.

Thomas Paine queried if America was not the result of the Protestant Reformation. He drew a parallel between starting a new country and Noah starting a new world. Religion, Paine thought it was the governments duty to protect it.

But here’s a very interesting aspect about religion. It was the idea that diversity of religion was exclusively in terms of within the Christian faith. It was diversity of denominations within Christianity and not diversity of religions.

“I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness: were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only in what is called their Christian names.”-Thomas Paine

Yes, America is a de facto Christian nation. It is not a theocracy like Islam. No Christian nation ever has been nor will be a theocracy. It can’t.

The expression of the American mind. That expression, that spirit, is of God and His will towards man, not a government’s will towards man. The Declaration divorced government from rule and instilled God’s Law as the rule.

Bill Hitchcock