INSIDE: It becomes easy to see that “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends”, is describing a time when the government has become hostile – or destructive – to our God-given rights, instead of securing them.  

Did you ever run across someone who had such a great T-shirt, that you wanted to stop them and ask where they got it, and where they go to church, and whether your families could get together for the 4th of July?  That happened to me one day when I saw someone with a shirt that said, “My firearm isn’t a threat unless you are”.  What a great shirt!  Maybe Patriot’s Hope needs to make that shirt and put it in our Patriot Shoppe! 

Dangerous language

A few years ago, during the Biden Administration, as I’m sure we all remember, the principles upon which America was founded were not exactly being celebrated.  During that time, we went to the Declaration of Independence page on the National Archives website and – I’m not kidding – I wish we would have taken a screen shot – there was a warning for the violent language contained in the document! 

As we have been going through the Declaration of Independence this year, the 250th anniversary of that great document and the birth of our nation, we now come to the part that I assume was where Biden’s team wanted a warning label…  It says:

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.      

The Declaration of Independence, 1776

What Ends?

To understand this line, we first have to ask what “ends” the document is referring to.  Whatever it is, the danger we’re talking about is the government itself becoming destructive of these ends…  To find out, we need only look back at the previous couple lines of the Declaration, which we have conveniently covered in our previous couple articles here on Patriot’s Hope.  In our article, You Need a Charter, we saw the purpose of government – the “end” of good government, if you will, is to secure rights given to us by God Himself.  In the next article, Consent of the…, we learned that the just power of government comes only from the consent of the governed.  So, the legitimate use of government, according to the Declaration of Independence, is to use power, justly granted by the consent of the people, in order to secure the unalienable, God-given rights the people possess. 

When we consider this context, it becomes easy to see that “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends”, is describing a time when the government has become hostile – or destructive – to our God-given rights, instead of securing them.  It is like the guard dog we discussed in our article, Does Free Speech Still Exist in America?, where the guard dog that was supposed to secure the inventory, was instead eating it! 

Created to secure rights

A government created for the purpose of securing rights, which derives its just power from the consent of the governed… if that government instead becomes DESTRUCTIVE of these ends…  If that government we created and granted power to secure our rights instead ATTACKS OUR RIGHTS, then they have fundamentally rebelled against the purpose for which they were created, and have also rebelled against those who empowered it to accomplish that purpose. 

So you see, the Declaration of Independence, like the firearm mentioned on that amazing T-shirt, is only a threat if you are a tyrannical government which has seized power it was never intended to have, and is using it to attack the unalienable, God-given rights of the people that you are supposed to secure. 

Constitution Day- celebrating a new government

So, when all this happens, and a government rebels against its charter and does all these bad things, the people are within their rights to alter or abolish that government and institute new government.  Notice they do not abolish the government and live in anarchy – they institute new government.  This is an important distinction to make – especially as we celebrate Constitution Day on 17 September!  This is the day we celebrate the Constitution our founders hashed out which defines the form of government we currently have.  The Constitutional Convention was completed, and the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification on September 17, 1787, which is 239 years ago today!   So, in all of our focus this year on the Declaration of Independence, let us not forget our remarkable Constitution in which our founders laid the “foundation on such principles” and organized “its powers in such form” as seemed to them “most likely to effect their safety and happiness”.

The Declaration- paving the way for the Constitution

In this year – the 250th birthday of our nation and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, may we continue to look to this remarkable document and continue to better learn the foundational principles upon which we were built.  May we understand that governments are instituted to secure the unalienable, God-given, rights of the people.  If, instead of securing rights, the government becomes destructive of these rights, then the people have the right to make big changes!  That is exactly what our founders did when their form of government became destructive of their rights and they formed a new nation.  They went on to define principles and powers that would most likely effect their safety and happiness.  They did this in the Constitution of the United States on September 17, 1787.  Let us also remember that great document and the men who had the courage to define the American form of government.  Happy Constitution Day to you! 

Oh, and maybe don’t stop people and ask them all those questions at once when you see their awesome T-shirt…  It can get a little weird…  😊