From Gary Bauer, American Values:
I want to share with you a speech that John Quincy Adams delivered on April 30, 1839, on the 50th anniversary of George Washington’s 1789 inauguration. I won’t share the entire speech—it’s 12,000 words and well over 100 pages long! Adams took about two hours to deliver it.
He gave this speech against the backdrop of growing tensions between the states over slavery and secession. There were already voices questioning the Union, the Constitution and even the Declaration of Independence itself. Adams argued that the Constitution was the fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence.
Adams reminded his audience of what God told the Israelites as they were getting ready to enter the Promised Land. He tells this beautiful story because he, like so many of our Founders, was intimately familiar with God’s inspired word.
In Deuteronomy 11:18-23, God told the Israelites they have a choice between blessings and curses. He reminded them of all the great miracles they personally experienced leading up to and during the Exodus of Egypt. But their children did not witness those miracles, so God instructed the Israelites to remind them.
By itself, Adams’ description of this wonderful conversation between God, and the Israelites would have been an incredible speech. But he then went on to explain its relevance to the nation that his father, John Adams, helped to create. He tells his audience that Israel has a covenant with God and we have a covenant politically in the Declaration of Independence, which Adams referred to as “the ark of your covenant.”
Here is the most important passage in the address by John Quincy Adams. He quoted the same instruction God gave to the Israelites about keeping the covenant in the years ahead to remind the early Americans of what they must do if they are going to preserve this God-inspired nation. We must show the same devotion to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and teach them to our children. Adams said:
“Lay up these principles, then, in your hearts and in your souls – bind them for signs upon your hands, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes – teach them to your children, speaking of them when sitting in your houses, when walking by the way, when lying down, and when rising up – write them upon the doorplates of your houses, and upon your gates – cling to them as to the issues of life – adhere to them as to the cords of your eternal salvation.
“So may your children’s children at the next return of this day of jubilee, after a full century of experience under your national Constitution, celebrate it again in the full enjoyment of all the blessings recognized by you in the commemoration of this day and of all the blessings promised to the children of Israel upon Mount Gerizim as the reward of obedience to the law of God.”
This speech could be delivered in America right now. We have millions of people who don’t know the history of America, the purpose of the Declaration of Independence or the fruit it has yielded here and around the world. Worse, many reject all of it. They hate it and see it as an impediment to their plans for our country.
We are under orders from God, just as He ordered the Israelites, to preserve the blessings of the Republic as one nation under Him or fall under the curses nations suffer when they fail to follow God.
I have never accepted the idea that politics and government are totally separate matters from God and His Word—particularly in a nation like ours where they are so interconnected. Our laws must be Godly and just. Our liberties are given to us by God, but they must be sustained and upheld by those who govern us.
During the Revolutionary War, John Adams said, “Oh that I was a Soldier! . . . Every Body must and will and shall be a soldier.” But Adams never wore a uniform or carried a musket into battle. Yet, he and many of his fellow patriots who did not fight served their country extremely well in many other ways.
That is as true today as it was then. I am a soldier. You are a soldier. We all must be soldiers if we are going to preserve the hard-won liberty we have all been blessed with.
THE RIGHT RENDITION 