America founded on economic abundance under God's law
Dr. Alice Baldwin reported in 1928 that the direct tie to Scripture of the American founding and its incorporating compacts eluded historians. Dr. Baldwin revealed, “The significance of the belief in the binding character of law upon God and man seems to have escaped many who write of the Revolutionary philosophy. It is fundamental to any understanding of American constitutional thought. God’s government is founded on and limited by law and therefore all human governments must be so founded and limited, if patterned after His.”
Pope Leo XIII, in 1891, venerated this point writing that “laws only bind when they are in accordance with right reason, and, hence, with the eternal law of God.” Here Leo is referencing Thomas Aquinas where he divulges, “Human law has the character of law to the extent that it is in accord with right reason and, so understood, it clearly flows from the eternal law.” Saint Aquinas continued, “However, to the extent that human law departs from reason, it is called ’unjust law’ (lex iniqua) and has the character not of law but of a certain sort of violence.”
“Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.” This freedom was the understanding of our Forefathers and Founding Fathers. These laws built the colonies; and, in turn, were the foundation which the American Union was constructed upon. Not the freedom to do as one pleased, but rather freedom to live in abundance under God’s Law; as Yahweh declares in Leviticus 26: 3-13, “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you…” This calling is what is inscribed on the Liberty Bell. Not liberty given man by man, but liberty bestowed upon man by God when we are obedient to His Laws and rejoicing in His Kingship by sounding the shofar (ram’s horn). Rejoice to God “and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.”
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John Adams refers to Founding Father James Otis when he affirmed, “Should an act of [the legislature] be against any of his [God’s] natural laws, which are immutably true,” declares the “flame of fire!” To which Revolutionary and Founder James Otis avowed, “Their declaration would be contrary to eternal truth, equity and justice, and consequently void.”
Foreshadowing the Declaration underpinning with God’s Law was predicated in the Massachusetts Resolves of 1765 under the eyes of the two firebrands of the American Revolution, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. On October 29, 1765 the Resolution on the Stamp Act coming out of the Massachusetts Assembly declared that “certain essential rights of the British constitution of government, which are founded in the law of God and nature, and are the common rights of mankind…
"That the inhabitants of this province are unalienable entitled to those essential rights in common with all men: and that no law of society can, consistent with the law of God and nature, divest them of those rights. […] That no man can justly take the property of another without his consent; […] That this inherent right, together with all other essential rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities […] have been fully confirmed to them by Magna Charta."
Jim Huntzinger is the President and Founder of Lean Frontiers, Inc., which develops knowledge and learning communities on the Lean Enterprise for business and industry. With a background and experience in manufacturing and operations, he has also extensively researched the history and development of American manufacturing and also published several books on the lean business model, manufacturing history, and economics.
