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| Charles Sumner, Abolitionist Senator |
“The foundation of every government is some principal or passion in the minds of the people. The noblest principles and most generous affections in our nature then, have the fairest chance to support the noblest and most generous models of government.”
John Adams, April 1776
What then, shall we forget the ideal to do our best to bring the government to render the right form of education unto all the American constituency? Can we only do so if those with the position to introduce a path of education, to then legislate these ideas into law, and ultimately, beget final approval of us the people, politicize their political desires before what ought to be done to instill altruism, independency of thought, and a vibrant American advocacy? that therein, we have a nation, nay, a national community of a dramatically increased number of lawful, liberty-loving American sentinels?
The original spirit of liberty as found in the singular people who framed our first laws established authority through acknowledgement of the inherent, unalienable, universal, God-gifted rights of humanity, found after much deliberation that we are all created equal and that we have various liberties that are not to be impinged upon by any other, nor our government, given the stipulation that we lawfully respect the rights of all others to also enjoy their liberty. Thus, we are a nation of laws.
But
that
is
enough.
Our American story has shown that the one factor that reduces the flame of that spirit of liberty; that one factor that brings forth the darkness of soul, is when their is a lack of the right quality of education amongst the people, and most precisely apparent, when the quality of the education is not producing copious amounts of ready-to-defend American sentinels of liberty across the national community.
In the large generational spaces of time, the absence of quality education to strengthen Americans upon this regard gives us not selflessness, but selfishness. Our local and national community loses solemnity of purpose in the ignorance of where we come from; and how can we be the best stewards of the American experiment if we know not what to think, or how to go about creating a formidable defense of what is precious? Upon the onset of massive ignorance and half-understood truths of what the spirit of liberty is, of what that original intention of the framers of our American government was, the narrative of who we are as a people can be more easily shifted, changed, and captured according to the political interests of those who control the flow, quality, perspective, and politics of information and of knowledge.
Knowledge is dormant ‘power,’ and the smart application of knowledge is active power.
The people of the United States of America have not, as a whole, experienced a shaping of their minds wherein they have become a dynamic, participating America. Rather, an elitism of knowledge has created an inequality amongst the people, and this lowers that spirit of liberty and obfuscates any thought or understanding that their was a beautiful original intent clearly expressed in the writings and life’s work of the female and American leaders of 1776, and those sentinels of liberty who have risen as champions of the people against all odds since that time.
Within this framework of thought, “Popular Sovereignty” has been the unconstitutional theory that has been used to dismiss, attack, and neutralize the pure spirit of peaceful, loving liberty; that we are all created equal, that we are a nation of laws meant to create and protect a civil society of diverse people, and that our government of us is tasked with the protection of such a way of life. Starting in the beginning of the 19th century, Popular Sovereignty is an unholy compromise that shortchanges the founding spirit of American liberty with the short-term, selfishness of political special interest. With tremendous face, that theory was begun by the proponents of slavery, claiming individual sovereignty from our nation of laws on the issue of one human being owning another as property and that government cannot interfere in this supposed right.
The idea of ‘Popular Sovereignty’ was destroyed by the writings and life’s work of the American leaders of 1776, and by the selfless work of key critical thinking champions who have carefully sought out the metrics of that original spirit since then. In its destroyed form, this theory sprung up immediately again in the presidency of Andrew Johnson right after the death of President Lincoln. His heart was not for unification, but political retaliation that favored the elitist culture of the kingpins of slavery. The chains and whip were gone, but social oppression was instituted and the government was told not to interfere. Popular Sovereignty had arisen again in a different form: segregation. The American of black skin color was not allowed to naturally integrate into the local and national community but experienced forceful attempts to silence their hearts and minds. They were stopped at the voting booth, in the school room, and in our courtrooms as a jury. They were disallowed from appreciating the best possible quality education for themselves and their families, that they may grow up to assume the duty that President John F. Kennedy directed us to take on; that we be a people who go about improving not only ourselves and our own, but the life of the country; the life of the people and of its families.
Has the theory of Popular Sovereignty been brought back in its worst form and with its most overarching impact upon the entire society? How does an American versed in the understanding of the original spirit of liberty and intent of those magnificent people who have time and time again righted the trajectory of our national vessel respond?
“We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
Martin Luther King
“As good government, is an empire of laws, how shall your laws be made?”
John Adams
The work of and for the preservation of our American union is not a compromise; it is an act of profound love displacing self for the sake of the best good of all the people.
“Be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.”
Martin Luther King
Where is it? Where is that fire; that spirit; that original freedom? Who are those sentinels, what do they look like? What schools did they go to? Where do they congregate? From what ramparts do they work to preserve what is goodly and right and what ought to be so in America?
“We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”
Martin Luther King
The strategy of Popular Sovereignty has historically been against the rights of humanity, and the founding ideas that have brought the people of our country together. For such a theory to work, a litmus test from the special interest group has to be applied for entrance into elected, representative governmental office. In effect, the government of and for the people gets co-opted. It was so in the time of the proponents of slavery, and it so now in the time of abortion. Elected office allows the special interest to legislate or create laws. Laws of oppression of specific people with that stipulation of non-intervention from government. It was the man, woman, and child of black skin color that was targeted with slavery, and it was the innocent, unborn child of black skin color that was the original target of abortion, as stated in the many publications, pamphlets, and writings of the early abortion industry. The preservation of the American union was not a goal of the abortion industry in its early years, nor was the original spirit of liberty central to that institution. It began its ideas with a very open co-op of the Woman Suffragist movement and was quickly responded to by the leaders of the woman’s rights campaign. In their writings, the true leaders of the multigenerational Women’s Suffragist movement clearly distanced themselves from the advocates of abortion, even as many of them, but not all, clearly distanced themselves from affording American women of black skin color fellowship, camaraderie, and association in their advocacy for a more perfect American union. They were not all altruists, and were occasionally openly racist. Frederick Douglass experienced this truth as he began to support them, and he continued to support them, in spite of this inerrancy in their united platform. Perhaps as a way of gently teaching them.
“It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us.”
Martin Luther King
The life’s work and writings of Martin Luther King put his soul on the national breach in our hearts. He was walking and talking; writing and speaking; networking and bridging. His determination, along with incredible community support on the local and national stage was unlike anything the masterminds of 20th century Popular Sovereignty could respond to in any effective, lawful way. So they resorted to violence over the course of 100 years, 1865-1965.
But Martin Luther King said,
“..hate scars the soul and distorts the personality.”
He chose to love in the smartest way instead of hate, because he was educated. He was raised up to be a champion of the people by his parents and by his segregated community. Like Abigail Adams’s Dad, Martin’s Dad was a minister too. And like Abigail Adams’s home life being a center of conversation and community, even a vibrant place of rest for that original spirit and intent of liberty, Martin Luther King also enjoyed such a loving upbringing with a family that greatly valued education as a means of self-improvement and instrument to improve the life of the people. He became an American Champion loving all and serving all in his declaration that he would love the racist enemies of the black American community.
Great patience,
Godly love,
selfless goodness,
compassion for others,
savviness,
and dynamic community support
was required to deftly navigate the sea of ignorance, emotion, and politic of Popular Sovereignty of his time that had seeped into those hearts and minds, rendering them void and bereft in the knowledge and passion of that spirit of liberty, and that understanding of the original intent of the framers of our constitution, and still claim triumphant victory in the court of law, in the classroom, the community, in our U.S. Congress, and in the executive office of the Presidency.
Within years of his assassination, no educated champions of liberty, no American sentinels were found with enough charge to immediately confront the legalization of killing children in the womb. A one hundred year campaign to create a legal protection claiming the child in the womb as the property of the women, and the right to demand non-interference by government was brought back as the main demand of the abortion campaign. It is Popular Sovereignty, replete with the litmus test for that aspiring and current elected government representatives be agreed upon abortion as a supposed human right exclusive of American women.
“The Declaration of Independence, not only asserts the natural equality of men, and their unalienable right to Liberty; but that the only just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. A power for one part of the people to make slaves of the other can never be derived from consent, and is therefore not a just power."
John Quincy Adams
Popular Sovereignty is destroyed once again here as anathema to the founding idea that connects a person with time; that we are “created equal.” Created implying, ultimate beginning of individual human life as it pertains to the human reproduction cycle, conception; and equal implying, all humans have the same liberties, and very importantly as Alexander Hamilton uniquely echoes the express written sentiment of our constitutional documents within the Federalist Papers, alongside John Jay and James Madison, that an exhaustive list of our liberties is not concluded in our two constitutional documents, but that that right of action is given to the people as it deems best with the understanding that none of our shared liberties may be compromised with as they go about legislating new ideas into our American constitution.
We cannot compromise with the life of the children in the womb. No human being in the United States of America can be the property of another, nor have their life, however small in size or lacking in its ability to intellectually and physically defend itself, be ended. Lastly, no government of the people can last long if it is used to enact legislation against its own code of operation; that of being a government tasked with the protection of the people, that we may be a safe, happy people.
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