The Miracle that Changed the World

The 5000 Year Leap

In 1905 the United States had become the richest industrial nation in the world. With only 5% of the earth’s continental land area and merely 6% of the world’s population, the American people were producing half of almost everything, clothes, food, houses, transportation, communications, even luxuries.

At the same time the Federal Government spending in 1905 was 7% of GDP. This was less than 200 years after we became a nation. How did this miracle happen and how was it destroyed in only 106 years. In only 106 years we have gone from the richest nation in the world to a debtor nation and we have gone from a 7%; Federal Government to a 100% Federal Government.

To understand the miracle of the creation of the American nation, you must go back to Jamestown, 180 years before the Constitutional Convention. These were the poorest of the poor who came out of Europe to find a better life in the wilderness of the new world. They came with nothing and had to work hard just to survive in this wilderness. They were farmers, hunters and fisherman. They learned to build houses and worked together to help each other. They had almost no interference in the first 100 years from Europe so they formed their own social rules and justice. The strangest thing about these people was that they decided that everyone should be educated. This was something they could not get in Europe because only the rich were educated in Europe. They formed a grammar school in every town of 50 families, a secondary school in every town of 100 families or more.

Compare that to Europe. John Adams noted that in France in his day of 24 million people only 500 thousand could read or write, but in America 100% of these farmers could read and write and more.

A visitor from England noted that American farmers spoke better English than they did in England. This is because they taught English from the King James Bible. They resolved that to have a just and free society, they needed to teach morals and virtues in their public schools. To not offend any one faith, they taught only those morals and truths which were common to all true faiths.

Benjamin Franklin believed that all true religions had these things in common: God created all the universe and maintains it, He deserves to be worshipped, He wants us to do good to each other, the soul of a man is immortal, and will be judged with justice after death. “These I take to be the fundamental points of all sound religions.” There was a separation of church and state but not a separation of state and church.

By 1215 AD England had given the people some individual rights as in the Magna Charta and later the Model Parliament, the Petition of rights and the English Bill of Rights. Once American Colonies started being prosperous the English started exercising their sovereign authority, but they did not extend to America the same rights they had in England. This started what became the war of independence.

I will bypass that for now because the important thing is how and why did they write a completely different form of government than ever before in history. The first in many points!

The Fundamental Points of a Sound Government

Understand that these 13 independent “countries” were the most educated people in the world. Harvard was filled with students and many extremely well educated Europeans had come to the Promised Land. They were the most well educated in the 5000 year history of governments which were all formed by force of arms and from the top down. Equality did not exist anywhere in the world.

Adam Smith has published “The Wealth of Nations”. They had read Polybius the Greek of 122 BC who had proposed a mixed government with written law. The studied Cicero of 43 AD the Greek killed by the Romans for teaching that the Natural Law of God could not be violated by government. He called this Right Reason. He claimed justice was not possible except with Right Reason, the Natural Law of God.

Maybe the most influential Newsletters written before the Constitutional Convention was Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”, a logical examination of all forms of government or non government.

Before actually writing the constitution our founders discussed the fundamental principles they wanted in the government. In the book The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen outlines the 28 basic principles and quotes all the fathers to prove these. The following are those principles that formed the government.

Basic Principles of Sound Government

1. The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law

2. Free People cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.

3. The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders.

4. Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.

5. All things were created by God, therefore upon Him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible.

6. All men are created equal.

7. The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.

8. Men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.

9. To protect man’s rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.

10. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.

11. The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.

12. The United States of America shall be a republic.

13. A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.

14. Life and liberty are secure only so long as the rights to property are secure.

15. The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free market economy and a minimum of Government regulations.

16. The government should be separated into three branches, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.

17. A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power.

18. The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution.

19. Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to government, all others being retained in the people.

20. Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.

21. Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.

22, A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.

23. A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.

24. A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.

25. Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, and entangling alliances with none.

26. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family, therefore the government should foster and protect its integrity.

27. The burden of debt is a destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.

28. The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.

All the above basic principles were agreed to before actually writing the constitution and quotes of the fathers of the nation prove these points. These quotes are in the book referenced above.

What Happened to this Great Nation???????

After 1905 when we were the most prosperous nation in the history of the world, we entered into World War I, which we had no justified reason for. This made the first of the great expansion of the Federal Government. Then came the great depression caused by the people who wanted to celebrate the end of the war by spending what they did not have. From that point on the Federal Government became involved in what they had no right to be involved in if you read the constitution. The number one cause of our problems today can be best said by our founding fathers:

“Where emergency help is provided, do not prolong it to the point where it becomes habitual. Strictly enforce the scale of ‘fixed responsibility’. The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself, the second level is the family, then the church, next the community, finally the county, and in a disaster or emergency the state. Under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare.”

The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare.

It is the people who are living off the tax-payers money in Europe who are destroying Europe and the same is true of America. If, in fact, we need these programs, they belong to the cities or states.

If we simply went back to constitutional government we can save this nation. However, I do not believe we can survive to the next election because we are headed to debt wall.

John Adams:

“If the people abandon the freedom gained by the adoption of the Constitution, it would be treason against the hopes of the world.”

Buy the book, A Miracle that Changed the World

Richard Salbato

www.unitypublishing.com