Secessionist or Federalist--which reclaims the Providential wisdom of America's founding?

By Alan Keyes

Among those still enthralled by the GOP, I guess that a majority would say they still respect America's Revolutionary founders. And among those who do, some would even profess to adhere to the principles of the Revolution the founders made. Of course, that Revolution was not completed when the representatives of the people in their respective states moved to declare their independence on July 2, 1776. Nor was it completed once they had supported the declaration made on July 4th by successful battle. But the aim they fought for was provisionally achieved once they united to ordain and establish the Constitution of a general government that respected the Revolution's principles.

I frequently consult the famous articles on the Constitution produced by some of the American revolutionaries as part of the effort to persuade the people of the respective states to ratify the Constitution. In its compiled and edited form, their commentary has come to be known as "The Federalist." In Federalist 10, Madison wrote: "In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists."

Obama's re-election, and his immediate moves to purge and chasten the leadership of America's armed forces, make it clear that the elitist faction is implacably determined completely to overturn (by force if necessary) the republican form of government established by America's founders. There are signs that many people loyal to that form of government, and determined to restore and preserve the liberty it exists to secure, are firmly resolved to resist its overthrow.

Not coincidentally, in recent days some attention has been focused on what is supposedly one manifestation of this resolve — an apparently coordinated effort in which people, supposedly upset about Obama's re-election, are asked to sign petitions demanding that he approve their state's immediate secession from the Union.

I caution people against being caught up in this sudden effort to dissolve the Union (especially since it acts on the specious notion that the Executive Branch of the U.S. government is in some way unilaterally empowered to permit or forbid secession). Why do I say that this supposed "secession movement" is no coincidence? Because it is actually consistent with the elitist faction's ongoing manipulation of the U.S. political process in ways aimed at destroying America's key sources of strength. I wrote about this back in April of 2009, in one of the earliest postings on my blog ("Real Change — Rejecting the Politics of Submission"):

At the moment, this imaginary political process appears to serve the goal of establishing a system of global governance that will ultimately eliminate the need for the charade of representative institutions (or at least make it entirely optional). From the oligarchic point of view, the advantage of such a global system lies in the concentration of sufficient power in the hands of a global elite to deter, co-opt, or suppress opposition. This requires that a background network of globally-minded elites becomes, in effect, the last remaining superpower, with no lesser power capable of standing alone against it. The American union has the wherewithal to be a lasting superpower, but on a national basis incompatible with the globalist principle of the New World Order. Therefore, the continued existence of the United States is an obstacle which must be removed by reducing the power and destroying the unity of the nation.

The revolutionary advocates of the U.S. Constitution identified "the extent and proper structure of the Union" as the key to assuring that the American experience with republican self-government would not be as untenable and short-lived as all those that had come before it. Unless they simply reject, or are ignorant of, the Framers' prudential judgment, it's impossible to understand why Americans who claim that they want to preserve republican liberty would be drawn into a movement aimed at destroying the Union.

In the famous words of his most famous peroration, Daniel Webster spoke from the heart of American statesmanship when he exclaimed "Liberty and Union; now and forever; one and inseparable!" In a profound sense, Lincoln's appreciation for the interdependence of these elements of America's identity was the bedrock foundation for his conduct of the nation's affairs during the Civil War. Together with Christian faith and faithful reason, liberty and union are, as it were, the four points at the base of the pyramid depicted in the Great Seal of the United States. That pyramid rises toward the all-seeing Eye, wherewith God makes certain of His providence for America's cause.

Now, and for some years to come, America's providential mission as a bastion of hope for the survival of God-endowed human liberty faces the greatest challenge in its history. If it is to survive, we will have to remember and properly apply the singular but multifaceted wisdom that was, without doubt, the most important gift God bestowed upon the nation's birth. For Madison and others like him who championed the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the term "federalist" epitomized the application of that wisdom to America's government and politics. These days do we have any idea what that term meant to them; or what it should mean to us? Perhaps it is time for us to reclaim what Madison said he and his compatriots felt on account of their "pleasure and pride...in being republicans...." Do we mean truly to pursue the effort to restore and preserve America's liberty? If so, then perhaps it is time for us to recapture the founders' revolutionary "zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists."

© Alan Keyes