That quote is not from an anarchist or a totalitarian leader. It is, perhaps
surprisingly, from John Adams, the second President of the United States, and a
signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Similar quotes can be found in the writings of other Founding Fathers of our
nation, because although they had the opportunity to do so, they did not
establish a democracy. What they established for America, instead, is a
republic. And great is the difference between the two.
In a democracy, policies are made by a direct majority vote of the people.
What the majority says, goes, and that is final and absolute. So, for example,
if the majority were to say that murder is OK, it would be OK. There would not
be a mechanism, in a pure democracy, to keep it from being OK, except that the
majority changed its mind.
A republic, however, is based not on the rule of the majority, but on the
rule of law. Representatives are elected, and they pass laws. They are
accountable to the people, and in this sense majorities matter. But they are
also accountable to a higher law, and there is the key difference. There are
certain laws that the majority can never change. These laws flow from the
fundamental rights of the human person and from God Himself.
The Founding Fathers recognized this and expected all future generations of
Americans to recognize it as well. Alexander Hamilton, a signer of the
Constitution, wrote, "[T]he law…dictated by God Himself is, of course,
superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all
countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to
this" (The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Vol. I, p. 87).
James Wilson, another signer of the Constitution and a US Supreme Court
Justice, wrote, "All [laws], however, may be arranged in two different
classes, 1) Divine. 2) Human…Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon
the authority of that law which is Divine" (The Works of the Honourable James
Wilson, Vol. I, pp. 103-105).
The Founders of our nation believed in Biblical law, and that was the
standard for law and government in our country until the turn of this century.
Now, instead, legal positivism has become the standard. It says that
there are no unchanging, superior laws. Rather, man-made law is the final law
and can always change according to circumstances. That's the poisoned soil out
of which Roe vs. Wade and other abortion decisions have grown.
It's time for a change. We need to re-discover our own history and impart it
to our youth. The primary legal document of our nation, the Declaration of
Independence, recognizes in its first sentence that "the laws of nature
and of nature's God" are primary. We are not a democracy; we are a republic.
