RTW: A Right to... What?

RTW: A Right to... What?
Threading your way out of a tangled web can be... painful, and heated. I'd wanted to get a few more posts in on Progress vs. Regress before turning to 'Right To Work', but I'm too slow and the time is here now. But before getting to the RTW bill Missouri is in the midst of debating, or what I think about it, let me make clear my position on Politics and on Unions.

Politics: I'm not here to aid or support anyone, or any bill, or any policy in any election, or in any other pursuit for that matter. I'm here to present the ideas I've learned to be true, ideas I believe are important to people's lives, ideas which I think that a person who values their life should be aware of and understand. The core of these ideas are what made America possible in the first place and which neither it nor liberty can continue for long without. It's been said that 'Politics is downstream of Culture', which is very true, but Culture is itself downstream from the ideas which it is formed from. If you don't alter or deepen the ideas which the people of a culture are thinking or are even willing to consider, then you won't change the culture, and that, the ideas our culture is aware of, is the target I use this blog to aim at. True, there is circulation between the two, but simply presenting yourself more fashionably or being more 'edgy', won't accomplish a damn thing.

Unions: The heart and soul of the union, the central idea they were originally formed around and which they are battling to maintain, or even strengthen today, is that they are an organization designed to get what they have no right to, in order to exercise power upon all. The first victims explicitly targeted by Unions are those they claim to want to 'represent': the worker. Their first actions are not taken against the rich, but towards intimidating those workers who aren't inclined to join them, into their membership against their will. Only once enough of the workforce has been pressed into their ranks, do they then turn their tender attentions to 'the rich', using the workers they claim to represent, as tools of intimidation in order to rob 'the rich' and the worker of their right to make their own decisions, neatly gaining power over them all.

Whatever guise they hide behind, 'Trade Union' or otherwise, I despise them all. Sure, some good things may have resulted from actions unions have taken, no doubt some good things have come from the Mafia as well. I'm not impressed by such 'good deeds' and give them no credit because of them.

And yes I know, everyone knows someone in unions who are just swell. My Brother in Law spent a couple decades in a union. My Wife is in a union. Because they had the choice to join their union? No. Because they were compelled to join a union. Whatever good it is that you want to chalk up to unions, I can show one or more evils that have been condoned and accepted into society to accomplish that 'good', and which compounds the initial evil done. That they have been legalized, simply means that the Law has been perverted into protecting thuggery.

Unions are the embodiment of 'Might Makes Right' and few things are more Pro-Regressive than that. I detest them for what they actually are, not for who might be in them or what good might appear to have resulted from them. Anything that hinders them, I'm for. Anything that can legitimately be done to limit their power, or to dissolve them from the American landscape, I am for.

That being said, it is difficult to be a whole hearted supporter of RTW, as the position we are in is too like having to use Romney to vote against Obama, and far too familiar for us on the Right; but no, it's not an unprincipled vote and yes, we've got to do it. But. Is it possible to take a principled stand on ground that has already been rendered unprincipled? Care must be taken. The distastefulness is not just because of the bill itself, but because of the deforming federal laws it must 'respect', and because of the approach the GOP has taken to sell it. And to understand why that is, we need to know some of the background behind it.

RTW? How about a Right to Rights?!
Firstly, and probably least in the minds of supporters of RTW, I object to the Utopian title: "Right To Work". Why? Take a moment and think about what it presumes and what it neglects. A hint as to the problem in Missouri's bill, is in a comment Michigan's Gov. made upon a similar bill:

"Gov. Rick Snyder, who took a hit in popularity polls after he pushed for right-to-work, has said the law “isn’t about being anti-union,” but is “about being pro-worker.”"

Anyone notice the vital party neglected by that comment upon employment? Yep, the employer. This is Law we're talking about. Laws which directly affect the rights and livelihoods of all Americans, and at the very least, for a law to be 'Pro' one side or the other, is to slight the rights of some - minority or majority matters not in the least - the result is to undermine the rights of all. It is either 'One nation, under law', or one group pitched against another, for the benefit of yet another.

But more fundamentally, I object to the term 'Right To Work' because there is no 'right to work', and there cannot be. It is a Utopian and self contradictory term. What do I mean? To claim that there is a 'Right To Work', means that someone, somewhere, somehow, at some point in time, must be compelled to provide jobs as an end in itself, and so those providing the jobs cannot have full political rights themselves, and so no one in that utopia can have Rights, or at least not Rights as understood to be inherent in their nature as human beings, and that leaves only privileges. Privileges bestowed upon some, by those with the power to compel the material of them from others.

There can be no 'Right to Work' and Individual Rights.

Secondly, the strategy used to promote RTW laws disturbs me. The GOP approach is to focus on jobs:

"The arguments surrounding right to work center on economic issues and fairness. Supporters point to greater job growth in the states, mostly in the South, with right-to-work laws. Opponents counter that these states also have lower wages."

What's disturbing about that? It's because arguments that focus primarily on results, on statistics, in this case economic issues and fairness, or in ObamaCare's focus on the uninsured and fairness, disregard or minimize the Rights of those involved and the principles that must be fully respected for those rights to have any real meaning and power under law.

That, I find disturbing.

Do RTW states experience a rise in wages? Pardon me, but I don't really give a rat's ass whether they do or not! Do their people - employers, employees and those they choose to associate with - experience the ability to exercise their rights to make their own decisions, while respecting the rights of others to do the same? If they do, then their wages will more closely reflect the values that they've produced - and in the context of exercising power over people, I don't care about anything else, and govt sure as hell shouldn't be freed to either.

What's that? You think it does matter?

Let me ask you this: Do you believe people should be paid more than the monetary value their efforts have produced? Yes? You are for 'something for nothing'? Then you, left or right, are the embodiment of the Marxist ideal of 'greedy capitalists' which they've successfully branded the Free Market with (Thanks Schools!). If you are alright with that, then please, go find your position on the proRegressive left. Don't worry, they'll make room for you, as soon as you make it clear you have no principles but those of convenience, they'll find the right group to fit you in with.

The actual issue here is do people have the right to form businesses, do individuals - business owner and employee and organizations - still retain one of the few rights included in the original un-amended Constitution, the right to contract? Do business owners have the right to make the decisions required to operate their businesses? Do the potential employees have the right to accept or decline? Do others have the right to form associations and offer their services to both? (See the various versions of skilled worker placement/consultants/project mgmt companies which populate the tech industry. No reason why the same wouldn't work in the blue color industries that unions prey upon... except that they aren't free to, of course)

Or more succinctly: Do people have the right to live their own lives, or not?

Not a litmus test
Don't get yourself into a tizzy, I'm not setting up a 'with me or against me' litmus test over RTW legislation. In spirit I'm wholeheartedly in favor of what I think the spirit of RTW bills are (which adds up to way more spirit over material fact than I'm comfortable with in any law... but leave that aside for a moment). And yes, the Unions are opposed to this bill, which will likely have a large impact on their ever diminishing power. Good on that. My natural urge is to swallow the bile rising in my throat and back anything, such as RTW, that reduces the power and place of unions, and I think any conservative is naturally going to want to side with RTW laws. In fact, I would assume sight unseen, that any Republican politician that is opposed to RTW, probably found their position more by calculating the electoral votes of union members against the rights of the rest of their constituents, than by a consideration of principles. Sure, there may be some who actually do oppose RTW upon principle, but before accepting their word on that, I'd suggest taking a look at their other votes first, such as on Smoking Ban's, Common Core, Medicaid expansion, and sweet business/govt partnership deals like 'Aerotropolis/China Hub', etc. And then I'd ask them to take a closer look at their principles as a whole, and what they are for - more on that in a bit.

But there is a reason why RTW makes the bile rise in my throat, which a closer look at the bill itself, House Bill 1770 should make clear:

290.591. 1. Except in instances when this section conflicts with or is preempted by federal law, no person shall be required as a condition or continuation of employment to:
(1) Become or refrain from becoming a member of a labor organization;
(2) Pay any dues, fees, assessments, or other similar charges, however denominated, of any kind or amount to a labor organization; or
(3) Pay to any charity or other third party any amount equivalent to, or on a pro rata basis, any dues, fees, assessments, or other charges required of members of a labor organization, in lieu of the payments listed under subdivision (2) of this subsection.
2. Any agreement, understanding, or practice, written or oral, implied or expressed, between any labor organization and employer that violates the rights of employees as guaranteed under this section is declared to be unlawful, null and void, and of no legal effect.

Now take a look at this portion of the first line again:

"...no person as a condition or continuation of employment can be required to..."

, 'can be required', by who? By the person who is offering them a position of employment in their business, the employer, that's who. Why would they not have the right to make an offer of employment on terms which they judged best for their business? Notice that the bill doesn't say that:

'No business owner shall be compelled to offer as a condition or continuation of employment, a requirement that'

Now let me ask you this: What of a business owner, who, for reasons that would be entirely unfathomable to me, wants his business to be a 'Union Shop'?

Does he not have the right to operate his business as he sees fit? Do you see the problem? Why would we want a law further restricting the liberty of employers? It not only infringes upon the rights of the business owner, but does even further damage to the already battered shell of Property Rights (without which no Rights can have any substance) that are still remaining to us.

If you ask the legislators why they've written their bill this way, there response will probably be that federal law compels them to, and those few who aren't just repeating the talking points that'll keep the union vote happy, would likely direct your attention back to the first line in their RTW Bill:

290.591. 1. Except in instances when this section conflicts with or is preempted by federal law

, and the 'preempted by federal law' refers to lines such as these, from the NLRB which forbids businesses:

"(a)(2) "to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it"
, and,
"(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 159 (a) of this title." "

So on one side we have the union promoting legislation already on the books, which forbids business owners from using their own judgment and forces them to 'bargain' with unions, while on the other 'Pro-Worker!' side we have 'Right to Work' laws, which forbids business owners from using their own judgment and forces them to not have a full union shop. The result is that The Law is being used to prevent a business owner from having any say in some of the most critical decisions which their businesses face on a daily basis.

Heads you lose. Tails you lose. Wanna flip again?

Do you know what the worst part is? This is the best and most 'Rights' promoting option available to us today, and it is so because of laws such as the 'Wagner Act' (which created the National Labor Relations Board) that 'Progressive Democrats' placed on the books 70+ years ago during FDR's terms, and which the GOP 'fixed' a few years afterwards with 'Taft-Hartley' when they regained power.

What the Briton said of the Romans: "They make a desert and call it peace", might be said of our bi-partisan govt: "They eliminate an employers rights, and call it a Right To Work.".

How'd we get here? The easy way, of course.
Because our laws have already been corrupted, any new laws must make allowances for that corruption, in order to try and make... ehm, progress. How did we get here? By allowing Pro-Regressives to pass off a position that was actually pro-regress, as 'progress', and because the GOP didn't stand for Principle, but ran on poll tested tactics (as they are still doing today), they missed out on the fact that FDR's position wasn't just a modification of the business to employee relationship, but an elimination of the Right to there even being such a thing. But of course the original spin-meister, FDR, dressed it up a bit nicer than that, as he said of the Wagner Act on July 5, 1935:

“A better relationship between labor and management is the high purpose of this Act. By assuring the employees the right of collective bargaining it fosters the development of the employment contract on a sound and equitable basis. By providing an orderly procedure for determining who is entitled to represent the employees, it aims to remove one of the chief causes of wasteful economic strife. By preventing practices which tend to destroy the independence of labor, it seeks, for every worker within its scope, that freedom of choice and action which is justly his.”

Understand, the Supreme Court had already struck down FDR's previous attempt at legislating such a 'Labor Relations Board', so FDR did then, what today's President Obama recently did: he intimidated the court. FDR threatened to pack the court with new appointees to get his way, and the conservative court, then under Hughes, as in our day under Roberts, caved to executive intimidation and approved it, a tactic forever known as the 'Switch in time that saved nine'. However, in a previous case on nearly identical legislation, the court struck it down, saying that setting up such labor relations boards was:

"...The effect, in respect of wages and hours, is to subject the dissentient minority, either of producers or miners or both, to the will of the stated majority, since, by refusing to submit, the minority at once incurs the hazard of enforcement of the drastic compulsory provisions of the act to which we have referred. To "accept," in these circumstances, is not to exercise a choice, but to surrender to force.

The power conferred upon the majority is, in effect, the power to regulate the affairs of an unwilling minority. This is legislative delegation in its most obnoxious form, for it is not even delegation to an official or an official body, presumptively disinterested, but to private persons whose interests may be and often are adverse to the interests of others in the same business. ..."

No matter what subsequent Supreme Court decisions ruled, that is still at the heart of Union power as imposed upon us today, and my natural urge is to do the only thing that seems left to do, and that's back anything, such as RTW.

But the real problem here is the Right's seemingly instinctive resignation to half-measures and our toleration of 'what else can we do?' approaches.

It is not only easy to make the 'pragmatic' case for such laws and actions, but in some sense it is necessary because once pragmatism has been allowed in, principle is necessarily forced out of the door, and it has been - so what else can you do? There is something more we can do, and it doesn't mean rejecting the distasteful steps we do have to take right now, but it does require insisting that those steps be part of a more clearly defined destination - which I'll come back to shortly.

Is that not the same refrain we hear from establishment republicans against ObamaCare today?

Well it's nothing new, in fact it is nearly as old as the modern left and has defined the GOP response to every Democrat gain since FDR, even when they themselves are the party in power! The Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, was the perpetual short term half measure that the GOP proposed because it didn't have the guts to toss out the Wagner Act altogether. Eyes forever on the polls, even once they've secured the power to do what they campaigned on doing, they sought only to weaken Union power, and even that was only effected on the surface. An adviser to the Senators proposing Taft-Hartley warned them against such half-hearted 'what else can we do' measures, warning that if such 'Right To Work' measures were passed, instead of repealing the Wagner Act outright:

" ...Greaves was closely involved in the issue. At the request of Sen. Robert A. Taft in 1946, he helped draft a precursor to Taft-Hartley. According to Greaves, union activity had caused the Wagner Act to fall out of favor with the public. Taft wanted an ameliorative bill that would win enough votes to override a veto by President Harry Truman — in another words, a watered-down bill. Then, after the Republicans won the White House and Congress in 1948, they would pass a better law.
Greaves “opposed this thinking on the basis that it would be better not to have any new law at that time[, contending] that a successful veto of a better law would result in a growing public pressure for the repeal of the Wagner Act and the election of the party that espoused such a move. The senator was not willing to go that far.” Greaves feared that “if the senator’s plan were successful, the public would be persuaded that the then evident economic distress flowing from union activity had been remedied and the next tide of public opinion might well be in the other direction.”
Taft disagreed, and Greaves left the Senate committee. “Freedom … lost,” Greaves wrote looking back, because once Taft-Hartley passed, the pressure on the Wagner Act disappeared... [Emphasis mine]

Today, nearly 70 years later, we are still taking such palatable, ultimately self defeating measures. The Right is talked into proposing measures which don't repeal the legislative acts which are the real cause of the problem, and always with the promise of "after the next election, we'll 'pass a better law'". The fact is that Taft-Hartley didn't reduce the unions power, but only consolidated it, as this, from the introduction to a book of economist Henry Hazlitt's essays during that time, points out:

"... Taft-Hartley emerged as the conservative counterweight to the Wagner regime, the product of a Republican-dominated 80th Congress elected in 1946 in response to post-war inflation, excessive government controls, and historic levels of labor strife. Passed by an alliance of anti-labor Republicans and Southern Democrats, Taft-Hartley did not roll back, so much as circumscribe, New Deal labor law. It retained the process of collective bargaining supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, but outlawed wildcat strikes, secondary boycotts, and the closed shop. It prohibited both management and labor from engaging in “practices which [sic] jeopardize the public health, safety, or interest” and required anti-communist affidavits from all unionists. Moreover, it authorized the president to intervene in strikes that threatened national security and enabled individual states to pass “right-to-work” laws outlawing exclusive union shops...."

IOW it had given monopoly control over unionized workers to one union in a shop, whether or not the owner of that shop wanted them there, or even whether any other employee might have preferred another union to represent them. Republicans are heading the very same road with ObamaCare and Medicaid Expansion, such as Missouri sleazeball State Sen. Ryan Silvey has proposed doing, and no doubt 70 years from now our grand-kids will be proposing some sort of 'Right To Prescriptions' laws because of it.

This relentless GOP retreat of 'do what we can' half-measures, with no wider strategy having been defined or committed to, not only does not succeed, but they cannot succeed. While such short term efforts may be necessary, in the short term, to adopt them as our overall strategy, as the GOP has been doing for decades, is suicide.

This isn't about Business vs Labor, but about the inconvenient Rights of both - inconvenient to the established powers that be who just want to tend their power gardens, grooming them sometimes to appeal to the Left, and sometimes to the Right, but always producing a bumper crop of incumbents for the benefit of each. Also keep in mind that politically influential business 'interests' were very much behind the 'Wagner Act' to begin with, because they thought it'd make it easier on their businesses by helping to promote cooler headed unions over the real radicals ('Big Business' is almost always as opposed to a Free Market as the radical Left is)... and they've continued to split the difference between Individual Rights and their own interests ever since.

How do we get a right to our Rights back?
RTW does curb the power of unions. But. But it also increases the power of Govt. RTW as written, reduces the grip Unions have on workers, but it does so by increasing Govt's power over business owners, which in the end, means over all of us. It's hard not to hear Gandalf reading in the background: 'One Ring to rule them all...', right?

So where does that leave us?

In about the same place that Richard Nixon & Teddy Kennedy's HMO bill left health care back in 1973. It leaves us in that place where every attempt to improve the situation, necessarily restricts our liberty even further, compounds our problems, and hastens the time where an ObamaCare-type solution will be proposed to 'fix' it.

So what do you do when placed in a position of choosing between two evils?

Don't.

First, recognize that sometimes acting 'on principle' can be unprincipled behavior. Principles are an aid to thinking, not a substitute for it, and used imprudently, can do more harm than good. When you find yourself in a place where no good choices are possible, that doesn't mean that you make no choice at all, it means that you widen your perspective and clarify your goals.

Choose instead, where there is a choice to be made, that which causes the least damage to your liberty, and the most damage to the forces arrayed against you - and do NOT accept that as your only or final option. The confused morals of our current laws makes measures such as RTW necessary, but we can and must do more to make it only an inconvenient step, rather than a destination of moral compromise.

Widen your perspective - as the situation stands now, our govt has already asserted its right to compel business owners to do what it wants... 'for the greater good'; it has done so in the 'Wagner Act', and 'Taft-Hartley' and Medicaid and so many other laws since, all the way up to ObamaCare, that this... this is just one more lash in a thousand stripes across our backs. So, sad to say, it is not unreasonable to see that adding yet another layer of restrictions upon us, is like painting an '11' on the volume knob - a distinction which makes no further difference. More to the point, for those thinking that not voting for RTW will somehow leave business owners free to conduct their business without govt interference - that's damn near delusional. Isn't it? So please, remember how laughable that argument is if someone makes it to you.

On the other hand, RTW does limit unions access to our fellows, it will limit the power of unions over the workforce, it will reduce their power in our society, and so on that basis, I do see a more solid strike for liberty being made by voting for RTW, than the strike which RTW itself makes against our liberty.

But having made that painful calculus, the only way to prevent it from becoming a choice of lesser evils, is to NOT accept that as your only or final option. You must have a long term goal, a long term strategy to get the Right to our Rights back. We've got to be looking to strike at the real political root, and that isn't unions, but those acts which gave them power over us, such as the 'Wagner Act' and 'Taft-Hartley'. And measures such as this, a 'States Repeal Act', which I'll dig much deeper into in later posts, is one way to enable RTW states to do just that, and help get back the right to our Rights.

For myself, keeping in mind that Politics is downstream of Culture, and that Culture is downstream of the arena of Ideas, I'm keeping my efforts focused there. For the Culture to come around to the idea that restricting liberty doesn't increase it, and to understand why that is, then the ideas which make liberty a conclusion, rather than a starting point, need to be aired, and discussed, and understood. And that's what I attempt to do with this blog. Air the ideas which we as a culture must breathe in, for Liberty to regrow its roots within us. As those ideas become more commonly understood, then our culture will tear out  abominations such as the 'Wagner Act', and the 'Affordable Care Act', root and branch.

So I will support RTW, as one distasteful step in a long journey, while keeping my eyes on the real goal, one which results in real liberty for all.

The Nullity of Nullification and the Revolutionary Nature of 'We The People'- Touching on Tyranny pt.4

Yesterday I restated the case that the greatest threat facing our liberty - and our very selves - is not our government, or politicians or even regulatory law; those are the means, but not the source and cause of what threatens us; but that the greatest threat facing us is our ignorance of what our Rights are, and why this nation was founded in the first place. One result of our failure to acknowledge this very real and looming threat, is that the types of remedies put forward to defend us, and to defend our Constitution, are not only ineffectual, but are derived from, and necessarily deepen, that ignorance, and so despite the best of intentions, they enlarge the threat.

One such example, one that has gained quite a following in recent years, is the nullity of constitutional defense known as Nullification (Missouri has an example of this in the news). This strategy is put forward by well meaning would-be defenders of our Constitution, many of whom I have a great deal of respect for, and it proposes to counter the very real problem of federal overreach, but by advocating local overreach; proposing to pass laws on the state level, which will counter, or nullify, the laws of the entire nation.

To put it more clearly, to uphold the Constitution and counter those actions of the Federal Govt which effectively nullify the Constitution from the top down, these (typically, but not always) libertarians propose nullifying our Constitution from the bottom up, through laws written to override those laws written and passed under the authority of our Constitution, which delegitimizes the Constitution even further.

Apparently useful phrases such as "Two wrongs don't make a right" have fallen into severe disuse... no doubt no longer considered to be part of our 'Common Core Curriculum'.

Lets take a moment and note what Nullification is, what its modern proponents claim it to be, and just a few of what the implications of those claims are. The chief defender of nullification today is Tom Woods, who defines it here, as:

"State nullification is the idea that the states can and must refuse to enforce unconstitutional federal laws."

While that is the sense which Jefferson & Madison had in mind when they proposed the Kentucky Resolutions (more on those later), and those resolutions are what Woods and modern libertarians claim to base their ideas of nullification upon, that is not the sense in which its proponents use the word today; it is at best a sanitized statement which hides, rather than conveys, what they mean and intend by the term nullification today.

Let me emphasize something here: States absolutely do have the power, and their citizens do have the Right (see the 10th and the 9th amendments), to withhold or withdraw the aid of their states in administering and enforcing federal laws which they find objectionable - that is within the constitutional powers of a state. IMHO, a legitimate argument could be made that that is even an expression of the checks and balances our constitution depends so much upon.

But that is not how nullification is thought of, or promoted, today.

Nullification in its modern sense, is the idea that those laws which have been passed by the requisite representation of their fellow states of the union and signed into law by those means provided for in the constitution (which is not to comment upon those laws constitutionality, only that they were passed in a constitutional manner, and so must be addressed or opposed in kind), can actually be made illegal in their state. See Missouri's own recent attempt at nullification, in the "Second Amendment Preservation Act". Understand, proponents do not simply mean withholding their assistance in carrying out the law, or withdrawing their state's administrative support (a potentially devastating blow to the federal governments plans to enforce a law), or making a strong resolution against certain federal laws - I'd be behind them all the way on that. I would even go along with laws passed as test cases to challenge the constitutionality of federal overreach. For instance, I've no problem with these clauses:

• 4. It shall be the duty of the courts and law enforcement agencies of this state to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms within the borders of this state and from the infringements in subsection 3 of this section.
• 5. No public officer or employee of this state shall have any authority to enforce or attempt to enforce any of the infringements on the right to keep and bear arms included in subsection 3 of this section.

, so far so good. And even this,

• 7. Any Missouri citizen who has been subject to an effort to enforce any of the infringements on the right to keep and bear arms included in subsection 3 of this section shall have a private cause of action for declaratory judgment and for damages against any person or entity attempting such enforcement.

, while a bit provocative, there's an argument to be made that it could prompt a test case, at the Supreme Court or Ballot Box level, which might lead to fully airing and resolving the question of the federal governments attempt to infringe upon those Rights of ours which are protected by the 2nd Amendment.

But where they lose me, where our 'Second Amendment Preservation Act' loses me, is where it steps beyond a state's legitimate bounds and powers. And Power, no matter how friendly or tamed you might think it is, is not something that is wisely let off the short leash of the law - and especially not 'for a good reason' - it is always 'for a good reason' that the turn towards tyranny is taken, and it is always ignored because the people at the time tell themselves "Oh, but we won't do that..."! The 'Second Amendment Preservation Act' not only lets itself off the leash, it flexes its power and strikes out with it, using our state law to not only to obstruct & countermand federal law, but to pit law against law, with this:

• 6. Any official, agent, or employee of the United States government who enforces or attempts to enforce any of the infringements on the right to keep and bear arms included in subsection 3 of this section is guilty of a class A misdemeanor.

IOW, as the Volokh Conspiracy pointed out,

"it goes on to make it a misdemeanor for a federal official to enforce federal law within the state"

IOW this 'law' would use (misuse) the power of the state, to turn federal agents into criminals for following their, our, law. You don't need to be able to say "Fort Sumter" to realize that when the "Supreme Law of the land" is made illegal in one or more states... there is not only trouble brewing, but the very concept of Law, let alone a nation of laws, is what is in the process of being nullified.

This needs looking into.

Wooden Heads
Woods provides an argument for Nullification which he describes as an extremely basic summary in three points, and I'll give a brief (um, keep in mind who just typed that word) synopsis of his synopsis. His first point is:

• "1)The states preceded the Union. The Declaration of Independence speaks of “free and independent states” that “have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.” The British acknowledged the independence not of a single blob, but of individual states, which they proceeded to list one by one. Article II of the Articles of Confederation says the states “retain their sovereignty, freedom, and independence”; they must have enjoyed that sovereignty in the past in order for them to “retain” it in 1781 when the Articles were officially adopted. The ratification of the Constitution was accomplished not by a single, national vote, but by the individual ratifications of the various states, each assembled in convention."

There are a number of things to look at in this first point - not so much for the points made, as for the point that those points seem to avoid making.

In saying that "The states preceded the Union. The Declaration of Independence speaks of “free and independent states”..." it's hard to resist grunting out a loud "Duh!" - for except for those few who've never seen a calendar, it is a stupidly obvious point to make, and not said to indicate or lead to any other point - of course there was no Union prior to its being created, and of course we had separate independent states prior to being constituted as one nation.

As when with a magician who clearly has a silver dollar in his had, flourishes his arms and says "I have here in my hand, a silver dollar", what I want to know is what he was hoping to distract my attention away from with such a statement of the obvious, and in this case, what Wood's words seem to distract most from, is the nature of what was created when those several states came together and ratified the constitution; it distracts from what could only have been created through their agreement to leave behind their earlier state, through uniting into a more perfect union, and distracts from the fact that not only were they separate, independent, sovereign states, but that they framed and ratified the Constitution in order to move beyond that! Woods notes: " they must have enjoyed that sovereignty in the past in order for them to “retain” it in 1781 when the Articles were officially adopted.", true, obviously, but he doesn't followup on another obvious point, perhaps for fear of nullifying his argument for nullification, that while such states,

“...have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.”

, those are the powers that the Constitution explicitly prohibits the states from exercising in Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution which the people of the time, We The People, adopted!

Obviously the traditional sense of being sovereign states was being altered by the states ratifying the Constitution, as the constitution of all of the laws, of all of the states. The original Articles of Confederation Woods refers so often to, were very protective of the idea of states acting as sovereign entities, it was a central feature of them... and the Constitution was designed to replace those Articles, because they failed. Over a century before the phrase was coined that "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it", the people of the Founders era knew the history of the ancient Greek republics, the "warring states of Greece" and they chose to constitute a union rather than give history a chance to repeat itself again. More importantly, this first point distracts from what, in the Founders view, it was that created those initial states, and how.

Did the British Govt. create their states? Did the Founders think that? Have you ever thought about that?

And while we're at it, it is also worth considering why it was that in the charges within the Declaration of Independence, it is stated that,

"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation"

Constitution? What 'Constitution'? They're obviously not referring to the Constitution which would not be thought of, let alone written, for another decade, so what Constitution are they referring to? And why singular, rather than plural? Clearly they were not referring to those states constitutions which had been, or were being, written, neither were they referring to the British (unwritten) Constitution, but to something very different and yet something that was common to all of the people of all of the states ('constitution', not 'constitutions')... why refer to that, rather than to the thirteen colonies turned states, except that there must have existed in their minds, something that was common to all of the colonies, and not, or no longer, common to the British people and the means by which the British Crown claimed power over them.

Another key lays in these words from those charges of the Declaration's noted above, of 'pretended Legislation'. What did they mean by noting that the King had given "... his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation"? Obviously the Parliament didn't just pretend to pass legislation, they actually passed several acts of legislation and they were busily attempting to enforce them, so what was it that, in the Founders eyes, made those acts into "Acts of pretended Legislation"? We'll come back to that in just a bit.

Revolutionary Words: We The People
It is difficult to give very much respect to the argument the nullifiers are trying to advance, when the substance of that argument, unadulterated state sovereignty, was the very first issue identified, debated, and dealt with, during the ratification conventions that were held within the several states, not by those state's governments.

Woods' lazy assumptions to the contrary, the Constitution was not submitted to the state governments to be debated and ratified - if it was, they would have debated and ratified it in their legislatures. Instead, it was submitted to conventions of the people of the several states. There, the people, not their state governments, met, discussed, debated, and ratified their intent to act, leaving behind the idea of "We The Many Peoples", and becoming "We The People" - which was a central purpose and requirement of, the constitution they voted to ratify.

The first three words of the Constitution are,'We The People', and while we may toss them off very casually today, they were a very controversial choice of words in their day. No less a personage than Patrick Henry was very much alarmed by those three words, and he made much of it during Virginia's ratification, such as where he said:

"...I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to say, We, the people? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states..."[emphasis mine]

Patrick Henry immediately grasped the difference in meaning between "We The People" and "We The States", and though he was wrong in seeing a purely national government in what the Constitution meant, he was hardly the only one during the long process of ratifying the Constitution, to realize that "States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation", and as the Constitution speaks of "We, the people, instead of, We, the states", then what was being proposed was not a compact of sovereign states, but a replacement for that very condition - a condition which had already been tried and judged to have failed, hence the Constitution they were debating upon whether or not to ratify.

Pauline Maier, in her book "Ratification!", notes instances of this in several of conventions, such as in Pennsylvania's,

"Whitehill also objected to the Constitution's opening words, "We the People," which he said showed that the Constitution destroyed "the old foundation of the Union" --- a confederation of states---and built on its ruins "a new unwieldly system of consolidated empire" that was "designed to abolish the independence and sovereignty of the states." Two days later, after another delegate moved that the convention proceed to Article II, Smilie objected. "In his opinion," he said, the convention "had not yet got over the first six words of the Preamble.""

Maier also notes that Patrick Henry summed his first impression up as,

"Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Britain," Henry said, since it endangered "our rights and privileges" and relinquished the states' sovereignty. It was wrong to ask "how your trade may be increased" or "how you are to become a great and powerful people." The only appropriate question was "how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your Government.... Liberty the greatest of all earthly blessings---give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else."

The argument was made, it was debated, and it was eventually understood that state sovereignty, singular, whole and complete, had to be modified by each individual state entering into a true union of all of the states, or the United States would no longer remain united.

The issue was argued and debated, and that 'confederation' and 'union' were very different concepts was clearly understood, though not necessarily ever fully agreed upon. It is, except as shorthand, nearly always shaky to say "The Founders thought this" as a whole on any particular thing, but on this count, whether or not they all agreed, We The People of the Founders Era understood that "We The People" had a very different meaning from "We The States", and the concept of sovereignty of the states before ratification of the Constitution, was a very different one from what resulted from ratification of the Constitution by We The People.

How so? The Declaration of Independence points the way to understanding this. Note that the Declaration states that,

"...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

It does not say that governments derive their just powers from their governments, or from their governors, does it? Or from their legislators? Their point is clear, unlike Woods when he makes his point that "The ratification of the Constitution was accomplished not by a single, national vote, but by the individual ratifications of the various states, each assembled in convention.", here the point seems to be a point which is unclear, overlooks much and assumes even more... and the entire justification for nullification relies on just such a lack of clarity and subtle misdirection.

That governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, is a central understanding of our Founders Era, which is just as correct today as it was then. Neither the Constitution, nor the Declaration of Independence nor the British Govt., bestowed sovereignty upon the States; that sovereignty came from and remained with the people's nature as human beings, a power that was delegated from them, from We The People, to the states. The states themselves do not, and never did, have that power themselves, which is why the states weren't appealed to for ratification of the Constitution, but the people were. That is the reason behind why the Constitution was submitted to ratification by We The People, and not We The States.

Justice Joseph Story's comments on the Preamble, from his Commentaries on the Constitution, in small part, notes:

"...The language is, "We, the people of the United States," not, We, the states, "do ordain and establish;" not, do contract and enter into a treaty with each other; "this constitution for the United States of America," not this treaty between the several states. And it is, therefore, an unwarrantable assumption, not to call it a most extravagant stretch of interpretation, wholly at variance with the language, to substitute other words and other senses for the words and senses incorporated, in this solemn manner, into the substance of the instrument itself. We have the strongest assurances, that this preamble was not adopted as a mere formulary; but as a solemn promulgation of a fundamental fact, vital to the character and operations of the government. The obvious object was to substitute a government of the people, for a confederacy of states; a constitution for a compact...."

"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..." was, and still is, a very revolutionary phrase; it was a hot-point of contention, much argued over, debated, and ultimately ratified in the understanding that the singular union which the former PeopleS of America were entering into, together, not separately, to form a more perfect union, was to have little or nothing to do with the old understandings of compacts or confederations which preceded it, it changed the nature of the states as they had existed prior to it, and their future relations to each other, through Union, rather than confederation.

Union, the joining of once separate pieces into a single body, is a very different term from Compact, that of closely packing still separate pieces together, and had they intended compact, I think they would have used that word, which was very popular at the time; and though often used in explanation of Union, of what it was 'like', it was not the word 'compact' that was chosen to be used IN the Constitution, Union was.

Why?

Just Powers That Be
What a Union is, is a question that is often lost on Woods, who rarely examines it any closer than a wry comment about marriage, such as:

"After all, the compact theory rests on the crazy idea that the creators of something precede the thing created, logically and temporally. Thus compact theorists actually think the bride and groom come before the marriage; we are evidently instead supposed to believe that first there is a marriage, and the marriage in turn creates the bride and groom."

Well, sorry to say, but that which he presents as 'a funny' nearly is what actually happens. Of course a man and a woman precede marriage, and bring it about, as did the sovereign states precede their constitutional union through ratification, but the ceremony of marriage is what creates their status as Bride and Groom, and only through the completion of the ceremony, do they become Husband and Wife - that's not something they can achieve on their own, nor can they claim those titles while remaining only A man and A woman. But it's not as though they cease being individuals when they marry, but that they cease being only individuals, and begin being something more, 'of one flesh', and that something more, marital union, affects aspects of their individuality and discretionary powers, just as the constitutionally created union of states, in addition to increasing the scope of each individual state, increases its interrelation and obligations to its fellow states in a way that treaties, alliances and compacts simply do not. While the structure of the states remained, their purposes, powers and the source of their Just Powers, was altered from being several distinct peoples, to being One People, who inhabit many states.

That 'neither fish nor fowl' was part and parcel of how the Constitution was promoted, sold to, and ratified by We The People. Maybe the one point most worth making here, is that today we have a Constitution, and we either work within it or we don't, but we don't get to claim we're doing both.

Locke made an important point on this issue in CHAPTER XIX. - Of the dissolution of government:

"§ 212.
Besides this overturning from without, governments are dissolved from within.

First, When the legislative is altered. Civil society being a state of peace, amongst those who are of it, from whom the state of war is excluded by the umpirage, which they have provided in their legislative, for the ending all differences that may arise amongst any of them; it is in their legislative, that the members of a commonwealth are united, and combined together into one coherent living body. This is the soul that gives form, life, and unity to the commonwealth: from hence the several members have their mutual influence, sympathy, and connexion; and therefore, when the legislative is broken, or dissolved, dissolution and death follows: for, the essence and union of the society consisting in having one will, the legislative, when once established by the majority, has the declaring, and as it were keeping of that will. The constitution of the legislative is the first and fundamental act of society, whereby provision is made for the continuation of their union, under the direction of persons, and bonds of laws, made by persons authorized thereunto, by the consent and appointment of the people; without which no one man, or number of men, amongst them, can have authority of making laws that shall be binding to the rest...."

A society under law, is a society that recognizes one set of laws common to all, else they would not be "A" society, but numerous associated states. Union is a word that changes the nature of those entering into it, we individually enter into marital unions, not marital compacts, and once entered into, we do not, and rightfully should not, either declare our intention to ignore the other or stroll on out of that union with a casual "Oh, hey, burnt toast again?! See ya!"

There is of course such a thing as divorce, but that again is something very different from breaking up or abandonment. As with divorce, it is something to be entered into carefully and methodically, and ultimately with the agreement of all of the parties involved, and never to be rushed into - failing that, a bitter and contracted dispute will ensue. Locke, again, had something to say on the issue, and he too saw it as inseparable from legislative union, continuing from where the previous quotation left off, as Locke put it in CHAPTER XIX. - Of the dissolution of government:

"§ 212. "... When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty to resist the force of those, who without authority would impose any thing upon them. Every one is at the disposure of his own will, when those who had, by the delegation of the society, the declaring of the public will, are excluded from it, and others usurp the place, who have no such authority or delegation.""[emphasis mine]

When legislation is written by those "...whom the people have not appointed so to do...", you have 'legislation without representation!', and they may be acted against.

But when you are represented, you are not free to behave as if your are not!

To do so is to rebel against the Union you are a part of. When one or more states take it upon themselves to act outside of the sphere of laws rightfully belonging to the union of them, and apart from any explicit agreements which constituted their union, they act to negate and nullify the whole... and only disaster can follow.

As Lincoln might say: "Been there, done that." (Note: I'd be willing to listen to such an argument concerning regulatory law, I think it could be made that there we truly do have 'legislation without representation!', and constitutionally, with Congress's ability to delegate its powers being the issue there, but that is not the position that nullifiers are promoting).

And with that first strike, I'd better pause here for the moment, and return with strikes two & three against Woods' summary argument for nullification, tomorrow.

There are no ‘reasons’ for your Rights – stop trying to justify them!

How many times have you heard this one recently?

"Tell me one good reason why you should have an assault rifle?!"

More than a few times?

And I'll wager you've heard it before too, in other forms, such as with

"What are you going to do about the 30 million uninsured?!"

, and again with something like:

"Give me a reason why someone needs billions of dollars?!"

Do you know how to answer those questions?
Now hold on there Charlie Brown! Before you go running at that football again, take a look at Lucy's eyes - take a moment, look closer, her eyes aren't focused on the ball, but on your feet. She's not holding it out for you to kick, she's only waiting for that magic moment when you are committed to kicking at it, so she can whip it away and watch you fly up into the air... and fall down on the ground... flat on your back. So she can laugh at you. Again.

Think about it - have you ever, ever, won one of the arguments you've entered into by answering that question (and yes, they are all the same question)? And no, being willing to kick at the football more times than Lucy is willing to stand it up again for you, is not winning.

When they ask what they always ask of something to do with your Individual Rights: "What reasons could you possibly have for ___?!". Don't try to give them any reasons - they don't want your reasons, what they want is for you to give up your ability to actually Reason with them, and if you answer that question, that is what you will do.

So how do you deal with this type of question? You already know how. Annoying, isn't it? The truth is that you've either had how you should deal with this sort of question demonstrated to you time and again while you were growing up, or, if you're a parent, you've no doubt learned how to do it yourself, on your own.

See if this rings a bell:

"But Dad, it's only 30 more minutes, what is it going to hurt if I stay up 30 more minutes?!"

Yep, that's right, and just as 8 yr old you didn't give a damn about the reasons why it was that your dad thought it might be harmful to your night's rest to stay up 30 more minutes, neither does the leftist Lucy you are arguing with today. They are only looking for a way to help you slip up and abandon your principles and hand the argument over to them.

Again and again and again - flat on your back, is the only place that replying to that 'argument' will get you.

Conservative Catnip
Why this technique acts on conservatives like catnip... or footballs... is that in asking the question, it seems as if they are interested in the reasons Why you hold your position... it seems to be an invitation to discuss your disagreement, but like Lucy and her football, or the 8 yr old and their TV show, nothing could be further from the truth. It is only a pose, a taunt, and the moment you begin to discuss the matter, their interest in discussion vanishes as they begin to supply more and more spectacular examples to overwhelm every realistic reason you come up with for your position, a position that is no longer rooted in principles, but particulars, and on that playing field, their playing field, their impressive quantities sweep away the high ground you were standing upon just moments before.

The technique is to demand that you to give a particular, quantitative, justification, for a qualitative concept, but there's nothing fancy going on here, as every 8-year-old knows. By getting you to focus on a an isolated particular, preferably expressed with impressive sounding quantities ("just 30, more, minutes!'... '30 million uninsured!'... 'billions of dollars!'"), the questioner, be they an 8-year-old child, or a tenured professor (difference?) of constitutional law, just knows that if you bite, and nearly every conservative does, the moment you stoop to providing them with any of the reasons they've asked you for -you lose!

That's the reason why every 8-year-old child loves this technique so much - it wipes out the advantages you have in being an adult - experience and wisdom - reducing the debate to one of emotional appeal and numbers.

There's an old anecdote that illustrates this even better than Lucy and her football, where Winston Churchill, annoyed to no end by a flighty society girl, becomes fed up, turns to her and asks her if she'd sleep with him for a hundred thousand pounds. Surprised, she bats her eyes and answers "Well, ... uh... that is a lot of money, I'd have to think about it... ", at which point he changes the price to fifty pounds. Insulted, she demands "What kind of woman do you take me for!" and Churchill replies coolly

"Madam, what you are we have already established, now we are simply haggling over the price."

Get the picture? What happens, is that in the simple act of answering the question, you have abandoned the principle which determines whether or not numbers should be discussed at all, and any attempt to reclaim it is futile, all that remains is settling on the particular numbers it'll take for you to cave in (30 pieces of silver perhaps?), and in the end they get whatever it is that they desire .

This has been the favored technique with everyone from Utilitarianism’s Jeremy Bentham (you know, the fellow who called Individual Rights, nonsense on stilts), on down the line to the child who wants to stay up late to watch one more TV show.

The immediate answer of course, to the child anyway, is not to answer their question, but to remind them of the rule or principle they are trying to get you to forget:

"No, you can't stay up. Bedtime is 9:00. Get your butt in bed. Now."

Why? Because those are the rules and there are good reasons for them, reasons which have nothing whatsoever to do with any quantity of minutes of TV time they might desire. Reasons which have already been well established and validated, and aren't open for discussion. And the wise adult knows darn well that it doesn't matter whether you are talking about bedtime, or shoplifting, an eight year old, if you let them, will still ask,

"How will this little thing I do hurt anyone? Why can't I have what I want?!"

, and neither the eight year old, nor the 40 year veteran professor of law, has the least bit of interest in what is right or wrong, but only in getting what it is that they want. But of course while the eight year old is usually wise enough to listen to reason (and to avoid the consequences of not listening), the leftist... not so much.

The main difference here, is that with an eight year old you expect this sort of thing, it is part of the learning process inherent in moving from childhood to adulthood. With the leftist Lucy however, although you do tend to expect it, there really is no excuse, except that they learned such disdain towards reason and reasonable behavior, from what we teach them. .. after all, do we send students to school in order to learn what they need to know to become better people?, people more concerned with what is right and best to do? or do we send them to school to learn 'useful skills' for getting what they want to 'succeed' in life in the 21st century?

Don't bargain for your Rights, proclaim them
The next time someone asks you what good reason there is for anyone to ___ (insert the belittled Right here), just remember that they don't care what reasons you might have for your position, they don't want to determine what is right or wrong to do, they only want to overpower you, and their question is the handiest technique (indoctrinated habit) for keeping questions of right and wrong out of the conversation, freeing them to pursue what will be the most useful,efficient, effective means for achieving their desired ends.

So wise up already.

What the ignorant are hurtling us towards, the ultimate point of their asking for 'reasons' to justify your exercising your rights, is this:

'Tell me one good reason why you should have any right to do whatever you feel like, when that might cost someone their safety? Their security? Their health? Why should you be able to do what you want, if it oppresses your fellow man?! Give up your annoying Right' so we can do what is best for you.'

And that is the goal that our leftie Lucy's are focused upon, gaining the power to use your life to their advantage, and your principles stand in their way - and they are just waiting for you to try to answer them, to give them their 'reasons" and abandon your ground, so they can drop you flat upon your back again.

The simple fact is, in regards to the 2nd Amendment, or any other of our Rights, defended by the constitution or not, that my Right to defend my life, loved ones and property, does not depend upon my proving its value to you! And my Rights do not require that I put you at ease about the tools - arms - that I choose to defend them with. There are no valid reasons, no matter how beneficial they purport to be, that justify your seeking to interfere with my right to make that decision myself.

My Rights are inherent in my nature as a reasoning human being, and they are not subject to your, or congress's or any majority's approval. The 2nd amendment does not grant me the 'right' to keep and bear arms, it only defends it from the foolish and the powerful who feel threatened by it.

Our problem today, is not with who is in office, but with a people raised to think along utilitarian lines, rather than moral ones, raised to consider effectiveness and efficiency before considering whether or not something is right or wrong to do. These people do not seek to understand your arguments, they seek to strip you of what they do not understand - and playing their game won't score you any points or safeguard your rights against them. Their ignorance is the problem we face, and it threatens our lives, our liberty, and our happiness.

There are no reasons that justify your having rights - you have Rights because you are a reasoning human being -you don't need to justify your rights, you need to understand them and assert them.
If you want those opposing your rights to see reason, you cannot abandon it when talking with them. Learn what your rights are, learn  what they mean and the principles which they depend upon (hint: it's not legislation) and without which America would cease to exist, and most of all, learn how to defend and to proclaim them.

Originally posted at The Bell News

Pursue Happiness by Living your own life in Liberty: The Declaration of Independence

I'm in a hurry again, but I'll post my standard for the 4th of July - President Calvin Coolidges' "The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence", a necessity for cleaning up after Wilson, July 5, 1926, and no doubt a needed preliminary for doing so this next Presidential go-around. As well as The Declaration of Independence itself, and Abe Lincoln's comment upon it:

“All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”—Abraham Lincoln to H.L. Pierce, April 6, 1859.

Before getting out of the way of the Ideas of the Declaration of Independence and it's self-evident truths (to those who understand the concepts which gave rise to it... see my last few posts if your scratching your head), I'll just point out this line from Lincoln's comment  "...had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times..." which nails it so well. And it is a rebuke and a stumbling block to tyrants - they do so hate the very idea of Individual Rights, of people living Their Own "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...".

Job #1 of the any potential tyranny in America, has always been to replace our Individual Rights, with promises of privileges and benefits.

Job #1 of every American, is to understand the meaning of your Rights, and to hold them as swords in the faces of those who would raise a tyranny over you. Especially in the faces of those who come bearing gifts.

And now, a few words from our Sponsors:

The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence - Calvin Coolidge (cleaning up after Wilson, July 5, 1926)

We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgment of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.

Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human
experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.

It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.

It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose they have become sanctified.

It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes which led to the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were largely economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which interfered with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose taxes which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to these laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.

We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them. The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.

While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.

This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.

When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history. One empire after another has arisen, only to crumble away as its constituent parts separated from each other and set up independent governments of their own. Such actions long ago became commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.

It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.

If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.

It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.

The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.

But if these truths to which the declaration refers have not before been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect upon our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been true. But the principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations before the advent of the French political philosophy that characterized the middle of the eighteenth century. In fact, they come from an earlier date. A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that:

The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people
The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance.

This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise, entitled "The Church's Quarrel Espoused," in 1710 which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.

While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his "best ideas of democracy" had been secured at church meetings.

That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and independent". It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, "Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man". Again, "The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth . . . ." And again, "For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine". And still again, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state". Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.

When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature's God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say "The people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven."

No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.

Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.

If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self government; the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that "Democracy is Christ's government". The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.

On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to present evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at home and the ever broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although these things are well known, their frequent consideration is an encouragement and an inspiration. But it is not results and effects so much as sources and causes that I believe it is even more necessary constantly to contemplate. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.

It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one might encroach upon the other. These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has been an ever broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.

Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.

No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped.

Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776

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In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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.

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 are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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 shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --

Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
• For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
• For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
• For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
• For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
• For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 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.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

JOHN HANCOCK, President

Attested, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary

New Hampshire

JOSIAH BARTLETT WILLIAM WHIPPLE MATTHEW THORNTON

Massachusetts-Bay

SAMUEL ADAMS JOHN ADAMS ROBERT TREAT PAINE ELBRIDGE GERRY

Rhode Island

STEPHEN HOPKINS WILLIAM ELLERY

Connecticut

ROGER SHERMAN SAMUEL HUNTINGTON WILLIAM WILLIAMS OLIVER WOLCOTT

Georgia

BUTTON GWINNETT LYMAN HALL GEO. WALTON

Maryland

SAMUEL CHASE WILLIAM PACA THOMAS STONE CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON

Virginia

GEORGE WYTHE RICHARD HENRY LEE THOMAS JEFFERSON BENJAMIN HARRISON THOMAS NELSON, JR. FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE CARTER BRAXTON.

New York

WILLIAM FLOYD PHILIP LIVINGSTON FRANCIS LEWIS LEWIS MORRIS

Pennsylvania

ROBERT MORRIS BENJAMIN RUSH BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JOHN MORTON GEORGE CLYMER JAMES SMITH GEORGE TAYLOR JAMES WILSON GEORGE ROSS

Delaware

CAESAR RODNEY GEORGE READ THOMAS M'KEAN

North Carolina

WILLIAM HOOPER JOSEPH HEWES JOHN PENN

South Carolina

EDWARD RUTLEDGE THOMAS HEYWARD, JR. THOMAS LYNCH, JR. ARTHUR MIDDLETON

New Jersey

RICHARD STOCKTON
JOHN WITHERSPOON
FRANCIS HOPKINS
JOHN HART
ABRAHAM CLARK

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©2004 National Humanities Institute