“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
Thomas Jefferson, 1809
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809; Frederick Douglass would be born in 1818, and John Quincy Adams was 42 when Thomas Jefferson said as much in his old age. Our first Secretary of State and third American president, a slaveholder himself, saw that the institution of slavery would be like an anvil annihilating the original spirit of liberty and intent of the generation of thought leaders of 1776. The ability for the new country to find true peace, unalloyed joy, and prosperity in its soul, that its people be happy and at peace, and also that because of that vigilant conscience of what shared values we must hold close to our hearts and minds, our global leadership become a true light of liberty for the world. Is it in the knowledge and understanding of our prioritization of what is most important to us that our values become apparent? An American community that understands the original spirit of liberty will defend it, and only place elected representatives that agree with the straightforward constitutional ideas we have. The values of the elected people in our government are not to only mirror the will of the people then, but the best understanding and spirit of liberty of the people. If not, then we have mob rule guided by a duped people ignorant of how incredibly prescient it is to have the correct understanding of the knowledge of the intended, harmless spirit of liberty. Because what the elected representative care about will directly prioritize their energy unto the work that they do as elected representatives of the people.
So, though we be an empire of laws, it is men and women who manage, create, and shape these laws. Laws to protect the people and their unalienable liberties, as equals before the law who see that the sacred sanctity of our life and freedoms are intrinsically universal, and of God. Governmental authority then is checked into place with boundaries that cannot hinder or diminish our right to life.
As it was though, for all the safety and security parameters placed upon the American government’s three branches, the special interest of slaveholders found a way to orchestrate a muddling of the understanding of the original spirit of liberty, placing its priority ahead of what the people needed most, a correct education that shapes us to be ready caretakers of our community, and defenders of our shared constitutional ideas.
But without the right education, the people’s intellect grows dull, the ardor to be a people who are lawfully vigilant and mentally sharp loses spirit, and the moral light of our nation as what is supposed to be the best, most upright and good example of government and society flickers and wanes. What do we do then? How do we become that perfect American union or hasten our desire to attain to that more perfect union? Is it each person’s responsibility only, or is our government tasked with the preservation of the true understanding of the original, straight-forward spirit of liberty? Without the knowledge of the writings and life’s works of these American sentinels who established our government, it becomes hard to correctly understand what the spirit of our government ought to be. In this ignorance, special interest can place its own priorities before what should be, and we become a co-opted people, because the narrative of the intent of what our government ought to prioritize and value was changed.
Loving Humanity
“It is a contemplation not very creditable to human nature, that the cement of common interest produced by Slavery is stronger and more solid than that of unmingled freedom.”
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams served the people of the United States of America, and not our government for 66 years. The ‘government,’ an instrument of and for the care of the protection, caretaking and well-being of the American people. And has it been so? Has there been an era wherein all of us, now with all our different religions, creeds, skin colors, politics, and thoughts on what direction the ‘country’ should best take, have enjoyed peace?
From the very beginning, America was a house with its humanity divided.
Some of it enslaved;
our government, legally sanctioning special interest’s bearing down on a portion of us because of our skin color;
some of it persecuted on account of religion & creed;
and some of it dismissed because only men could hold elected office.
From the beginning though there has been that struggle for the right to life that we may be happy. For that right to be an integral, protected civilian in what should be a civil society of righteous laws. The champions of liberty, having been mentioned in the preceding written works, saw selfish special interest and being clear of what was required, endeavored.
“but so polluted are all the streams of legislation in regions of Slavery.”
John Quincy Adams
In his writings during the time of the Continental Congress, John Adams, remarked of the individual greed and desire for power in that early establishment of laws, and considered what would become of future generations if already there was special interests competing to exact its desire using government as a means to its narrow end, rather than as it was meant to be— as a means towards a greater future, a government essentially tasked with the care taking and protection of all of us Americans. So since before the nation was founded, these conflicting forces of what was best for all and what was best for only a few existed. Is it only altruism in the education of all of us that can bring the needed parameters for the best civil local and national community?
If some of the supposed best and most good of individuals that could be brought forth of those original 13 colonies brought together in concert to orchestrate were flawed in their attainment of being an enlightened, selfless political body, what hope lay for the future of the good of the people?
How would justice be parceled out if the justices did not, could not agree that we are all created equal; that we all have that right to life that is, universal, unalienable and of God, thus, above the authority of our government?
How do we guard against a special interest coup in placing elected representatives who adhere to a litmus test foremost, before adhering to the shared ideas in our constitution?
Education that agrees with the universal ideas encased in our constitution, with the furtherance that the original spirit of liberty intended be found in the complete writings of the framers of those sacred documents. Education that threads the work of all those champions, since that founding time of our nation who have kept to that harmless, peace-loving road that is about integrating all the people unto our community, with all its joys, opportunities, and benefits.
With a national population of 320 million souls, we can only find agreement on the shared ideas in our constitutional documents, and that spirit of liberty that can be easily gleaned from the complete writings and life works of those men and women who wrote and influenced the chosen words of our most sacred national ideas found only in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
A completely perfect union, John Quincy Adams said, may not be practically possible, but that does not mean that we cannot approximate:
a more perfect union wherein the woman thinks it unthinkable to destroy the child in her womb, and the man is raised up to respect women, and the sanctity of creating life.
a more perfect union wherein the American people exact the producers of industry to a rigor of standard that respects the solemnity of our humanity, and the American ‘family’ is protected, because we are a nation of families.
a more perfect union wherein the law finally stipulates that we are created equal at the precise time of our conception.
a more perfect union wherein no human being-in-creation is classified as property, but is recognized as a distinct human being without regard to the number of days in its life.
Protected from the spoiling of our minds and hearts from ignorance and indifference. All hearts and minds, all industry, all government, all the people— have to be responsible stewards of that spirit, so that our community not be a divisive political body, but a community that is steadfast in the knowledge and understanding of what ought to be the correct set of shared priorities, that our America be a land, not of apathy, but of empathy, of liberty, of safety, and of justice.
Comments