OPINION:
OUR LOST DECLARATION: AMERICA’S FIGHT AGAINST TYRANNY FROM KING GEORGE TO THE DEEP STATE
By Mike Lee
Sentinel, $27, 240 pages
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
There may never have been a more powerful or consequential single sentence written, helping to fuel revolution, inspiring the birth of a new nation governed democratically by its citizens, and articulating the simple but profound principles on which our nation has grown into the hope and envy of the world.
For Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, a student of our Founding constitutional principles and author of “Our Lost Constitution” and “Written Out of History,” books that along with this one might well be added to classroom reading lists, a central concern is that our nation as a whole may be losing touch with those principles. And given the increasing dumbing down of subject matter in many of our public schools, that concern is not misplaced.
In that regard, Mr. Lee cites an increasingly typical case of embarrassing historical ignorance: “’In 2018, Facebook removed a post from a Texas newspaper that posted sections of the Declaration of Independence. The post went ’against our standards on hate speech,’ Facebook explained.’”
“The fact remains,” writes Mr. Lee, “that Americans of all political persuasions should know the words of the Declaration of Independence when they see them. They should be studied, consulted for counsel and guidance, and cherished to ensure that they will be passed down to the next generation.”
“The most disrespectful thing we can do to the Declaration of Independence is to take it (and the principles underlying it) for granted. Regrettably, that’s what many of us seem to be doing.” For a century now, “the administrative or deep state has grown to inordinate size and power. In the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson wrote that King George had “’erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.’”
And today, writes Mr. Lee, “’the swarms of officers’ are gathering once again but they’re not in London, they’re in Washington.” And they’ll continue to swarm there, for as long as we allow them to do so. This is especially crucial in an era in which “outright socialism and the massive government expansion it entails,” has increasingly become the basis of the campaign promises being made by most of the unusually large and somewhat odd crop of candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“As we near the first-quarter mark of the twenty-first century, the steady growth of the administrative state under presidents of both parties has made the central government [an] intruder into the lives of most Americans. In many ways, these lessons of the eighteenth century have never been more relevant.”
The Declaration of Independence is both “a manifesto for natural human rights” and “a manifesto against a strong central government that would infringe upon those rights.” In short, “It is against an administrative state.”
For his part, we can expect Mr. Lee to continue exerting his best efforts as a highly respected legislative leader and an effective advocate for our Founding constitutional principles. A former U.S Supreme court clerk, he serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Commerce Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, and was recently named chairman of the Senate Steering Committee.
He is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members not too many generations ago were driven forcibly from every community in which they tried to settle. In 1835 Gov. Lilburn Boggs of Missouri issued an executive order that commanded they be expelled from the state or “exterminated.” But they prevailed, and in the process wrote a heroic chapter in American history.
As a Mormon, Mr. Lee understands the fight of marginalized communities for real equality. “What makes that fight so righteous is that we still look to the words of the Declaration for inspiration. When Jefferson and his colleagues signed their names to that document, they were making a bet on an idea. It’s a bet that every succeeding generation of Americans has done their best to make good on.”
• John R. Coyne Jr., a former White House speechwriter, is co-author of “Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement” (Wiley).
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