Brian Schroeder

To defend the Declaration of Independence is to defend the American people, because as Thomas Jefferson (its author) maintained, the Declaration is “an expression of the American mind.” And never before in our nation’s history has a full-throated and unapologetic apologetic been needed to protect and preserve the Declaration of Independence for our children and their posterity.

The core American ideals of self-evident truth, human equality and the divine endowment of inalienable rights, have been incrementally upended by an alien ideology that was imported from Germany at the start of the 20th century and promoted by ivory tower intellectuals, including Woodrow Wilson. This antithetical vision was in direct conflict with the vision of the Declaration and became its chief opponent. 

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on this threat: “Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.”  His conclusion: “It is unclear whether these principles will endure.”

Given the titanic struggle, therefore, for the survival of this republic as it was conceived, and because these hostile forces are unrelenting, the need for a concerted defense at every level of American society has never been greater.

The hubris of statists like Wilson was imposed on our society via their abiding contention that our founding principles should be discarded and that we should emulate the “nearly perfected” systems of Europe.  They parted ways with the framers because they did not believe natural rights were “self-evident.” In fact, Wilson went so far as to call the inalienable rights of the individual “a lot of nonsense.” 

John Dewey himself scoffed at the founders for thinking their ideas were “immutable truths,” believing those founding ideals were “relevant only to their time.” And just as Dewey redefined the purpose of education, so did Wilson redefine the nature of liberty. Rights are not endowed by God, he declared, but by government.

But As Dr. Larry Arnn counters, “The Declaration of Independence is clear. Rights do not come from government. They do not come from tradition, birth, or force. They are grounded in the nature of man and in the Creator who made him. That truth is the basis of limited government and of liberty itself.”

Arnn continues, “If rights come from the state, then the state may alter or deny them. If they come from a higher authority, then government is bound to respect them … The argument in the Declaration remains the argument we most need today. If we would remain free, we must remember that our rights come not from ourselves, but from the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”

And why is this a high enough hill to die on? Because ideas have consequences. The ideas of the Declaration gave us the strongest, freest and most prosperous nation in all of human history. Conversely, the progressivist worldview gave us humanity’s bloodiest century. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Mao were all opposed to the natural rights championed in the Declaration. Not until their murder of millions became public did the progressives’ praise of these despots finally turn to unmitigated chagrin.

So as we reflect on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, the words uttered by Calvin Coolidge on its 150th anniversary are as fitting now as they were then:

“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 cannot 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 cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.”

That’s why a defense of the Declaration of Independence is ultimately a defense of America itself, and therefore, of the American people — one that is well-equipped to effectively debunk and defeat all contrary and destructive ideologies.

Lincoln faced the same problem in his day, and thus, said it best:  “Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our charter of liberty, let me entreat you to come back.  Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution.  Think nothing of me … but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles.”

(Brian Schroeder is the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, an ordained minister and founder/president of The ChrisCorps Association (bschroeder081858@gmail.com))