Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
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that's designed to bring
you news, views, information
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and analysis on
religious liberty events
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in the United States
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And today on this program,
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I want to look
at the Constitution.
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Now my tongue
betrays me, I'm sure.
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I grew up in
Australia, or at least,
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grew to
teenagership in Australia.
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I left when I was 16.
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And then I went back briefly
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to live as an adult.
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But I've lived overwhelmingly
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most of my time
in the United States.
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But I think by
coming from somewhere else,
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I look at it in a way
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that maybe many Americans don't.
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I know, when I go
back to Australia,
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now I look at it at a distance
in a different viewpoint.
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And I always look
closely at the US Constitution.
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And I've been amazed
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at how little of this wonderful,
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generally wonderful
secular document Americans know.
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Invariably, when
people quote The Constitution,
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they really are thinking
of, and sometimes even verbally
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repeating the
Declaration of Independence,
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which is a wonderful
document primarily composed
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by Thomas
Jefferson, and of course,
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authorized by the, I guess,
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the Continental Congress.
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But it's not a legal document
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in the way that
the Constitution is.
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But very few people seem
to know the Constitution.
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As we do every four years,
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the US has been roiled
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by an election of a president.
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And again, during this period,
there seems gross ignorance
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about how the
Constitution works.
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Even sometimes, I
think, perhaps knowingly,
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but even sometimes inaccurate
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or incomplete statements
made by lawyers at the time.
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Again, in that vein,
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I believe that in the year 2000,
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it was unconstitutionally
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determined
through the Supreme Court
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who won the Florida issue
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and thereby
determined the presidency
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because the
Constitution does not allow
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for a presidential
election settled that way.
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I'd like to share
something in advance
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of what it says
about religious liberty
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that might
clarify things for people.
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It talks about the presidency.
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And it says, "He will
be elected as follows."
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Now most people think,
well, we all go to vote.
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It's a general
purpose and so on,
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doesn't say anything about that.
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It says, "Each
state shall appoint,
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in such manner
as the legislature
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may direct a
number of electors."
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Well, the states have decided,
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and I think it
was accepted early on
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that they would do that
by a vote within the state,
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but it doesn't say
so in the Constitution.
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It says equal, a
number of electors
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equal to the
whole number of senators
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and representatives,
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to which the state may
be entitled in Congress.
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And it says, "The
electors shall meet
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in their respective states
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and vote by
ballot for two persons
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of whom one at least
shall not be inhabitant
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of the same
state with themselves.
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And they shall make a list
of all the persons voted for
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and the votes taken,
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and which lists they shall sign
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and certify and transmit sealed
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to the seat of the
government of the United States
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directed to the
President of the Senate."
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And he now, without reading it,
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"He's to open those,
and then by telling them,
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they will determine
who is the president."
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It says, "The person having
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the greatest number of
votes shall be the president.
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If such number be a
majority of the whole number
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of electors appointed,
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and if they'd be more than
one who have such majority,
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then the House
of Representatives
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shall
immediately choose by ballot
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one of them for president."
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The House of Representatives
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can decide if it's a confused
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electoral vote.
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We've ignored that
and misunderstood it.
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It's a reasonable system,
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and it's
consistent with the way the US
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was established not
as a pure democracy,
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people misunderstand.
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A democracy can easily lead
to a tyranny of the majority.
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And on religious matters
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that's central to
our understanding.
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There has never been a
question in the early America,
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as in the, you know,
the Puritan settlements,
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if it were up to the majority,
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they would have confirmed
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a particular
view of Christianity,
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their doctrinal view,
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as supported by law
and harassed others.
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But it's a
representative government,
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and it's designed particularly
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to protect the
minority from the majority.
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In an earlier program, I
held up, as I will again,
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an early edition
of Liberty Magazine.
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Might be a little
clearer on this camera.
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This is a 1914 edition,
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when they were looking
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at a world collapsing around,
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there is,
everything under question.
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And to me, it's
very significant that
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they had an article there
on the American Constitution.
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And I won't read
the whole article,
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but I wanna share a bit of it
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and the view that was held then,
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and I think should be
pretty much consistent
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with the way we see it today.
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It says, "The First
Amendment of the Constitution."
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And remember
what amendments are.
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They are add-ons
the Constitution,
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the body of it
was the initial thing
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that was passed around
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to those 13
colonies, then states.
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And as a
condition of ratifying it,
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it was pretty soon decided
they wanted certain amendments.
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And the Bill of
Rights is that series
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of the first block of amendments
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that determines
the rights you have,
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but the
Constitution is very plain.
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The government
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only has the rights given to it,
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not all rights.
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They have to be enumerated
or it doesn't have authority.
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We've forgotten
that one big time
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in recent years.
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But it says,
"The First Amendment
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of the Constitution
which provides that,
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'Congress shall
make no law respecting
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an establishment of religion,
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or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof'.'"
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Hands off on religion.
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Very interesting
amendment at a time
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when the vast
majority of the citizenry,
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when I say vast, they
weren't that many people,
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a few millions.
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The vast majority of them
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were pretty much officially
Bible believing Protestants.
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They weren't even that
many Catholics at that time.
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This was a Protestant society.
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And yet they decided, I believe,
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I have a great burden
on this using the model
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of the English Civil War,
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where they saw the
Puritan majority emerging
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from the Civil
War and their generals
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and their agenda coming to power
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under Oliver Cromwell.
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Cromwell was not a desperate
in the traditional sense,
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but he was an autocrat.
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And he used the power
of this Puritan majority
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to somewhat force religion
on an unwilling populace.
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And after a very few years,
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they'd had enough
of this Britishness
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where they couldn't have dances
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and simple entertainments
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and plays and all the
rest, you know, things that
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the
conservatives still frown on,
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somewhat legitimately.
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But, you know, religion
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was mandating
every element of life
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and they rejected it.
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And I think as the United States
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was forming Christian believers
who were highly moralistic,
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even a few of them
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in the constitutional Congress
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tried to force religious views
in but wasn't going to carry
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and they decided that
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they wanted religion
to be a personal matter,
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not mandated by
this federal government.
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State government,
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maybe you could
argue a little differently.
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And it says, "This
Amendment has been called
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the Magna Carta,
of religious freedom
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in the United States."
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Magna Carta, again,
maybe since many of our viewers
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are in the United States,
not so up on English history.
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The Magna Carta, you know,
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back was it 1300 or
so was back in England,
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when King John,
a despotic ruler,
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following on from
Richard the Lionheart,
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so offended not
the common people
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who had very little rights
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and views not
educated or empowered,
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but the gentry,
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the aristocracy was
so offended by the king,
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that they came together
with their arms showing,
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it was basically
an armed insurrection,
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and under duress,
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they forced the
king under duress
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to sign the Magna Carta
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which gave certain rights
and freedoms to individuals.
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For example, freedom
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against arbitrary arrest
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and imprisonment
without charge and trial.
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And the Constitution
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of the United
States accepted that
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and the idea that
you have a speedy trial.
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Most of the elements of
the Constitution enshrine
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came from the Magna Carta.
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And so the First
Amendment's been called
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the Magna Carta
of religious freedom,
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the bedrock legal basis.
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It says, "It
separates at a stroke the church
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and the state and deprives
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the church of the
use of secular power
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for the
furtherance of her ends."
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Author George
Bancroft says and I quote him,
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"Vindicating the
right of individuality
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even in religion and
in religion above all,
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the new nation
dared to set the example
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of accepting in
its relations to God,
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the principle first
divinely ordained in Judea,
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it left the management
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of temporal things
to the temporal power.
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But the American
Constitution in harmony
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with the people of
the several States,
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withheld from the
federal government,
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the power to
invade the home of reason,
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the citadel of conscience,
the sanctuary of the soul,
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and not from indifference,
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but that the infinite
spirit of eternal truth
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might move in its
freedom and purity and power."
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That's from a book in 1882,
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"History of the
Formation of the Constitution
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of the United States."
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They're not that far removed
from when they settled it.
00:11:20.58\00:11:22.91
So he understood, it
says, "By this provision,
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the Federal Constitution,
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the lawmaking power of
our nation is prohibited
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from enacting any
law, touching religion.
00:11:30.72\00:11:36.12
Deciding
religious controversies,
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and enforcing religious dogmas
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are not within the proper sphere
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of the federal government.
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For this reason,
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we are unalterably
opposed to all legislation
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by our national legislature
upon the Sabbath question."
00:11:51.97\00:11:55.91
Now I've got to pause here
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because I'm
sharing this for a reason.
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Seventh-day Adventist
keep the seventh day Sabbath.
00:11:59.71\00:12:05.29
We think, a clear
reading of the Old
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and the New Testaments.
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The Saturday is the seventh day.
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That's the seventh
day that God's people
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in the Old Testament
and then by continuum
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in the new we're
enjoined to keep.
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Over the years
before the Reformation,
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and even after
it Catholics first
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and then even Protestants
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were tempted on occasion
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to use civil power to
enforce public worship.
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And unfortunately,
after Judaism was put down
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and replaced by
a consciously Roman
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form of Christianity,
they rejected the seventh day
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in favor of the sixth day,
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which had overtones,
not just of paganism,
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but overtones of
Roman civil power
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as a way to differentiate.
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And so, Seventh-day Adventists,
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in particular,
see these continued
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historical
attempts to compel people
00:13:06.68\00:13:10.19
to worship a Sabbath,
00:13:10.22\00:13:12.59
they see on this wrong
dynamic and a wrong day.
00:13:12.62\00:13:17.96
And we've forgotten
that in our recent history.
00:13:17.99\00:13:21.00
But the United
States has dabbled
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with Sunday legislation,
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variously over most of
the course of its history.
00:13:27.34\00:13:30.54
Let's take a short
break now and we'll come back
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and I'll read a few more clips
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from this article explaining
00:13:35.34\00:13:37.15
why Seventh-day Adventists
think Sunday legislation
00:13:37.18\00:13:39.95
is inappropriate to a
constitutionally mandated
00:13:39.98\00:13:44.02
United States government.
00:13:44.05\00:13:45.49