Declaration
Principles Reborn
Alan
Keyes
August 11, 1996
Address given at the Declaration Foundation
Inaugural Reception, August 11, 1996, San Diego, California. The Declaration
Foundation was incorporated on June 7, 1996. Dr. Alan Keyes is the Chairman
of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation.
Dr. Keyes has developed a reputation as a fiery orator, but even more
importantly, as a keen observer of culture, history and philosophy.
In the following transcript, Dr. Keyes explains the mission of the
Declaration Foundation and its goals. This transcript is of a speech Dr.
Keyes made at the Inaugural Reception of the Declaration Foundation, at San
Diego's Wyndham Plaza Hotel on August 11, 1996.
I'm glad that you all had a
chance to come out today, and help us to inaugurate, in this context, an
effort which we've been building for the last several months, and which I
hope will become part of, and make a contribution to, the renewal of moral
identity which I believe is vital to the future of the American republic.
We're not gathered in this room today in any partisan guise, not gathered as
Republicans or Democrats, or conservatives or liberals. The Declaration
Foundation has as its aim the restoration of that which is the foundation of
the common ground which binds us all, whatever our backgrounds as Americans.
Every now and again I will go somewhere and hear people talk as if there is
no such common ground. And is you watch the way the discussion of major
issues takes place in the country today, you would almost believe that that
was the case: that as Americans, we may have it in common that we all desire
more of this or that (more money, more in the way of jobs, more in the way of
strength and power and whatever) but that's the only thing we have in
common--our common passions, our common greed. Not a very pretty picture of
the country. And not at all the understanding with which this nation was
founded.
I think if we don't soon recover the understanding they had at the beginning,
then we shall continue down the road of a debased and dejected freedom that
will in the end become such a burden to us; such a violation of our dignity,
that we shall gladly give it up.
There may be some people who hope that we sill give
up our freedom. For, nothing is so opportune for tyrants as a people tired of
its liberty--offended by the stench of its own corrupt freedom. And it's amazing
how quickly they give it up.
In the course of this century, we've actually experienced, witnessed, the
terrible consequences that come from this. It was this great weariness that,
in the end, gave birth to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, as civilized people
looked upon the consequences of their abuse of freedom, and delivered
themselves into the arms of tyrants who promised to clean things up.
Is this what we want?
Of course it's not. We do not think of ourselves as such a people. When we
use the word "freedom," we use it with pride. We think of it as a
wonderful thing--the phrase that rings in our mind from our wonderful
Constitution: the blessings of liberty.
But as I often tell people, where there are blessings there is also the
possibility of cursings. And if we are to avoid the
curses of liberty, then I think we have to recapture that understanding of
our freedom which allows our rights, our freedom, our sense of justice, to
produce decency and order, and to produce as well a nation in which we can
take pride.
So how do we do it?
I actually think it's fairly simple. It's not complicated. And yet it's going
to be very difficult.
I'm glad to say that there are signs that at least a start is being made. A
friend came up to me just now who was telling me that they were listening to
a speech by Newt Gingrich in which he actually talked about the need to
return to our Declaration Principles. This is good. And I was gratified to
see a phrase introduced into the platform of the Republican Party that talks
about the importance of our Declaration Principles. This is good. But do you
know what's not so good? What's not so good is that you can't just mouth the
words. What's not so good is that you can't just pretend with
rhetoric--because our principles have consequences. They have consequences
for the great issues of right and wrong that we face as a people. And, in the
course of our history, the great turning points of American life have been
those moments when, as a people, we faced the crossroads. And down one road,
we could see the future implied by our Declaration, and down the other, the
future implied by our abandonment of it--and we had to make a choice.
It wasn't easy. It's never flattering to our passions. Because much as it
sounds real good when we say it, you know, those words of the Declaration:
"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"--we have gotten so used to repeating those words as if they only
speak about some gift to us, something we get, as if they only imply a grant
of permission, a license, as if the only thing that is contained in those
words is a promise made by the "politician-God," which he shall
fulfill for us. But that's not so.
Contained also in the Declaration--it's not just a creed of liberty; it's not
just a creed of equality. It is also, in its very formulation, an
understanding of authority; and understanding of responsibility; an
understanding of the discipline which, as a people, we must accept--and
accept, by the way, at every level--if we are to be free.
And the great crises of American history have come when, in some way, we have
to confront that choice. I believe, of course, that the great crisis of the
nineteenth century was whether, as a nation, we were going to live by our
Declaration principles. And slavery presented the challenge to us in the
starkest form. And we had to choose between those creeds, which were the
creed of slavery and the creed of freedom based upon the Declaration. And
when the choice was made, the nation was ripped asunder, families torn apart,
states divided, brother against brother, hand against hand, until, as Lincoln
said, "every drop of blood drawn from the lash was requited
by another drawn with the sword." It was a time of terrible judgment.
And see, if we would only understand what that portends! We have the circus
politicians--and I'm not speaking of any one party, either. I mean all, the
whole lot of them, who come before us and act as if the business of American
life is to gratify our baser passions--as if the only thing that we are to
care about is how much is in our belly, and how much is in our wallets, and
what we get to do in our bedrooms. That debased understanding of our liberty
is what's accepted, almost universally now, across the board.
But I ask you to consider. I ask you to consider really seriously.
It's such an understanding of our freedom--something for the sake of which we
would dare to ask the young men and women in this audience to go out and risk
their lives and die? It certainly is not.
And actually, when we reach the great crises, the great moments when we have
to make that demand upon patriotism, then all of a sudden we rediscover that
this nation is about high ideals and noble aspirations and a better
understanding of human nature than seems to characterize our politics of
everyday. And it was that kind of an appeal, that kind of an understanding,
that Lincoln had to have when he led this nation through that terrible crisis
of the Civil War, when the greatest challenge was put, and answered, by
Americans.
And it wasn't the only one. We have seen it in the course of the history
since that time. And it came to us in the Civil Rights Movement in the form
of whether or not, in the face of laws at the state level and local level
that discriminated against individuals, we were going to abide by Declaration
Principles. And as the nation had to answer it in the time of slavery, so the
states had to answer it during the time of Civil Rights: "Are we a
Declaration people? Will we abide by those principles?"
And then too, it was not just a question of a happy and rosy future. No. It
was a question of a real choice, a difficult choice. A choice of heart and
mind that then required sacrifice, and the risk of life and limb and
reputation from people who were determined to answer the question right:
"We shall live according to the Declaration!"
I think that we are in a time today when we face the greatest crisis of all.
It's misunderstood, but it's going to be the one that really determines our
survival. Because the question is no longer being put to us, in the form of
slavery, to our nation. It is no longer being put to us, in the Civil Rights
movement, to our states and local government. It is being put to us, in many
forms today, as an issue directed at us, as individuals.
No longer is it a demand before the tribunal of the nation or the state, or
any government, in fact. It's really a question in our hearts, in our
choices: "Are we going to be a people of the Declaration?"
And of course the issue that represents it most starkly, the abortion issue,
puts it right there in the most intimate form of all. And they stand up and
make the argument in that form as well: "Well, this body, it belongs to
you, it's your choice, and you get to decide." And then you have to go
back and look at that Declaration and ask yourself not how it applies to this
government and that law and that politics, but how does it apply to us?
And it is true that a people unwilling to govern itself in their hearts by
the principles of the Declaration are going to be a people long governed in
their law and in their institutions by that Declaration. This is what we face
now.
But the reason we're gathered here today is not just to go through all that.
I've been trying to go through it for the last year and a half or so--I'm
making a small dent, I think. But not a big one. The big one won't come in
that other context until things have been won and things have been lost, and
people wake up to realize that in the end you have to deal with the truth, or
it deals with you.
The reason that we're gathered here today, though, is because the
Declaration, the challenge that it poses to us, is something that is greater
than politics. And it's something that can't be dealt with in a political
context.
The challenge is put to me most clearly when I remember a speech I gave to a
group in which I asked whether or not the children in the audience--these
were high-school-age kids--I asked if they studied the Declaration in school.
And they actually said that they had, at some point, in a course that they
had taken. But one girl got up and complained that they had sort of studied
about it, and even that they had handed out something that had the whole
thing written on it, but it was written in such small type you couldn't read
it. I found that interesting. But if offers to us a challenge.
How can we expect people to respect in their hearts principles they don't
even know about anymore? How can we ask them to accept in their choices, and
be governed in their choices, and be governed in their actions, by a logic
that they cannot even reason through?
Something has to be done to restore our sense of the relevance of this great
founding document and its principles. And we have to do it in a context where
we understand that on right and left, there have been assaults launched
against this Declaration.
There have been the assaults of the left, of course, which come in many
forms. You know, you go through the document: "We hold these truths . .
." But, of course, the philosophers deny the possibility of truth.
". . . To be self-evident, that all men are created . . ." And then
you stop with the "men." And the feminists stand up and say, "See,
it's just a document written by those dirty dead white males. It didn't even
include women. We should reject this."
Now, I know that a certain amount of ignorance is excusable, even on the
left, but it ought to be understood that when the Founders used the word
"man" or "men," they translated that from the Greek anthropos, which referred to humanity. It was not anare, which referred to males. OK? You can go
look at their translations and see that they knew the difference.
They used to have to translate from Greek into English a fair amount in those
days. And so for those who want to deny that they made this distinction, I
say that they're either ignorant or lying. Because in point of fact it was
well understood by everyone who wrote it that what they were dealing with in
that document was human nature, applied to all people: male, female,
whatever. But the assault is launched in order to discredit it in the eyes of
people who don't know any better. And of course the assault is launched.
If you mention the Declaration, somebody is going to stand up and say,
"Well, Jefferson had slaves." So that means what? What does that
mean?
I really don't understand. King David committed adultery. Does that mean that
the Ten Commandments aren't true? No, but that's the sort of argument they
make.
You know, you and I are sometimes incapable of living up to our ideals. Does
that mean that they're not true? No, it means that we're not true to them.
That's what it means.
But, you know, the saddest thing for me is that the assault not only comes
from left, it comes from right. We've had people who call themselves
conservatives in America who want to throw out the Declaration because they
claim it's some kind of deistic, naturalistic document that rejects religion.
I beg to differ.
I believe that it is absolutely clear, in everything the Founders did, that
they intended the Declaration to be a bridge between the Bible and the
Constitution--between the basis of our moral faith and the basis of our
political life.
If we allow the bridge to be torn down, then what we will have is a chasm
between this nation's life and its moral foundations. And into that chasm
will fall every hope we have for the future.
And so the Declaration Foundation is, in a sense, in line with what we hear
so much about in other respects--I consider it a kind of "infrastructure
restoration." I want to rebuild it strong. But to rebuild it strong does
not require in this case money and bricks and mortar. It requires that we
take up once again the task of challenging our minds to understand what these
principles mean, and challenging our minds to make use of them in dealing
with the practical issues that every day we face--particularly those which
are today most challenging.
I spent a lot of time in the last year and more talking to people about the
moral crisis America faces. At some level people are reluctant to deal with
this, even though I have found universally everybody says it is so.
"Yes, we're in the midst of a great moral crisis. Yes, that is the real
cause of our problems. No, we don't know what to do about it, so let's talk
about money and budgets instead."
But you know, that is based on the notion that we don't have any moral
principles to reason from. And yet right there, in the country's beginning,
we have a statement of those moral principles. The Declaration constitutes a
definition of the source and limits of our freedom.
The source is God. And the limits are quite clearly defined: we cannot use
the freedom in such a way as to claim unto ourselves the authority which is
the basis of our freedom. It makes it very clear, very simple.
So if somebody comes to you and says, "You have the authority to decide
whether that child in your womb is a human or not," the Declaration
says, "Well, I can't claim that authority. It is the Creator who decided
that. It is the Creator who endowed us with rights. I do not decide that for
my child. And if I claim the right to make that decision, then I deny the
authority which is the basis for all my rights."
And so once you have seen in the Declaration the logic that it defined, it is
suddenly pretty clear that the first thing you have to remember is that
freedom is not an unlimited license, it is not an unlimited choice, it is not
even an unlimited opportunity. Freedom is, in fact, in the first instance, a
responsibility. And it is in the first instance a responsibility before the
God from whom we come.
And now, see, I think that that has--once you start to think it
through--tremendous consequences, because it also warns us against that
understanding of rights which is based upon radical selfishness. You can't
base rights on radical selfishness without asserting that we are, ourselves,
the source of those rights. Once you have denied that, then radical selfishness
becomes a contradiction of freedom.
And those who then present to us the paradigm of family life, for
instance--gay marriage and so forth. And people always say, "Well,
what's wrong with that is that I disapprove of homosexuality." No.
Let's leave that aside for the moment. I may disapprove of homosexuality. But
from the point of view of public policy, what's wrong with it is that it is
based upon an understanding of human sexuality that is radically selfish. By
definition, I am in this relationship in order to gratify myself.
Whereas, what? The foundation of the family is actually an understanding that
in that relationship there is a necessary responsibility and obligation which
transcends self-gratification in order to connect you with that which is your
obligation to the child that may be born of it. You see?
And so we can't accept it. Because if we go down that road we are rejecting
the responsible understanding of freedom that is implied in that Declaration.
The reason I go through all this is that people like to pretend that this is
all just a bunch of abstract stuff. No, it's not.
If we can once again begin to understand what the Declaration is about, it
will provide us with a disciplined way of reasoning out what they tell us we
can't reason about. "Oh, those are things that we just have to choose,
we just have to disagree about that." That's not true!
It is possible to reason about right and wrong. It is possible to come to
rational conclusions about good and bad--so long as we remember the
principles which must guide us in our thinking. And then if people stand up
and say, "Well, I reject those principles," that's fine.
You can reject those principles, but then don't come whining to me about your
rights. Because once you have rejected the Declaration, you have no rights
that I must respect!
And so what brings us together here, in the Declaration Foundation, is the
effort to return to those principles, to restore a better understanding of
the historical context which produced them--to help people to begin, as I was
just trying to do, to apply them to specific issues, particularly those which
require moral judgment and reasoning.
And in practical ways. We've got all kinds of ideas. And I'm sure that others
will come up.
One of the major objectives will be the development of a Declaration
Curriculum, in order--whether it's with home schoolers,
or people in private schools, or even eventually maybe the government
schools--to develop a curriculum that once again focuses on the history of
America as the history of our efforts to realize the promise of that
Declaration.
And we'll be looking at the legal profession, which has in the course of the
last 30 and 40 years rejected the basic understanding of law and human nature
that the Declaration implies. Throwing it out! In order to substitute for it
a shallow legal positivism that leaves us with no foundation for our claim to
liberty except the fact that some justice says it's so. And if he wakes up
tomorrow with it stuck in his craw and vomits up our liberty, then we'll have
to give it up. But that's not the way it is.
And that means that we must find a way to return to those roots that make it
clear that our freedom is not grounded in the agreement we're able to achieve
amongst the Justices of the Supreme Court, or amongst all the folks in the
United States. It's based upon the acknowledgment that if every single person
in this room but me puts their hands together and says I have no rights, I
shall still be able to assert those rights, because they come from an
authority higher than yours, and higher than mine, which I can rely on
through all time in spite of you. In spite of your decision. In spite of your
will.
We want to restore to this country that understanding of law which is the
ground for our claim of freedom. And in education, and in law, and in public
policy, we want to begin to inspire people once again to have the boldness of
their declaration convictions.
That will have some implications, some that folks won't like. It won't
resolve every issue. But it will certainly, I think, help us to frame those
issues in a better way.
Take the issue of school prayer. I often tell people that I believe we could
resolve that issue fairly simply. Let's say that we shall set aside at the
beginning of every day a moment of silence of all our schools that wish to do
so, in which a student will stand in front of the class and recite the famous
words of the Declaration. The kids will observe a moment of silence, sit
down, and start their day. I'll take it. Some people wouldn't, of course, but
it's all in there.
What is a prayer, but that you should acknowledge your dependence upon God
for that which is most important in your life. And following that reverent
acknowledgment, sit down and do your business. That's what they would do.
It also offers, I think, a practical guide in other respects. We have these
big debates over, "Should we teach creation in the schools?"--and
so forth and so on. Now I am not going to stand here right now and get into a
big debate about who's right and who's wrong. I myself happen to believe that
it is slightly more disparaging than I'm willing to tolerate to suggest that
my early relatives were monkeys, and stuff, but there are some people in the
country who feel comfortable with that. If they wish to lay claim to this
lineage, they may. I think I'd want to see that genealogy laid out in real
detail. And we all know, or we all ought to know, that in spite of all the
claims of evolutionary science they can't lay it out in detail. And this is a
problem. And I'm not saying that we simply dismiss it on that basis, but
doesn't science require that you examine the evidence?
But we've been scared off from examining the evidence on all sides by people
saying, "You can't talk about creation. That's religion." And I
look at the Declaration, and it says, "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal." Now I keep telling my
audiences, "How can they tell us this?" You can't get to this equality,
unless you go through the creation. And that means that when we're teaching
our children about their rights, and the foundation of their rights and
liberty, we've got to explain what this word means, or they won't get it.
And so, if somebody comes to you, as the judges have done, and says you can't
talk about creation because it's religious, I'll say, "No, it's not
religious. This is American. I just want to explain to my son Andrew what the
Declaration says. How dare you stop me!"
You know, they wouldn't have an answer for that one. And if they did, know
what we ought to do? If they had an answer, and they said, "Well, no, we
judges say that you can't teach the Declaration"--that's the moment that
you know why they put the impeachment clause in there.
So there again, the Declaration provides us with a foundation for making a
judgment in a practical issue where they said there was no way of resolving
it. But there is.
And it's more than that. Even in the practical questions: how much power
should we give to government? How much power should we keep?
One of the things that I would hope to do--I concentrate in all my speeches
on just the first part, because it's so beautiful and stirring and it's the
one we know. But if you go through the whole Declaration, you will find even
deeper insights.
For instance, Jefferson in there declares at one point that if your
government should happen to give evidence of a design to despoil you of your
liberty, and it's systematic and it's clear, then you not only have the
right, you have the duty to alter or abolish it. Do you remember that? Not
only the right, but the duty! It is our citizen duty to alter or abolish a
government that is clearly threatening to our rights.
If you think that through, you can see a whole citizen ethics built into that
responsibility. You can't make a judgment about whether your government's
trying to despoil you of your rights unless you know what your rights are,
and where they come from, and how to apply them. So a certain responsibility
in education is made clear.
And if you have not only the right, but the obligation to alter or abolish
your government--when was the last time you saw somebody able to alter or
abolish their government if the government had all the power, and you had
none? That means that one of your obligations under the Declaration of
Independence is to maintain a power base sufficient to challenge your
government should it become abusive. You should NEVER give it up.
And if you look through the Declaration, you not only see the basis for moral
principle; you see the basis for prudent judgment.
How much power should we give, and how much power should we keep? How much
money should we give, and how much money should we keep? Should we have an
educational system that prepares our children to think for themselves so that
they can make judgments, critical judgments, about their government, or
should we have one that prepares them to be the passive subjects of
government largesse, and government power, and government domination?
The Declaration makes it clear what our responsibility is. And that means
that it's not only a document that deals with moral principle. It's a
document that deals with the practical truths that we have to apply if we
want to remain a free people.
You see, I would like to use that document as a basis, as a kind of gateway
that will lead our people to walk back into that understanding of politics
which, I believe--you look at the broad sweep of human history--was the most
enlightened ever achieved by practical statesmen.
Oh, it's one thing to sit in the closet and write your fancy philosophic
tomes--and I would have to say that I think there were some philosophers who
probably achieved deeper insight into the real nature of political things
than our Founders did. But guess what: they weren't able to do. They weren't
able to lift one little finger to translate that wonderful understanding into
reality.
But then God, in his Providence--and that's what our Founders called it. See,
people will say, "You're being religious"--no, I'm not. I'm quoting
from the Declaration: "With a firm reliance on Divine Providence."
When I refer to Divine Providence, I'm quoting from the Declaration. That
means that in my political rhetoric, I have the right to refer to Divine
Providence. You understand that? They can't criticize me.
I believe that that Divine Providence actually opened up this wonderful
moment in which for what seems, based on our knowledge, to be the only time
in human history that prayer, that prayer that is presented by Socrates in
Plato's Republic--it was realized for that brief moment at the beginning of
our history. That prayer that, for just one moment, philosophers should be
kings. Those who cared about truth, and about wisdom, should also have the
power to put some little part of it into effect.
And we are the beneficiaries of that moment. The Declaration states the
principles of their insight, and we must use it as our gateway to
rediscovering the depth and meaning of it. We have too long now been taken in
by the shallow social scientists and others who have offered us their new
alternatives to that understanding.
But look around you. Look at the streets filled with violence, look at the
schools filled with fear, look at the new generations fast losing their way,
and tell me whether you think their wisdom works.
And then compare to that a nation born in a war against the greatest military
power on earth, sustained through a crisis of judgment, and spirit, and soul,
that tore the nation apart and put it back together again--a nation that was
able to survive wars that nearly destroyed the very fabric of the world's
civilization, and come out on the other side of it, armed with a thunderbolt
we did not use because we had the wisdom to understand that human dignity was
not our gift, but the gift of God. And tell me whether the fabric of that
history, the greatness built upon it, is a greatness we should surrender for
the pygmy theories that have dominated us for the last 40 years. The nation
has succeeded; they have failed.
We must return to the foundations of our success.
I would like to challenge all of you people. We wanted to gather some folks
together here because--well, you know, I think that starting an enterprise
like this is like a marriage, in a way.
Why do we have marriages? These days, the way people talk, you would think
that you have marriages in order to gratify the personal feelings of the
people getting married--make them feel good and all of that. And it hopefully
does make them feel good, but that's not why. You know, I mean, at this
rate--if that were the reason that we had marriages, then, you know, when
everything started to get a little gloomy, we would just declare another
marriage and everybody would come.
Actually, you should only do it once. And you do it once because it
symbolizes something. It symbolizes the fact that those who care about the
parties involved are going to stand there and publicly attest to their
commitment to one another, and pledge, in a way, that they shall be part of
that commitment--that they shall understand it, respect it, support it, in
the good times and the bad. It is not a way of showing respect and gratifying
the passions of the parties involved. It is actually a way of showing respect
for the institution that they are about to commit themselves to for a
lifetime.
And that is what we are gathered here to do. Not respect only, though, for
the Declaration Foundation, but respect, more so, for the truths to which it
shall be dedicated. Because I kinda feel that you've got to attach yourself
to the truth. And then you just hold on, wherever it goes. It'll be a wild
ride, but you will end up in the right place.
And I'm glad that you have come here together to join us in this first
birthday party for the Declaration Foundation. We would ask, if you could,
that you commit yourself in the way of help and support; that you let us know
who you are so that we can keep you abreast of how this child grows; that you
spread the word to those who you know so that they will understand what we
are about; that you will be willing to offer us your advice, point out
opportunities, show us the needs that may exist for you where we can be of
help in promoting these common ideas and ideals, to which we are dedicated
not just as people in this room, but as Americans. And that's why we're here,
and I'm glad that you came.
And that's why we will continue in this work in the Foundation. It is
something that I hope will be a permanent result of the little work I tried
to do in the last year and a half. Part of that work, as you know, was aimed
at narrow political purposes, which I believe we achieved, in concert with
others. The Republican Party is still a pro-life party today.
I have to invite our attention, though, and your hopes, to another result. A
result that, like Moses, we shall not be there to see. We have, as has every
generation of Americans, the privilege of looking, like Moses, into the
promised land. But you know, given the nature of that promise, we shall never
live to get there. For, this is a promise that is always being kept and never
quite fulfilled: a promise that each generation shall have to renew, and
respect, and rebuild.
And the Declaration Foundation, I hope, will be a way for us to pledge
ourselves to that renewal--for us to engage in that rebuilding--so that we
can pass on intact to those children we see, and to those children we shall
never see, that heritage of freedom which is our real responsibility. So
that, when we shut our eyes in the sleep of death and go to seek the Lord, we
will be able to look back on our role as citizens knowing that we did what we
could to make sure that this would still be a nation, in the best sense,
free, and in the best sense, whole, and true to its beginnings. If we can do
that, then I think we shall have done all we can do, as citizens.
And the rest is up to God.
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