Cameron Brown: Lessons from the 4th
The great takeaway of our upcoming July 4th holiday is embedded in the Declaration of Independence — America’s Birth Certificate — which affirms a profound truth. And that truth separates our founding from that of other nations. It is the truth that our rights come not from the halls of government, nor from the decree of kings or queens, but from the hand of the Creator. And more than that, it is the self-evident truth that these rights are inalienable — they can’t be taken away. For any ruling power to deny this truth with its body of rights is not only unjust, but immoral, because the Declaration embodies a spiritual truth.
Abraham Lincoln well understood the broad application of this truth — that it applied to all humanity, not just the heirs of thirteen 18th-century British-bred colonies. He called the Declaration an “immortal emblem of Humanity.” Standing in Philadelphia’s Liberty Hall, Lincoln said the Declaration of Independence “gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men.”
Since Lincoln’s day, the protection of fundamental human rights grew to become the critical measure of civilized courts in the Western world. But is that waning? The unjust persecution of political opponents by ruling authorities is on the rise and is itself criminal and immoral. As it was in the case of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Solzhenitsyn and MLK Jr, it is resoundingly true of the weaponization of the justice system against political opponents in America today — a Machiavellian measure from the playbook of tyrannical regimes long since discredited. And we must not forget that the time-honored maxim that “no one is above the law” applies first and foremost to those in authority entrusted to administer the law, which authority must be grounded in fairness, equal justice, and honesty! Absent that, we are ruled by despots.
How we long for that buoyant “Morning-in-America” feeling full of all the optimism that inspired Amerca. Instead, we face an enveloping darkness we have not seen since the emerging days of the Civil War. But this much we do know, it is always darkest just before dawn. Like the 56 signers of our charter of freedom, might we too pledge “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” that freedom and liberty might permeate the land? May the “Fourth” be with you!
— Cameron S. Brown is president of the Kalamazoo Abraham Lincoln Institute and a former Michigan State Senator. Follow him at HistoryFrontiers.blog.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Cameron Brown: Lessons from the 4th
