The Declaration:  An Act of  the American Conscience

In 1,350 words, the Declaration of Independence succinctly captured the full essence of the American ideal by unpacking the source of civil and religious liberty as well as natural rights and human conscience.  In fact, as noted by a host of Constitutional experts, the Declaration is the first political document to found a nation in the name of “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”. This is what sets it apart from every other political document in history.

Thomas Jefferson, though a confirmed deist himself, spoke volumes on this subject when he asked, “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?” (Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781)

Alexander Hamilton put it like this: “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records.  They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” (The Farmer Refuted, 1775)

Few Americans are fully aware that the gradual erosion of the spiritual foundations of our natural human rights has been occuring for decades.  As the number of rights that individuals can claim escalate, rights have morphed into assertions of will, often severed entirely from the anchors of truth or justice.  Increasingly, even deeply immoral acts are often passed off as individual rights.

But rights do not exist just because we say they do.  In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas hardly ever spoke of rights in the plural.  He wrote about “the right,” which means a right is not something someone claims or demands, but “that which is due to another”.   A right is what justice requires if the divine order is the standard.  “The right” lines up with the divine design for mankind, which stabilizes our rights, moving them from a subjective footing to an objective one.

In Bishop Robert Barron’s words,  “Rights, as understood by the drafters of the Declaration and the Constitution, are not conjured into existence by political consensus, nor are they granted by parliaments or princes.  Our rights exist not on parchment alone, but on the immutable foundation of nature and nature’s God. This is the animating principle behind what the Founders called ‘natural rights” – rights inherent to the human person, not because of race or wealth or nationality, but because of the dignity bestowed by the Creator.”

Natural law insists that the ideals of freedom, justice, rights and responsibilities are not obscure or opaque.  On the contrary, they are accessible to all and discernible by natural reason, written  “in their hearts” as the Apostle Paul said.

This is what makes the Declaration of Independence such a timeless and timely document. The very claim made in its opening is that the American experiment is justified not by majority will or sectarian creed but by the obvious truth that all men are created equal, and they are divinely endowed with certain rights that can be neither taken away or given away –  i.e., they are "inalienable.”

Which means the Declaration’s appeal was moral and spiritual, not based on majority opinion.    The British Crown had devolved from governance into tyranny, and the Founding Fathers were restoring the moral law that had been lost, those inalienable rights granted by God.  At the core, this was a matter of conscience.  

In fact, freedom of conscience is the key to understanding the Founders and the Declaration. As “the most secret core and sanctuary of a man …” where he “is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths …” (Gaudium et Spes), it was their collective conscience that motivated them to commit treason.

To be sure, this promise of liberty was not fulfilled immediately.  It took a terrible Civil War and many courageous abolitionists to end the sin of slavery and respect the dignity of all persons.  But from the very beginning, our Founders understood that with every right comes responsibilities, to our fellow citizens and our Creator.

So rather than making us agnostic on questions of good and evil, the right to life and liberty defines citizenship in moral terms and citizens as moral beings, capable of discerning and pursuing the good.  Which is why George Washington said in his farewell address (1796), “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality, are indispensable supports.”

250 years later, we are the recipients of this great moral and spiritual inheritance. To be an American citizen, then, is to be entrusted with the freedom of conscience – that inner witness of the Divine Law – and to bear its accompanying responsibility with unwavering courage and conviction.