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Colonel Ron Ray Exclusive First Principles Commentaries |
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The Pledge of Allegiance &
the
Declaration of Independence Unconstitutional?
American
Identity & Purpose Under Fire Via Censorship of Nation’s History
America’s
borders are unprotected and illegal immigrants are flooding into the country
“at the highest rate in 150 years,” according to the Washington Times, as a state of “national peril” has existed since
the September 11, 2001 attacks. Now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco has declared public school children reciting the Pledge of
Allegiance is unconstitutional, because in 1954 “under God” was added to the Pledge by Congress. The court’s lone dissenter, Judge Fernandez,
said:
We will soon find ourselves prohibited from using our
album of patriotic songs in many public settings…‘God Bless America’ and ‘America
the Beautiful’ will be gone for sure, and while use of the first and second
stanzas of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ will still be permissible, we will be
precluded from straying into the third.
“Under
God” was added to the Pledge during the Cold War to show the difference between
the foundation of the U.S. government and godless communism. When President Eisenhower signed the 1954 legislation
that placed “under God” in the pledge, he declared:
Millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in
every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of
our nation and our people to the Almighty.
Prohibiting
little children from saying the Pledge is just another step on a very long
and winding road. On July 3, 2001,
the Associated Press and USA Today
reported America’s Charters of Freedom: the Declaration of Independence, the
first and last pages of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were going
out of sight for restoration at
its 225th anniversary. The Washington Times reported the actual removal of the documents
on July 4, 2001, when the National Archives were closed early to permit the
Declaration’s removal. The front page
headline ominously read “Words of Freedom
Get Last Look.”
On
March 10, 2002, a middle-school student music group was uninvited from performing
at a September 11th Red Cross volunteer recognition event because
the children planned to sing “inappropriate” songs mentioning “prayer,” “God,”
Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA,” and a song based on the Declaration of
Independence.
Last
year New Jersey school children were prohibited from reciting a small passage
from the Declaration of Independence as the school day begins.
In
May of 2000, a Kentucky federal judge did what the mighty British Empire could
not do during the War for Independence and the War of 1812 by striking down
the Declaration of Independence from school and courthouse walls, claiming
it was somehow a religious document.
The Declaration of Independence, America’s founding government charter,
which the supreme Court repeatedly says is part of the fundamental law of
the United States, is not posted for Kentucky school children to see because
today it has become a church or religious document, since it mentions the
Creator 4 times.
As
America’s official and permanent historical documents have come under fire,
the nations historic awareness and aptitude have likewise deteriorated since
World War II. Newspaper headlines
carried the story: On September 19, 1997, The
Courier Journal reported “Americans are Ignorant of Constitution,” and
on June 30, 1998 The Washington Times
reported the “Nation is Woefully Ignorant of History:”
A 2001 survey commissioned by the Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation found one in five American teenagers don’t know from what country
America declared its independence. Nearly one in four didn’t know who fought the Civil War. Thirteen percent thought the Civil War was
between the United States and England.
In
Kentucky, the assault on the nation’s founding history as One Nation Under
God and its anti-Americanism became glaringly apparent. The Kentucky General Assembly in 1992 enacted KRS 158.195, making
it unlawful for the first time in American history to censor or suppress the
official Acts of Congress or the documents by and speeches of America’s Founders
and Presidents because of religious references.
America’s official history of civil government contains many references
to “God,” yet these official documents are state documents, not church
or religious documents. The
Old and New Testament principles found in the King James Bible guided the
founders as they established the institutions and laws for America. To mention “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance
does not make one a Christian, but simply acknowledges the fact that America
has a state law and social code founded on Biblical principles just as many
Arab countries have a law and social code grounded on the Koran. America’s rights do not come from government
as in communist countries, but rather from God and those basic rights can
not be taken away by government.
The
nation’s Birth Certificate and Bill of Rights are scheduled to be returned
to the National Archives during September 2003.
But why can’t school children say the Pledge?
What is happening to America’s official history and founding state
documents in a country whose official motto is “In God We Trust”?
The
National Education Association in November 1997 boasted one explanation for
the now pervasive ignorance: The nation’s schoolhouses haven’t taught full
and accurate American history, civics or government from official documents
since 1965. In a November 7, 1967 edition of its journal
the NEA reported:
Probably
the most obvious change occurring in the social studies curriculum is a breaking
away from the tradition dominance of history, geography, and civics.
Materials from the behavioral sciences…sociology, social psychology…are
being incorporated into both elementary and secondary school programs.
As
a result of what David Horowitz in the Jewish
World Review calls an “attack…by an intellectual class based in the media
and in America’s politically correct educational institutions,”Americans no
longer know - much less understand - the significance of America’s founding
history, our national identity and the American purpose found in the Pledge
of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence and the United State Constitution.
How
important is a nation’s historic identity and its purpose to our national
institutions? In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson said:
A
nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it
is today, nor what it is trying to do. We
are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what
we have been about…
The
current generation is largely ignorant of America’s historic identity. This ignorance poses challenges to our nation’s future. The transmission of America’s intangibles of
independence, patriotism, self reliance, duty, honor, virtue and the single
national standard for right and wrong, are again fading as America’s founding
principles, purpose and identity found in original official historic state
documents (like the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution) have
been censored in the nation’s schoolhouses.
The
important of national identity and purpose was illustrated by America’s fighting
forces in the 1950s, during another time of “national peril,” the Korean War:
A Defense Department study of returned POW’s reported their poor performance
at Communist hands. President Dwight
Eisenhower, because our “soldiers did not understand the Constitution or the
stark differences between Communism and Americanism,” issued the military
“Code of Conduct” to reaffirm the American purpose to those going in harm’s
way. Our soldiers were “never to forget
that I am an American fighting man, responsible for my actions, and
dedicated to the principles which make my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States
of America.”
The
Declaration of Independence is our nation’s birth certificate, the “Charter”
defining America and its purpose. The
American Charter also points to the source, “Divine Providence,” upon whom
we call to provide and protect us. The
U.S. Constitution contains the nation’s “by-laws,” informing public servants
and citizens how to operate this great nation, its system of justice, laws,
and civil government. For example,
it is to uphold the Constitution that each enlisted member or commissioned
officer of the Armed Forces takes a “sacred
oath,” whether Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard, “so help
me God.” America’s Constitutional Republic, with its
225 year old limited form of government “with liberty and justice for all,”
is unique in world history. That uniqueness
depends on the honesty and faithfulness of the citizenry to its founding principles,
but the history, if not taught in school, must be taught, reinforced and acted
upon at home.
Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s proclamation on James Madison’s birthday reaffirmed
the vital role of American military’s first principles of “virtue, honor and
patriotism” on what is now called “Liberty Day,” March 16, 2002. Secretary Rumsfeld encouraged those in the
armed forces to recall and reaffirm America’s historic national identity and
purpose by recognizing the importance of the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution to the “sacred oath” taken by every military member by following
the leadership of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
There
are those today not unhappy that America does not know what it was yesterday,
or where it came from, or what it has been about, as President Wilson said. Significant ground is already lost among the
current generation. However, in the
patriotic swell since September 11, 2001 and the “War on Terrorism,” there
is opportunity to teach and recall the nation’s identity and purpose as laid
down by America’s founders, but apathy and ignorance will kill liberty.
Benjamin
Franklin Bache, grandson of his namesake, wrote in The Philadelphia General Advertiser, in December 1792, the founder’s attitude
toward civic duty and responsibility of We the People:
[L]iberty will never be safe or durable in a republic
till every citizen thinks it as much his duty to take care of the state, as
to take care of his family, and until an indifference to any public question
shall be considered as a public offense.
On July 14, 1992, the Kentucky legislature became the
first in the country to outlaw the censorship of American history. The law reads:
The
national battle over censorship of American History was treated by the press
in 2000 as only about posting the Ten Commandments.
However, on March 29, 2000, the Kentucky Legislature passed a Joint
Resolution to implement and transmit to all public school teachers a history
lesson implementing KRS 158.195, the bill passed in 1992 making it illegal
to censor American history, particularly historic documents like the Declaration
of Independence, because of its four references to the “Creator.” Parents as well as teachers must pass on to
the next generation the spirit of liberty found in our official history. It
will take concerned parents to reaffirm America’s historic national identity
and purpose by teaching their own children the importance of the Pledge of
Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the nation’s
other founding documents. The survival of our American way of life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness depends upon it.
The
historic Kentucky Resolution is a history lesson itself and is as follows:
A
JOINT RESOLUTION relating to the display of historic documents that include
a depiction of the Ten Commandments.
WHEREAS,
in the Preamble to Kentucky's Constitution, the Framers acknowledged Almighty
God as the source of the people's liberty and invoked His blessings on the
citizens of the Commonwealth:
“We, the
people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, grateful to Almighty God for the civil,
political and religious liberties we enjoy, and invoking the continuance of
these blessings, do ordain and establish this Constitution;” and
WHEREAS,
in 1992, the Kentucky General Assembly enacted KRS 158.195 to prevent the
censorship or suppression of the official Acts of Congress or the writings
and speeches of America's Founders and Presidents which contain references
to God or the Bible; and
WHEREAS,
the Ten Commandments appear over the bench where the United States Supreme
Court Justices sit, thus showing the source from whence our laws and the governmental
power of the state are derived; and
WHEREAS,
America's colonial governments adopted the Ten Commandments not as an object
of worship or an icon, but as the basis for their civil and criminal law,
as illustrated on April 3, 1644, when the New Haven Colony Charter was adopted
establishing that: "the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered
by Moses be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction"; and
WHEREAS,
when signing the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776, Samuel Adams,
the "Father of the Revolution," emphasized its Biblical presuppositions:
"We have this day restored the Sovereign
to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising
to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come"; and
WHEREAS,
on August 20, 1789, Congressman Fisher Ames from Massachusetts proposed the
wording of the First Amendment which was adopted by the House of Representatives
in the first session of the Congress of the United States; and his writings
clearly demonstrate that the Framers never intended the First Amendment to
be so interpreted as to remove the Bible from public school classrooms:
"We are spending less time in the
classroom on the Bible which should be the principal text in our schools .
. . ."; and
WHEREAS,
in a letter dated August 18, 1790, President George Washington wrote to the
Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, "All possess alike liberty
of conscience and immunities of citizenship. . . . May the children of the
stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the
good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under
his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid";
and
WHEREAS,
in his "Farewell Address" of September 19, 1796, President George
Washington pointed out the connection between the faith of the Nation and
its political prosperity when he declared:
"Of all the dispositions and habits
which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable
supports. . . ."; and
WHEREAS,
acknowledging the Bible as an integral part of the fabric of our society,
on September 11, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution to import
20,000 Bibles from Holland and Scotland, as the colonies were at war with
England; and
WHEREAS,
on May 29, 1845, the day before his death, President Andrew Jackson stated:
"My lamp of life is nearly out, and
the last glimmer has come. I am ready to depart when called. The Bible is
true. The principles and statutes of that Holy Book have been the rule of
my life, and I have tried to conform to its spirit as nearly as possible.
Upon that sacred volume I rest my hope for eternal salvation, through the
merits and blood of our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ"; and
WHEREAS,
President John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, wrote
concerning the civil function of the Mosaic law:
"The law given from Sinai was a civil
and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes
. . . of universal application -- laws essential to the existence of men in
society and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed
any code of laws"; and
WHEREAS,
in a June, 1778 letter to her son, John Quincy Adams, Abigail Adams reinforced
noble values and a sense of ultimate accountability to God which she believed
to be the foundation of true greatness:
"Great learning and superior abilities,
should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation,
unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them. Adhere to those
religious sentiments and principles which were early instilled into your mind,
and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and
actions"; and
WHEREAS,
on February 29, 1892, the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision
which has never been overruled, cited sixty-six organic authorities which
show the Bible's singular influence on America:
"There is no dissonance in these
declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one
meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are
not individual sayings, declarations of private persons; they are organic
utterances; they speak the voice of the entire group. These authorities were
collected to support the historical conclusion that: 'no purpose of action
against religion can be imputed any legislation, state or nation, because
this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery
of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this
affirmation . . . we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth . . . this is a Christian nation' ";
and
WHEREAS,
on May 7, 1911, President Woodrow Wilson, addressing the Tercentenary Celebration
of the Translation of the Bible into the English Language, stated:
"Moreover, the Bible does what is
so invaluable in human life -- it classifies moral values. It apprises us
that men are not judged according to their wits, but according to their characters
-- that the last of every man's reputation is his truthfulness, his squaring
his conduct with the standards that he knew to be the standards of purity
and rectitude. How many a man we appraise, ladies and gentlemen, as great
today whom we do not admire as noble! A man may have great power and small
character"; and
WHEREAS, President Woodrow Wilson's letter to
the soldiers and sailors of the United States during World War I, recorded
in the Congressional Record, advised them:
"The Bible is the word of life. I
beg that you will read it and find this out for yourselves -- read not little
snatches here and there, but long passages that will really be the road to
the heart of it. You will find it full of real men and women not only, but
also of things you have wondered about and been troubled about all your life,
as men have been always; and the more you read, the more it will become plain
to you what things are worthwhile and what are not, what things make men happy
-- loyalty, right dealings, speaking the truth, readiness to give everything
for what they think their duty, and, most of all, the wish that they may have
the real approval of the Christ, who gave everything for them -- and the things
that are guaranteed to make men unhappy -- selfishness, cowardice, greed,
and everything that is low and mean. When you have read the Bible, you will
know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to
your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty"; and
WHEREAS,
in his book, "Sources of Power," President Jimmy Carter acknowledged
the importance of the Mosaic law as a foundation:
"As we face changes and challenges,
we need to hold on to the things that don't change, the foundations on which
we can build our lives despite the uncertainty and danger of the future. God's
law is the greatest of these foundations"; and
WHEREAS,
in his February 22, 1990 proclamation designating 1990 as The International
Year of Bible Reading, President George Bush declared:
"The Bible has had a critical impact upon the development of Western
civilization. Western literature, art, and music are filled with images and
ideas that can be traced to its pages. More important, our moral tradition
has been shaped by the laws and teachings it contains. It was a biblical view
of man -- one affirming the dignity and worth of the human person, made in
the image of our Creator -- that inspired the principles upon which the United
States is founded. President Jackson called the Bible 'the rock on which our
Republic rests' because he knew that it shaped the Founding Fathers' concept
of individual liberty and their vision of a free and just society. The Bible
has not only influenced the development of our Nation's values and institutions,
but also enriched the daily lives of millions of men and women who have looked
to it for comfort, hope, and guidance. On the American frontier, the Bible
was often the only book a family owned. For those pioneers living far from
any church or school, it served both as a source of religious instruction
and as the primary text from which children learned to read. The historic
speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., provide compelling
evidence of the role Scripture played in shaping the struggle against slavery
and discrimination. Today the Bible continues to give courage and direction
to those who seek truth and righteousness. In recognizing its enduring value,
we recall the words of the prophet Isaiah, who declared, 'The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever.' Containing
revelations of God's intervention in human history, the Bible offers moving
testimony to His love for mankind. Treasuring the Bible as a source of knowledge
and inspiration, President Abraham Lincoln called this Great Book 'the best
gift God has given to man.' President Lincoln believed that the Bible not
only reveals the infinite goodness of our Creator, but also reminds us of
our worth as individuals and our responsibilities toward one another";
NOW,
THEREFORE,
Be it resolved by the General Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
Section 1. The Kentucky Department of Education, with assistance as necessary
by the Legislative Research Commission, shall electronically transmit KRS
158.195 and this resolution to all public school teachers in the Commonwealth.