Freedom-Fighters Forum

By William J. Dell – September 1992

Our U. S. Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787 and became the law of the land on June 21, 1789 when New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify it. This month we celebrate its 205th birthday. This Divinely inspired document is the best form of government ever entrusted by God to man.

Because of its Divine birthright, the Constitution has written into it both a spirit and a letter. The spirit of the Constitution gives to our republican form of government its life and meaning based on the intent of the Founding Fathers. The letter of the Constitution gives to our government its structure. This structure is both vertical and horizontal. Vertically our government is divided between the Local, the State, and the Federal governments. Horizontally, it is divided between the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches.

It is well known that, “Power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.” For this reason our Founding Fathers placed within our Divinely inspired Constitution a “separation of powers” which is founded in our Judeo-Christian heritage. “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King; he will save us. (Is. 33:22) It is this “separation of powers” that prevents despotism and tyranny by those elected and appointed to govern. By this form of government, if we and the guardians of our Divinely inspired Constitution, the Justices of the Supreme Court, are vigilant, we should be able to remain a free people until He rules who has a right to rule — the Lord.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson: “It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy, and not confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no farther, our confidence may go… In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

What were “the chains of the Constitution” of which Jefferson spoke? In addition to the separations of powers spoken of above, only limited powers was to be given to the Federal Government. All other powers were reserved to the States or RETAINED by the people. This is evidenced in our Bill of Rights in the Tenth Amendment. There are also the written checks and balances placed there to prevent abuse or usurpation of power by any branch. Lastly, the Supreme Court was set up as a guardian to our personal freedoms.

These nine Justices were given the awesome responsibility of maintaining the American Ideal by defining both the letter of our written Constitution and the spirit of what our Founding Fathers intended. Of these “guardians” Alexander Hamilton wrote: “The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise will instead of judgement, the consequences would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.” To these “guardians” the great English jurist William Blackstone left the following guidance: “Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of the Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being… And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker’s will. This will of his Maker is called the law of Nature.” John Adams, our second President, left the following counsel for these “guardians”, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Finally, to these “guardians” this Patriarch counsels that this nation was established as a Christian nation and under our Divinely inspired Constitution, it is the Court’s responsibility to maintain our freedoms consistent with both the spirit and letter of the Christian principles that the Founding Fathers wrote and intended to be preserved.