From Covenant To The Present Constitution

By Tom Niewulis

The Foundational words of the Constitution have not changed but the present implementation is NOT what the Founders Intended. We tell the elected and the bureaucrats to ‘Stand on the Constitution’! Well, they are doing exactly that! In fact - you telling them to do so gives them permission to fully act according to every aspect of what is presently allowed under the Constitution ‘As It Is’.

This ‘Workbook’ is the culmination of ten years of presenting the lecture that discusses ‘Two Constitutions’ that really begins with the understanding of ‘Covenant’.

Our Founders and Framers of our form of governance understood history back into the ancients such that the relationship of the governing to the governed is established with covenant fully understood. No different then the Kings of England breaking Covenantal Charters with the Colonies; how is it that those elected to office, in the courts and in the bureaucracies have broken Covenantal Constitutionalism with the Citizens and State in the Republic of these United States?

This highly documented ‘Workbook’ takes you through the questions and answers as to why the elected and appointed so freely act contrary to what many believe is the American DNA of Constitutionalism. This is the detailed referenced compliment to the presentation lecture that moves at a fast pace through Founder’s Original Intent, the corruption of that intent, the present confusion of the document called ‘The Constitution’ and how it is actually being used to govern the nation.

Lastly are recommendations as to what we as individuals and as the body politic can and should do to return to that which our Founders and Framers envisioned for a Free and Prosperous people in this Republic of these United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Niewulis
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642554205

Tom Niewulis

Tom Niewulis is first and foremost a simple citizen circa 1804. He is also the President and CEO of NCDCS, Inc. Tom has over 25 years in business and organizational analysis, strategic planning, financial and organizational management. Tom has delivered business studies, technical studies and made presentations at industry conferences in the United States and Europe. He has been a member of the technical advisory boards for emerging companies as well as the Fortune 500. He is published internationally. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and The World Intellectual Property Organization. Tom has been active in the political arena after serving in the military. While in the military he studied communism, surreptitious and indigenous actions and intervention. He has studied the founding of America since the mid 70’s with an emphasis on its cultural challenges as well as why and how the Constitution was developed. He has studied independently the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, Joseph Stories Commentaries, Blackstone, Locke, De Tocqueville, Madison’s Notes and the various states Ratifying Conventions; as well as original source writings of Samuel Adams and Sam’s contemporaries. In conjunction, these studies include the Reformation with an emphasis on the Scottish Reformation, Lex Rex, the Puritans and Covenant, the First Great Awakening and the Sermons the Founders heard preached. Tom was the Chair of Constitutional Economics at the Thomas Jefferson Center for Constitutional Studies founded by Cleon Skousen and Glenn Kimber. He was in leadership and on the board of directors for We The People Washington. He is a political blogger and writer. He has also spoken on Agenda 21. He is the Author of “Not ALL Conservatives Are Constitutionalists” with other books in the works: “Liberty to Economy” and “Rethinking Property Rights Today.” Tom encourages the re-education of the citizenry through seminars on the Constitution and other presentations. He is a Constitutional thinker from the Anti-Federalist perspective desiring to return to the Founders / Framers Constitutional Original Intent. Tom has additionally studied the life of Samuel Adams to the extent that he appears in character as this alter ego. Tom's educational background is in physics, behavioral science and Masters work in organization development and design as well as telecommunication management.

Book preview

Introduction

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I really get the presentation started by doing what good presenters are supposed to do: Tell the audience what you are going to be telling them.

So here are the bullets from this slide to give you the general sense of what all is contained in this book in support of the presentation.

Presentation Slide # 3

What’s This About?

— What do you mean Two Constitutions?

— Covenant to the Present Constitution.

— Quick overview of the Framing.

— What Happened - The Anti-Federalist Got it Right!

— How Do We Return to Liberty - the Founders Intent?

— Action Items.

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The last decade and a half has seen a mounting resurgence of interest in learning the Constitution of the United States. Let me say - Skeptically noting - I have observed that over the last eight years in particular, more people are at least taking the time to read the Constitution. Even the 112th Congress read the Constitution on the House floor for the first time ever, although it had a couple of glitches like:

During the reading of the Constitution, because of an inadvertent double page turn, Section 4 of Article IV was skipped, as was a part of Article V. (It was entered into the record later.) The proceeding was interrupted by a protester questioning President Obama’s place of birth. And an argument began on the floor over the version of the Constitution being read, before a word of the preamble was uttered… In consultation with the Congressional Research Service and others, the leaders of the House had decided to read a version of the Constitution that was edited to exclude those portions superseded by amendments — including amendments themselves — preventing lawmakers from having to make references to slaves, referred to in Article I, Section 2 as three fifths of all other Persons or to failed experiments like Prohibition. Members were not provided with the version before the reading began. [5]

This excitement with the possibility of turning the tide of the Citizenry interest and possibly learning about our Foundational Documents and Intent is exactly what our Founders expected to be accomplished by educators and churches in order to maintain a free society. Samuel Adams noted this view in a number of letters as exemplified in this note:

To James Warren 1779: Virginia is duly sensible of the great Importance of Education, and, as a friend in that Country informs me, has lately adopted an effectual Plan for that necessary Purpose. If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great Security. Virtue & Knowledge will forever be an even Balance for Powers & Riches. I hope our Countrymen will never depart from the Principles & Maxims which have been handed down to us from our wise forefathers. [6]

Unfortunately we have departed from our wise forefathers through the educational system being perverted away from Mr. Adams idea of original intent. The educational system of John Dewey has no less than destroyed the principles and maxims of morality, property, sovereignty and self-governance, which Sam Adams lived to secure. Since before the 1930’s, globalist and promoters of socialist and Marxist ideology have ensconced their goals through UNESCO down into the heart of the local school systems. This is reaching a culmination such that in 2014 the scholastic testing boards for high school sophomores and juniors will have one sentence requirements about George Washington, nothing about the Declaration of Independence and nothing about the other Founding Fathers of the nation. [7]

The historical reality calling for the Citizenry to self-govern, requires that each person have a functional knowledge and understanding of Founders Intent as well as knowing that there has always been a covenantal relationship between person to person and then groups of people in the good order of establishing a means of governance. Covenant was clearly understood by the Founders and Framers as noted by Daniel Elazar with:

The United States is a product of the synthesis of the federal theopolitical ideas of Reformed Protestantism developed during the sixteenth century and the new political science of the natural rights philosophers developed in the seventeenth. Both of those streams emphasized covenantal thinking, the first starting from a religious perspective, the second from a secular one. Already in the seventeenth century, years before John Locke, New England Puritan minds with a political bent had set down the basic political ideas of covenant-based republicanism as the foundations of American political thought. Even more important, at least from the days of the Mayflower Compact in 1620, the British, especially English, settlers in North America were forming their communities and colonies and establishing their constitutions through covenants and covenanting. Donald Lutz discusses the political cultural implications of this in the formation of an American people built around certain aspirations for freedom and virtue in Chapter 2 of A Covenanted People: The Religious Traditions and the Origins of American Constitutionalism. Lutz discusses the covenants and covenanting that set the standard for Americans for all generations. [8]

As you follow along, this is where the story will begin as we move into the presentation slides: a look at covenant and what it meant in the foundation of the American polity and what happened to it that it is a lost concept as Americans attempt to understand Federalism and Constitutionalism.

As we think about ‘Covenant in Context’, consider Reformation writers and American foundational writings being the clarifiers by which the Colonists understood that their Charters were in fact covenants with the kings of England and that Parliament was usurping that relationship. This ultimately is what precipitated the drawing of the line that Sam Adams exhorted in his Masters Thesis titled Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved? Being known as The Father of The American Revolution, – a revolution that was in the minds of the Citizenry before any shots were fired - Adams would be a primary Founder who lived his Christian dual citizenship to the fullest meaning of the Reformation principles.

I have to clear the deck right now! In all my reading of the original text about Sam Adams as well as his own writing – He was a solid Christian of the full Reformation understanding and NOT what modern writers and movie producers have made him out to be!

He learned his theology from his mother, the pulpit and at Harvard. Sadly, most of us from the 20th Century and even more so, those in the 21st Century don’t have all those familial, cultural and educational advantages of Adams - hearing and reading the faithful stories of his ancestors on a regular basis, being inculcated in these truths of Liberty. Combined with his present life experiences of localized tyranny, Adams was able to stand on historical and Biblical principles of truth and act accordingly for Liberty even though many of his days were content to allow despotism a free hand.

Just a little interjection here: I was at a church home group in Virginia and when asked to comment on something that became a point of interest from our Foundation and present political dilemma, a lady said that I prefer to stay with the Bible only and be blissfully ignorant. Well, I can’t imagine a Puritan minded person like Sam Adams staying – blissfully ignorant – but so many in our present age especially in the evangelical circles exhibit that preference.

Now, Sam Adams would most likely clearly understand the correct and original concepts of Christian resistance as established by the Reformers. I always suggest that one studies the Magdeburg Confession [9] to get an understanding that if Protestant Christians did not resist tyranny at Magdeburg, Protestantism would have had a different outcome in history instead of what God used for Himself to resound Liberty in society.

This brings us to the point that the American Revolution happened. The Colonies established Constitutions based on the precepts of federalism. Where did they get the idea for federalism? It was not just the writings of Locke, Montesquieu, Milton and Hobbes that drew their primary source reasoning. They also were educated in and researched the Reformation writings of Althusius, Beza, Knox and Rutherford. The one individual that is primary and known as the ‘Father of Federalism’ in the context of the Founders and Framers is Althusius.

Carl Joachim Friedrich wrote in the Introductory Remarks, of Politica medhodice digesta of Johannes Althusius (Althaus) (New York: Arno Press, 1979) said:

Johannes Althusius (1557-1638) has been called the most profound political thinker between Bodin and Hobbes.

Consider that all of the thirteen colonies developed ‘constitutions’ when becoming independent states; it only makes sense that the first Constitution of the United States in America was built upon the fundamentals of federalism. Yes, the first Constitution was The Articles of Confederation. As this story of Americanism progresses into the 1787 Convention, it is interesting in the study of Madison’s notes on the Convention and then the Anti-federalist papers to find that the true principles of federalism were a sticking spot for the pro 1787 Constitution minded, where as, the true Federalist were those labeled as Anti-Federalist.

A fundamental question for the period of the debates and ratification was regarding - what is the Constitution of 1787 – a nationalized government that would subsume all power to itself or a commonwealth of independent states desiring to operate in a closer relationship under the principles of federalism?

This fundamental question is the core of From Covenant To The Present Constitution. We will explore the story of what everyone over the last 100 years has assumed the 1787 Constitution would mean for a new nation and what others prophesized it would become over time. In this story we will consider the ebbs and flows of the history as we construct the framework around the 1787 Constitution, a fashionable exquisite wood frame, gilded with the hopes of forming a more perfect union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Then, Oh yes then - I will lead you through to the Constitution of this present age with its framework marred and punched out by the fists of those who were sworn to protect and secure it. Worse, the framework is stripped of its gilding and the wood rotted by the very construction of the Constitution itself, which allowed for its corruption without the watchful eyes of a ‘moral and virtuous’ and knowledgeable Citizenry attending to the accountability of the elected.

Lastly, I will not leave you with the framework punched out from around the covenant of government by a fist of despotism and tyranny - Lying broken on the ground. I will end this workbook to the presentation with the strategies that worked for the Founders as they stood against the fists of the king and Parliament.

It is critical that you have solutions that allow you to act in your given capacity as the Citizenry that our ancestors hoped would keep Foundational Liberty alive in these United States in America.

The hope is that with both the presentation and this more detailed workbook of the research for the presentation; that you will ultimately have a greater understanding of Founders Original Intent for self-governance and Constitutionalism in the Republic of these United States in and of America.

SECTION 1. THE REST OF THE STORY

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Jumping to Presentation Slide #7, 8, 9 and 10

I have decided to shift the order here around so that instead of beginning with Covenant I would set the stage as to why this whole presentation and workbook became something I had to do. By reordering the slides here – I will eventually change up the order in the presentation. So…. You will have to follow along if you are using this at the presentation. If you are just reading this as a stand alone book then… No worries.

So as I see it particularly in these modern times, Americans have a varied perspective of what the Constitution is. The image of men in white powdered wigs signing a document is what most often comes to the minds of those who are asked about the Constitution. They see the picture but don’t really understand what just happened.

The educational system over the last eighty yeas has minimized the intent of the Founders to inculcate children about the factual development of the Constitution and self-governance. Samuel Adams notes two key points about education for the maintenance of Liberty. He wrote to John Scolly in 1780:

It was asked in the Reign of Charles the 2d of England, HOW shall we turn the Minds of the People from an Attention to their Liberties? The Answer was, by making them extravagant, luxurious, effeminate. Hutchinson advised the Abridgment of what our People called English Liberties, by the same Means. ‘We shall never subdue them,’ said Bernard, ‘but by eradicating their Manners & the Principles of their Education.’

And to Vice-President John Adams in 1790:

I am very willing to agree with you in thinking, that improvement in Knowledge, and Benevolence receive much assistance from the principles, and Systems of good Government: But is it not as true that without knowledge, and benevolence Men would neither have been capable or disposed to search for the principles, or form the System—Should we not, my friend, bear a gratefull remembrance of our pious and benevolent Ancestors, who early laid plans of Education; by which means Wisdom, Knowledge, and Virtue have been generally diffused among the body of the people, and they have been enabled to form and establish a civil constitution calculated for the preservation of their rights, and liberties. This Constitution was evidently founded in the expectation of the further progress, and extraordinary degrees of virtue. It injoyns the encouragement of all Seminaries of Literature, which are the nurseries of Virtue depending upon these for the support of Government, rather than Titles, Splendor, or Force. Mr Hume may call this a Chimerical [10] Project. I am far from thinking the People can be deceived by urging upon them a dependance on the more general prevalence of Knowledge, and Virtue: It is one of the most essential means of further, and still further improvements in Society, and of correcting, and amending moral sentiments, and habits, and political institutions; till by human means directed by divine influence, Men shall be prepared for that happy, and holy State" when the Messiah is to reign.

It is a fixed Principle that all good Government is, and must be Republican." [11]

Presentation Slide # 7

Uphold the Constitution!

Many American’s Believe They Know What the Constitution Says.

The Majority Do NOT Understand what the Constitution Really Means.

Creates opposing views by not knowing Original Intent that additionally leads to misunderstanding and or misinterpretation.

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Most of the people in the United States do not understand that the Constitution, in the historical picture, was ‘amended’ immediately after its ratification in 1789. These amendments incorporated the ‘Bill of Rights’ being those first ten amendments and the 11th and 12th Amendments added 1795 and 1804 respectively. This base construct formulates the fundamentals of the Founder/Framers Constitution as it was. We set the timeframe of the primary formation of the Constitution to 1804 since the majority of those that constructed this framework of governance were passing on after this year. The first-person capacity to argue the pros and cons of this new government were being lost to personal memoirs, letters, States Ratifying Convention notes and newspaper articles covering the same. In a short time, all of this was relegated to the history books, which in the 21st Century contain nothing of Founders true intent.

Almost every Constitutional instructor that brings forward the truths of the Framers Constitution does a fantastic effort in ensuring that those who hear the lectures understand the fundamentals of how the Federal government should function based on the Constitution as argued by the writers of the Federalist Papers. Few ever discuss the concerns of the Anti-Federalist or fully discuss the slippery slope that has occurred with the further amending the Constitution both from a reactionary proposition after the Civil War and the more to what I call nefarious amendments in the 20th Century. More Subtle expansions of the Constitution beyond Framer intent were the numerous federal departments regulations, treaties, international executive agreements, and court rulings that in effect have bureaucratically amended/augmented the Constitution without using Article V. The subtle list just noted all fall into the implementation on the states and the people through Article VI by becoming the Supreme Law of the Land!

It is the mantra of those that believe that our federal system is broken, usurped or infiltrated by political theories that were rejected by the Founders, that loudly shout:

Stand on The Constitution!

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The facts of the matter are that the elected for the last eighty years, and especially in the Twenty-first Century, are standing on the Constitution, As IT IS.

Many American's think they know something about a constitution and what the Constitution of these United States may say. Some have even read the Constitution or taken classes and seminars about it. Yet when asked about what the contents of the Articles are in the Constitution and what it means, the Majority Do Not have a clear comprehension of what the Framers or the early antagonist had to say, let alone intended.

John Adams had once said:

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

To maintain a strong sense of understanding of our established liberties Noah Webster commented:

Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty, and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen, who have wrought a revolution in her favor.

Citizenship and Government are not taught in schools let alone ‘inculcated’, resulting in people only having a hearsay perspective of how our national government is suppose to function. The lack of present day Constitutional knowledge most often creates emotional opposing views about the purpose and operation of government. If you take into account the additional influences of worldviews such as socialism, communism, every mix of religions other than historic Christianity and Judaism, the redefinition and destruction of morality, and functional transformation of the Founders intent for education - then we have many misunderstandings and or misinterpretations of what the U.S. Constitution is.

Ok, let’s segue for just a bit, one of the rabbit holes I like to head down during the presentation: Taking the idea of citizenship to the next level, the Founders expected that when someone came to America and wanted to be a Citizen that they would take the time to learn all the nuances of American culture, self-governance and yes, even about the Christian religion to the extent that they would give up all of their foreign ideologies for the love of American values. George Washington said:

The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.

To continue, Hamilton and then Franklin expressed these views respectively:

Some reasonable term ought to be allowed to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments; to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government; and to admit of a probability at least, of their feeling a real interest in our affairs.

and,

Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old Inhabitants are not jealous of them; the Laws protect them sufficiently so that they have no need of the Patronage of great Men; and every one will enjoy securely the Profits of his Industry. But if he does not bring a Fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live.

These views are represented in our modern Oath of Allegiance taken during the Citizenship ceremony, which says:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God. [12]

Much of the transition of our cultural and Judeo-Christian foundation began with the systematic move from the Biblical Gospel taught through the mid-19th Century. De Tocqueville noted in his search for America’s greatness:

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. In the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. In her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

During the later part of the 19th Century a melding began of the core components of individual liberty and self-governance with the infusion of socialism, the religion of the social gospel and government interventionism. A large contributor to this shift in a focus on liberty was the catalyst of the Second Great Awakening Unlike the First Great Awakening which was focused largely on redeeming the souls of individual sinners, the Second Great Awakening had focused on both the souls of individuals and on social problems such as drinking, prostitution, and slavery. The revivals of the Second Great Awakening became a seedbed for social reform and helped to spawn both the temperance movement and the abolition movement. This focus on social problems in the antebellum world undoubtedly influenced the sense of purpose in post-Civil War ministers, such as Gladden, who wanted Protestant churches to address the problems they saw emerging from the rapidly changing capitalism of the late nineteenth century. [13] Since the mid-1800s the core principles of the Founders and Framers have been sabotaged to the point that only threads of recognizable truths remain. Sadly, most modern Evangelicals are lost in the maxims of the period called this ‘Second Great Awakening’ and reject what is in fact Founders Original Intent.

Presentation Slide # 8

To momentarily jump the story forward, in 1982 Dr. W. Cleon Skousen outlined the 105 things Destroying America. [14] In a number of his writings Dr. Skousen noted that:

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Out of the 100 Major Problems facing America today ALL are a result of abandoning our Founders Original Constitution and Intent.

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As already discussed, this is partially the result of not just educating our youth in the Principles that our early educators followed, we do not inculcate them in these truths nor establish them for a moral and virtuous people in society. A society that understands governance knows that the source of self-governance begins with the giver of all good government – the God of the Bible. Simply put, beginning with the Reformation in Europe, England and Scotland, individuals learned what covenant with God was about such that the reality of this relationship in governance transcended not only every aspect of the individuals life but then progressed with moral responsibility into forming community and how the social compact a nation would function.

As we look backward and then forward in this story, this writer believes that it is important to hear again from that visitor who came to America in 1831 and wrote two volumes of his observations in commentaries. Throughout this book and in the presentation The Tale of Two Constitutions, I refer, as Dr. Kimber does in his seminars, a number of times to Alexis de Tocqueville. In many ways his observations made him a profound sage and prophet that is equal to the Anti-Federalists sages during the constitutional ratificaiton debates.

Presentation Slide # 9

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De Tocqueville Visits America

Americans combines the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference; while democracy seeks equality in Liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with pubic money.

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Is it not interesting that we can look to our present and see the observations of the past reflecting that morality did really mean something in the United States? We see that immorality is now more prevalent then when De Tocqueville visited. We also see that Congress has fully discovered the use of public money beyond what De Tocqueville perceived as the future demise for the American Republic.

As a side note to this use of public money, The Anti-federalist Melancton Smith wrote,

How, say they, are the people to be corrupted? By their own money?

De Tocqueville additionally made these observations that we should consider before we move on to the next section:

Presentation Slide # 10

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De Tocqueville Points Out

…After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a net-work of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates (weakens), extinguishes, and stupefies (unable to think clearly) a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. …

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I like to let this sink in for as much time as I can when I give the presentation. I really believe this is a well stated representation of our present situation with the emphasis being on small complicated rules, cannot penetrate,’ the will of man softened, bent and guided and that at the end he calls the people a flock of timid and industrious animals" better known now a days as – sheeple!

Ok, so if I have time in the presentation I like to slip this De Tocqueville quote in as well, which takes the weakened sheeple along a path that many in our age travel regarding their minds and will:

…as they cannot destroy either one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite; they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings [15], because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large that holds the end of his chain. By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large.

At this point in the presentation I’m making the transition to a topic that almost no one is willing to discuss in relationship to our Foundational heritage. Consider that our Founders always thought of governance as a product of covenant - beginning with ones-self and that personal relationship with God.

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Covenant in Context

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OK. So as not to get everyone including secular and my more pietism friends all freaked out thinking I’m going down the Theonomy route – I am NOT! I will suggest, since I don’t have the time or space here, that you go get John Barber’s book Earth Restored. I’m more inclined with his conclusions of interwoven perspective of the ‘Cultural Mandate’ being inclusive of the ‘Great Commission’. I know, the secularist will have a lot to digest with what Barber wrote. But, that is a whole another story for another time.

Now back to the presentation:

Presentation Slide # 5

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Covenant Beginning

- Historical and Biblical reference to Suzerain Treaties or Covenant

- Puritan Founders understanding of Covenant defined during the Reformation

- Covenantal commitment solidified by an Oath

- Ratificatory vs. Unilateral Oath

- Scottish Covenanters - God is the ultimate ruler and that society derives it patterns for all aspects of life from the Biblical principles of governance, economy and individual relational liberty

- Compacts and Charters were Covenants with the King

- Constitution considered a Compact with the People – Thus a Covenant

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Those that hear me speak in different venues and as my alter-ego Samuel Adams know that I reference the First Great Awakening as the coalescence of spirit, mind and function to the full sense of Liberty that gave the Colonies the ability to fight for their temporal liberty. Through the understanding of Liberty in Jesus Christ by virtue of preaching the Gospel during the Great Awakening, a revival occurred through a reformation in the churches first. This Liberty then was instantiated [16] in the crowds that would hear Edwards, Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent to name a few. The ability to have moral self-governance resonating throughout the continent brought the further realization that individual, religious, commercial and governance rights were being grossly infringed and the King was not adhering to his responsibility of covenant as established in the colonial charters.

So let me throw in another disclaimer here: I am not a professional theologian yet I have studied long and hard to get the same sense that the likes of Samuel Adams and a majority of his contemporaries had regarding this topic. I can attest to you that many modern writers misrepresent Sam Adams. He was in fact an Orthodox Biblical Reformation Calvinist that understood and acted on the Cultural Mandate inclusive of the Great Commission – (Period)!

No matter what you think regarding the Judeo-Christian view of God’s existence or if you don’t care about it, the historical facts are overwhelming in America’s foundational history that Covenant is fundamentally essential to any logic of governance and establishing of good civil government. I would say again that regardless of your subscription to natural liberty or more to the root foundations of federal liberty, the point is that Covenant has always been something that must be understood to maintain any sense of Liberty at all.

In essence, the Moral fabric that the forefathers of the 1600s pursued in Religious Liberty would set the foundation for the Liberty of the nation. This fabric was woven through the Puritans understanding of Covenant. Dr. Gary North commented, based on his research:

For over four centuries, Calvinist have talked about the covenant. They are known as covenant theologians. The Puritans wrote seemingly endless numbers of books about It. [17] Although the New England Puritans remained the most eloquent articulators of the covenant idea, they were not the only ones to bring it to America. The Scotch-Irish of the mountains and piedmont from Pennsylvania to Georgia; the Dutch of New York; the Presbyterians; and to a lesser extent, the Quakers and German Sectarians of Pennsylvania and the Middle States; and the Huguenots of South Carolina were all nurtured in churches constructed on the covenant principle. The first ministers in Virginia -- usually cited as the antithesis of New England -- were also Puritans. [18] Indeed, the tradition became so widespread that by 1776 over half of the new nation's church congregations were based on covenant principles." [19]

Covenant for our Founders had that critical perspective of how government worked, as covenant is the outline from God’s perspective for good governance beginning with self-governance.

What about covenant in general and its significance in any relationship whether it is God with man or mankind with mankind? Historically, Meredith Kline researched and noted that covenants go back to the ancient pagan world’s where special documents that are known as the suzerain (king-vassal) treaties exist. He further describes covenant like this:

"First, however, notice must be taken of a feature which law and promise covenants have in common but which, nevertheless, being more closely analyzed, serves to distinguish clearly between the two. Every divine-human covenant in Scripture involves a sanction-sealed commitment to maintain a particular relationship or follow a stipulated course of action. In general then a covenant may be defined as a relationship under sanctions. [20] The covenantal commitment is characteristically expressed by an oath sworn in the solemnities of covenant ratification. Both in the Bible and in extra-biblical documents concerned with covenant arrangements the swearing of the oath is frequently found in parallelistic explication of the idea of entering into the treaty relationship, or as a synonym for it.

The ratificatory oath was taken by both parties in parity covenants, but in other covenants the sworn commitment was ordinarily unilateral. It is this swearing of the ratificatory oath that provides and identification mark by which we can readily distinguish in the divine covenants of Scripture between a law covenant and one of promise. For it is evident that if God swears the oath of the ratification ceremony, that particular covenantal transaction is one of promise, whereas if man is summoned to swear the oath, the particular covenant thus ratified is one of law. In view of questions that have emerged in the course the development of Covenant Theology, it is especially to be observed that precisely because it is sworn commitment that constitutes these particular transactions covenants, a relationship ratified by a human oath of allegiance is a covenant because of the human oath, and it’s a covenant, therefore, quite irrespective of whether or not the arrangement happens to be at the same time an administration of divine grace and promise. [21]

The history of the effects of covenant thinking and relationship between Protestant Christendom, the state and the Liberty of the people goes back to those Scott Covenanters and their principle ideas that God is the ultimate ruler and that society derives its patterns for all aspects of life from the Biblical principles of governance, economy and individual relational liberty in the Kingship of Jesus Christ. This was established in two primary national documents of the 17th Century: The National Covenant in 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643. The interesting result was a commitment of the political leaders, church leaders and through them, the People, to these covenants representing a form of republicanism that permeates the Tanakh, the Christian Bible Old Testament.

A

ll during this Reformation period the challenge was with the divine right of the king and the responsibility of minor or lesser magistrates to act according to the principles and practices of good governance established by God’s plan for governance. These principles and practices came about with John Knox writing The Appellation [22] in 1558 and Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex or The Law and the Prince [23] written in 1643. And many of the founders read Algernon Sydney [24] on this very topic also. Please remember that Sydney was beheaded for taking a stand against this tyranny of the king because of his writing Discourse Concerning Government. [25]

These writings helped establish the thoughts of the American Founders regarding the ideals of local governance and that local authority can trump the greater national authority when that authority is not following the moral laws of God regarding the liberties of the people. An example of this thought was in the title of Samuel Adams masters thesis, Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved?

With this background of covenant, the Pilgrims and the Puritans came to America and then, as noted, were followed by the Presbyterians from Scotland and Ireland.

In this section of Covenant I really like the studies of Daniel Elazar who was a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Beginning with:

"Thus, from their earliest beginnings, the people and polities comprising the United States have bound themselves together through covenants to erect their New World order, deliberately following biblical precedents. The covenant concluded on the Mayflower on November 11, 1620, remains the first hallowed document of the American constitutional tradition:

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-writen, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc, and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc., haveing undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advancemente of the Christian faith, and honour of our king and countrie, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly and mutualy in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes wherof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap Codd the 11. of November, in the year of the raigne of our soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fiftie fourth. Ano: Dom. 1620. [26]

I have to include this next point again from Daniel Elazar because so many modern conservatives, especially those of the legal profession, give Hobbes all the credit for our form of republicanism and constitutionalism. I was wowed by Daniel’s research and conclusions referring to the Mayflower Compact, he wrote:

A classic covenant, it explicitly created a community and the basis for its subsequent constitutional development. With more pride than accuracy, John Quincy Adams once referred to that Mayflower Compact as perhaps the only instance in human history of that positive, original social compact which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government. In fact, there were many such covenants at the time of the settlement of British North America. His point is an important one, however. The Mayflower Compact occurred at least thirty years before the speculative philosophers imagined it. By the time that Hobbes and Locke formulated their compactual theories, there were already many compactual civil societies in the New World. [27]

With this, I’m going to highly recommend that you go delve into Daniel’s treatise, Covenant and the American Founding, since he well documents the majority of the covenants and compacts that followed the Puritans and the expansion of governance in America.

Now to the second bullet point on the slide: Covenantal commitment solidified by an Oath. What our Founders understood regarding oaths has been lost over the last 150 years.

Meredith Kline writes,

that an oath is a bond [28]

He expounds this in the article What Is A Covenant? By Meredith G. Kline, Wednesday, July 13, 2011: [29]

Etymology possibly affords another indication of the oath-commitment significance of berith, for its original meaning may well be bond. Use of this term for the Old Testament covenants would then have in view the binding obligation undertaken in the ratificatory oath. For the idea of the oath as a bond see, for example, Numbers 30:2ff. (3ff.), especially the expression binding oath (v. 13[14]). And for the association of bond and berith note the phrase bond of the covenant (Ezek 20:37; cf. Jer 27:2; Dan 6:8). But whatever the etymology of berith (and this is still under debate), the proper meaning of the word used to translate it in the New Testament is clear. Diathekemeans a disposition, especially (in extra-biblical usage) a testament, and its use as a rendering for berith points to an understanding of the latter as a solemnly transacted commitment.

Oaths were those verbal acknowledgements existing before things became contractual on paper. An oath was considered binding and solidified commitment to covenantal directness and overtones associated with it. To this point, consider a simple summary definition by R. C. Sproul,

A covenant is a solemn promise of what to do or what not to do at a given event or condition and usually sealed with an oath. An oath is an undertaken promise before the execution of trust purporting the trust as a fact. [30]

The core principles that the northern colonies in particular had - were based on the understanding that their Charters for the New World - were in fact covenants with the King. This view was ascribed to by the American colonial settlers based on:

The first political principles systematically enunciated in America were extensions and adaptations of the Puritans' federal theology which saw all society as an outgrowth of the basic biblical covenants between God and His people.6 Winthrop referred to the good commonwealth as one committed to federal liberty, or the freedom to freely harken to the law of the covenant. The Puritans sought to place all relationships among people on a covenantal basis. [31]

It is clear that,

"civil government among the Puritans was instituted by civil covenant