Early U.S. History
Old Paths Bible Ministries © 2007 Richard St.James
The Following From: Messages From The Messenger Sluice Box
Adventures
The Foundation Was Established ... In Government
The design of the government foundation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay Colony was primarily by John Cotton (1584-1652), and Richard Mather (1596-1669). Their work resulted in "an abstract of the Lawes of New England" in 1636. Imagine that, a plan of government produced by "fire and brimstone" preachers of God's Holy Bible.
"An Abstract of Lawes and Government", 1641, contained the democratic process, which carried forth with its principles to eventually frame our American Constitution. "While they did not believe that citizenship should be divorced from moral and religious standards, they firmly believed in separating the offices of church and state, and in providing guarantees from both in behalf of personal liberty and the commonwealth." 9
Quote 9: Mather Books & Portraits, Franklin P. Cole, Casco Printing Company, Portland, Maine 04112
Our forefathers acknowledged the dependence of our Nation upon God, and recognized the Bible as the foundation of its laws and the supreme ruler of its conduct. John Jay … the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court said the following:
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege, and the interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is
their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these
Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over
these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for
the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should
be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his
measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others
to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent
to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the
Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to
the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to
their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging
its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to
bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in
the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend
an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the
ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have
been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must,
therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation,
and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace
Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in
General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority
of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That
these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent
States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and
Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace,
contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and
Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support
of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes,
and our sacred Honor."
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge
Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart,
Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George
Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur
Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
The Bill Of Rights ... came as result of the promise made to John Leland and The Baptists of Virginia by James Madison.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Read more of all the Bill of Rights?
The very first book to be printed in the United States was The New England Primer, and it was used in our public schools for 200 years thereafter.
John Quincy Adams was our sixth President, who studied as a boy in the Primer, referred to the "insoluble bond" between Christianity and our form of government.
The Supreme Court said we must "select and prefer" Christians for our elected rulers (or officials).
Our forefathers believed that religion and morality could not be divorced from politics.
The House Judiciary Committee Report (March 27,1854) said of the adoption of the Constitution and its amendments that "the universal sentiment (of our founding fathers) was that Christianity should be encouraged."
Two months later, the House Judiciary Committee Report said: "The great and conservative element in our system ... the thing that holds our system together is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and the divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
Our forefathers wanted to keep Christian principles in our government.
Blackstone's Commentaries On Law are Bible based and were used by our Supreme Court for guidance for over 150 years of our nation's history.
The branches of Government: The Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial branches, have their roots in the Scripture. (Isaiah 33:2).
In 1844, The Supreme Court, in Vidal Vs. Girard, affirmed that our public schools will teach that Christianity is our nation's foundation.
In 1892, the Supreme Court decision in Church Of The Holy Trinity Vs. United States stated that "We are emphatically a Christian nation."
From our nation’s birth right up to 1947, our Supreme Court had steadfastly maintained that the intent of our "founding fathers" was for our nation to preserve its Christian principles in order to perpetuate its existence as a nation.
The Foundation Was Established ... In ReligionReturn to Learn History Index