Celebrating Independence Day

Today, Americans celebrate the birth of our great nation and the enduring spirit of freedom that defines us. I am immensely proud of our rich history and the values enshrined in our Constitution (which more people need to read), a truly inspired document that continues to guide and protect our liberties. Every time I visit Washington DC for work or a conference, I try to visit the National Mall at least once, and, specifically, the Jefferson Memorial. I have such reverence for that structure and for Thomas Jefferson for all that he did and what he wrote in defense of the Constitution and our representative government, the importance of State’s rights, the separation of the three branches of government, and his recognition of the hand of our Creator in all things.

If you’re not familiar with many of Jefferson’s writings, here are some of my favorite quotes, beginning with one that most people know:

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.

 

I join cordially in admiring and revering the Constitution of the United States, the result of the collected wisdom of our country. That wisdom has committed to us the important task of proving by example that a government, if organized in all its parts on the Representative principle unadulterated by the infusion of spurious elements, if founded, not in the fears & follies of man, but on his reason, on his sense of right, on the predominance of the social over his dissocial passions, may be so free as to restrain him in no moral right, and so firm as to protect him from every moral wrong.

 

It is every Americans’ right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself.

 

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.

 

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

 

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.

 

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

 

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.

 

It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please . . . . Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

If you’re interested in reading more from Jefferson, there are good biographies out there, but I recommend reading his papers and speeches directly. Check out this option.

And with that, I believe we should do more to honor the courage and vision of Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers by looking for ways to work together to uphold the principles they stood for so that our country can continue to symbolize hope and democracy. Happy Independence Day!