A guest post from:
Roots in Ripon
22 February 2016
Chuck Roots
www.chuckroots.com
The Right of the
People
Several presidential candidates
were being interviewed on a television news program where questions were mostly
coming from people in the audience. I was intrigued by a response Dr. Ben
Carson gave when asked about his running for the office of President of the United States.
He said that the first thing any voter should look for in a presidential
hopeful is whether the candidate has a firm grasp and understanding of our
Constitution. Here’s the rub. A deplorable number of politicians in particular;
and Americans in general, evince a dreadful knowledge of the Constitution and
American History.
Since I have embarked on this
attempt to teach and instruct my grandchildren about our nation and its core
values and truths, I have been delightfully entertained while reading and
rereading sacred documents that have been the bedrock of our Republic. That’s
right – I said Republic. Too many of our fellow-countrymen have forgotten that
we are a Republic. We are not a Democracy. We share democratic ideals, but a
true democracy would be a simple majority rule. Alexis de Tocqueville called
such a government the “Tyranny of the Majority”. This is not how we function.
As a free people we elect those individuals we (hopefully) trust to represent
us in the hallowed halls of government, from the local dog-catcher to the
President of the United
States. “We the People” can vote our
representatives into office, and we can vote them out of office. We do not operate
on the basis of a simple majority which the Founding Fathers knew would be
disastrous since a majority can also be quite wrong. Eliminating majority rule
removed the danger of elections becoming popularity contests, much like
elections of student body leaders in high school.
I enjoy helping in Miss Ballatore’s
2nd grade class at Colony Oak Elementary where my granddaughter,
Alyssa, is a student. At the start of each school day each class stands, places
their right hand over their heart, faces the American flag, and recites the
Pledge of Allegiance. I stand and recite the pledge right along with them. To
witness this participation in honoring our nation is truly heart-warming.
You may recall that the opening
line in the Pledge of Allegiance says, “I Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands.” There’s that Republic principle
again.
One of the bones of contention over
the Pledge has been the short phrase, “under God”, which was officially added
to the Pledge during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. Some have said it
should not be used since it was not in there from the beginning. Actually, the
original Pledge is markedly different from what we pledge today. Originally
written by Colonel George Balch in 1887, the pledge went like this:
“I
pledge allegiance to my flag, and the republic for which it stands. I pledge my
head and my heart to God and my country. One country, one language and one
flag.”
The original pledge included a
specific reference to God. So it should come as no surprise that President
Eisenhower authorized the addition of “under God” in the final revision. It
took Congress until 1942 to officially recognize the Pledge for the first time.
Now why does this not surprise me!?
In the early paragraphs of the
Declaration of Independence we see a direct reference to “the Right of the
People.” This statement is so powerful as to be easily overlooked unless we
know our World History. With perhaps the theocracy of Ancient Israel (and not
even that), virtually no nation has ever been ruled by “the people”. This is
part of the reason that the formation of this new nation, the United States of America,
was looked upon with utter fascination by the rest of the world, and referred
to as that “American Experiment”. And to be perfectly honest, no one really
believed we would succeed as a nation. Yet in less than one hundred years the United States
was the most powerful nation economically in the entire world, primarily
because of our free market enterprise system and a strong work ethic with
virtually no government interference.
Next week I will continue with more
of the “Right of the People”.
At best, half true. Although Balch wrote a pledge of allegiance, it was never adopted. The first time a pledge was officially adopted by the government was in 1942 and it stated: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Francis Bellamy is credited as the author of this pledge. The fact that Balch wrote a pledge of allegiance which was adopted by groups like the DAR is an interesting fact, but it does not support the idea that "under God" was part of the original pledge. In fact, the fact that the first adopted version of the pledge did not include the phrase disproves the authors claims.
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