THE FOUNDERS' WORLDVIEW
THE LAW OF LIBERTY
SAMUEL ADAMS ON LIBERTY
Committed Christian, Samuel Adams, is called the Father of the American Revolution. He earned that title because he started the Committees of Correspondence which unified the colonies in mind, spirit and political action. A fundamental purpose of the Committees was to make sure everyone in the colonies understood the principles of liberty upon which the United States of America stood. Sam Adams fully understood those principles in 1772 when the Committees were established.
However, in 1750, at 28 years of age, he already had a good understanding of liberty.
In the state of nature, every man has a right to think and act according to the dictates of his own mind, which, in that state, are subject to no other control and can be commanded by no other power than the laws and ordinances of the great Creator of all things.
Such "laws and ordinances" were none other than the laws of nature and nature's God established by the Founders as the supreme legal authority for our nation.
The perfection of liberty therefore, in a state of nature, is for every man to be free from any external force, and to perform such actions as in his own mind and conscience he judges to be rightest; which liberty no man can truly possess whose mind is enthralled by irregular and inordinate passions; since it is no great privilege to be free from external violence if the dictates of the mind are controlled by a force within, which exerts itself above reason.
Thus, by reason, Man personally legislates a standing rule by which to live. Such standing rule must be fixed, uniform and universal to constitute a standard by which personal actions are to be judged. In our nation, that measure is recognized as God's laws. So long as Man obeys God's laws, no externally imposed agency of government has authority to impose its will on the individual.
This is liberty in a state of nature, which, as no man ought to be abridged of, so no man has a right to give up, or even part with any portion of it, but in order to secure the rest and place it upon a more solid foundation; it being equally with our lives the gift of the same bounteous Author of all things...we must distinguish and consider liberty as it respects the whole body and as it respects each individual.
In other words, Liberty is an unalienable, God-given right which "the whole body" (the nation, that is) works together to protect.
As it respects the whole body, it is then enjoyed when neither legislative nor executive powers (by which I mean those men with whom are intrusted the power of making laws and of executing them) are disturbed by any internal passion or hindered by any external force from making the wisest laws and executing them in the best manner; when the safety, the security, and the happiness of all is the real care and steady pursuit of those whose business it is to care for and pursue it; in one short word, where no laws are carried through humor or prejudice, nor controlled in their proper execution by lust of power in the great, nor wanton licentiousness in the vulgar.
Any law passed by a legislative power must adhere to the same standing rule as is expected of the individual. Otherwise, Man in society is subjected to arbitrary, uncertain and changing laws leading to slavery.
As it respects individuals, a man is then free when he freely enjoys the security of the laws and rights to which he is born; when he is hindered by no violence from claiming those rights and enjoying that security, but may at any time demand the protection of the laws under which he lives...
The "rule of law" and adherence to its fixed, uniform and universal nature provides security in Man's individual liberty. Man should be able to look to laws of a legislative power, if necessary, to protect his unalienable rights. Pray that God restores the rule of law to our nation!
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Neil F. Markva 10