A Miracle that Changed the World,
The 5000 Year Leap.
Principles of Freedom 101
W. CLEON SKOUSEN
“Like the framers themselves, many Americans in the early years of the Republic truly regarded the Constitution as a miracle. Not only did they praise the competence, wisdom, and motivations of those who served in the federal convention of 1787, but they declared that the formation and adoption of our new system of federal government represented a political achievement unprecedented in human history. They looked upon it moreover as an event that was actually “influenced, guided, and governed” by the hand of God. Thus it is not hard to understand why our Founding Fathers believed that the Constitution was destined to bless all mankind - and that it was “incumbent on their successors” to preserve and defend our national charter of liberty. “ These convictions articulated in the statements quoted below, should move today’s Americans to serious reflection and appropriate action during the Bicentennial and beyond.” - Andrew Allison. This comes on the first page (i). It’s followed by twenty-two quotations from the likes of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and many others of our Founding Fathers and then sets forth in easily understood language 28 principles that “represent the golden threads of combined wisdom that formed the basis of America’s brilliant founding documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
It is the product of years of reading, studying and classifying the thoughts and wisdom of America’s Founders as recorded in many volumes of their journals, letters, speeches, official papers, and other writings” (xvi). For example, we are taken back to the year 1831 when Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States and we learn about his book Democracy in America which is called “the best definitive studies on the American culture and Constitutional system that had been published” and of America De Tocqueville wrote; “In New England, every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidence of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution. In the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all of these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.” (p82) And so it goes in this book. The role of religion, the role of moral leaders; every principle of self-government from the words of the people who wrote the documents themselves. Faith, unity, sacrifice, triumph, and the principles upon which our system of government relies. This book is nothing short of a miracle itself. If we would only agree to break down its concepts and get them into our schools…we would be much better off.
The 5000 Year Leap
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