A somewhat different example appears to have been set by the venality and corruption of Bill Clinton in the last days of his presidency — as is now coming to light in the revelations of a tangled web of presidential pardons, political contributions and personal connections.
I am often asked these days what the future holds for Alan Keyes, a question usually connected to my recent adventures in the arena of elective politics. I welcome the question, because it gives me a chance to let people know about a project that is much nearer to my heart than the pursuit of political office. My own ambition in public life is simple — to help renew the foundations of American liberty. And I have founded the Declaration Foundation, a non-profit educational organization, because I believe that the most important work toward the renewal of moral identity — which is vital to the future of this republic — will occur outside of competitive politics. The challenge the Declaration poses to us is something that is greater than politics. The Declaration Foundation is a non-partisan attempt to aid the restoration of the common ground on which we stand together, whatever our backgrounds as Americans.
It is easy to deny that we have such common ground. Or, perhaps worse, the usual discussion of major issues today would suggest that the only thing we have in common is base passions and greed. The nation was founded on the claim of a nobler basis of our unity, a claim enshrined in the Declaration but nearly forgotten today. If we don't soon remember and renew that claim then we shall continue down the road of a debased and dejected freedom that will in the end become such a burden to us, such a violation of our dignity, that we shall gladly give it up. Nothing is so opportune for tyrants as a people tired of its liberty. The 20th century showed clearly that the most “civilized” people, looking upon the consequences of their abuse of freedom, can be quite ready to deliver themselves into the arms of tyrants who promise to clean things up.
To avoid the curses of disordered liberty, we will have to recapture the understanding of our freedom which leads it to produce decency and order, and to produce as well a nation in which we can take pride. The great turning points of American life — the Revolution, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement — have been those moments when, as a people, we faced a crossroads. Down one road, we could see the future implied by our Declaration and, down the other, the future implied by our abandonment of it. In such moments, so far, we have always eventually chosen to take the Declaration road. The Declaration Foundation is dedicated to helping us prepare to do so again.
The country will be prepared to take such action when the people again make the logic of the Declaration the basis for their decisions about the important issues of our life as Americans. But how can we expect people to respect in their hearts principles they don't even know about anymore? How can we ask them to accept in their choices, and be governed in their actions, by a logic that they cannot even reason through? Something has to be done to restore our sense of the relevance of this great founding document and the principles it enshrines.
The crucial Declaration truth we must help each other remember is that the Declaration is not just a creed of liberty, or even of equality. The famous opening lines of the Declaration are also, in their very formulation, a creed of authority and responsibility, laying out the discipline which we, as a people must accept at every level if we are to be free. Human rights, and human equality, come from the Creator rather than from human will. This means that the entire structure of civilized life based on respect for human equality and unalienable rights has a deeper premise — respect for the existence and authority of God, and our duty to respect His will. Freedom is not an unlimited license; it is not an unlimited choice. Freedom is in fact, in the first instance, a responsibility before the God from whom we come.
This may sound like a religious doctrine, rather than a creed to govern public life. But the Founders intended the Declaration to be a bridge between the Bible and the Constitution, between the basis of our moral faith and the basis of our political life. If we allow the bridge to be torn down, then what we will have is a chasm between this nation's life and its moral foundations. And into that chasm will fall every hope we have for the future. I consider the Declaration Foundation a kind of “infrastructure restoration,” working to rebuild the bridge and prevent disaster.
The task requires not bricks and mortar, but that we take up once again the task of understanding what these principles mean, and of challenging our minds to make use of them in dealing with the practical issues that we face every day.
The Declaration is not, as some suggest, a fine sounding collection of abstractions, remote from the realities of life. Rightly understood, it provides us with a disciplined way of reasoning toward agreement on issues we are told cannot be reasoned about. It is possible to come to rational conclusions about good and bad, right and wrong, liberty and tyranny, so long as we remember the principles which must guide us in our thinking.
For example, the logic of the Declaration teaches that if we claim the authority to decide whether the child in the womb is a human or not we are denying the authority which is the basis for all our rights. Similarly, the responsible understanding of freedom that is implied in the Declaration requires rejection of the homosexual marriage agenda. The foundation of the family is actually an understanding that, in that relationship, there is a necessary responsibility and obligation which transcends self-gratification by establishing permanent obligations to the child that may be born of it.
To those who reject such principles, we simply say that they should not complain when their own rights are violated — because in rejecting the Declaration they have rejected the basis of their own claims to rights.
The Declaration Foundation will attempt to restore a better understanding of the historical context which produced our great founding document, and help people begin to apply the principles of that document to specific issues, particularly those which require moral judgment and reasoning. One of our major objectives will be to develop a curriculum that once again focuses on the history of America precisely as the history of our efforts to realize the promise of the Declaration. In education, in law, and in public policy, we want to begin to inspire people once again to have the boldness of their Declaration convictions.
Our first major step in this effort is the publication of an extraordinary book, America's Declaration Principles in Thought and Action, by the president of the Declaration Foundation, Richard Ferrier, Ph.D., and his colleague Dr. Andrew Seeley, Ph.D. I invite you to visit the Foundation’s web site to preview my introduction to the volume, as well as its first chapter, “The Declaration of America.” The book is available for purchase and download on the site, or by mail. We intend it to be read, distributed, and discussed by anyone who wants to remember what it means to be an American. We believe it is a model of the kind of carefully reasoned consideration of the real meaning of the Founding that can recall our fellow citizens to their citizen vocation. The book is particularly crafted, as I mention in the introduction, “to help the young citizens of America to understand how the principles of the American founding are crucial to the pursuit of happiness which is their birthright.”
Like anything really worth doing, renewing the resolve of the American people to be a people of the Declaration will be the work of a long time, much love, and much patience. I am committed to devoting my life to it and invite all those who have expressed interest in my various public activities to join me in this one. It is a work of charity that we can begin now — that does not require waiting for an election cycle or raising millions of dollars. It is a work we can carry on in our homes, our schools, and our churches. And it will bear great fruit in the people around us, if we are faithful to it.
We have, as has every generation of Americans, the privilege of looking, like Moses, into the promised land. But given the nature of that promise, we shall never live to get there. For this is a promise that is always being kept, and never quite fulfilled: a promise that each generation must renew, and respect, and rebuild. I hope the Declaration Foundation will be a way for us to pledge ourselves to that renewal and engage in that rebuilding. If we devote ourselves to the task, I believe we can pass on to our children intact that heritage of freedom which is our real responsibility and their true legacy.
(To visit Dr. Keyes' Declaration Foundation click here.)
