A Review Of: The Second American Revolution

by Leper Watchman
(Oregon City)

Sociological Law Has Captured The Court

THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION
By John W. Whitehead


The Second American Revolution was published by David C. Cook Publishing Company in 1982. The author, John Whitehead, is founder of the Rutherford Institute, whose mission is to educate the public on the principles of Christian liberty and defend that liberty in court.

Sociological Law

The theme of the book is that the American system of law and justice – originally Christian – has been overturned by a silent revolution in the judiciary. The author offers many keen insights into America’s legal and cultural dilemma. He documents the shift away from absolute law to sociological law in American jurisprudence. This is law based on the shifting whim of public opinion; it stems from Rousseau’s concept of relative truth and the “General Will.”

But the book is flawed in failing to recognize that the U.S. Constitution itself comprised the second American revolution. In the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Patrick Henry recognized the revolutionary nature of the transition from a confederacy to a consolidated government under the Constitution. “Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain ,” Henry warned.

Ignorant or unaware of Henry’s warnings, John Whitehead defends this Revolution – in reality a revolt against God – as Christian. Our focus in this review will be on the Appendices, although we pause first to note Whitehead’s tepid excuse for the framer’s making no reference to God. “The framers left religion out of this contract,” says Whitehead, “because they did not want the federal government to have any authority over the church and religion” (p. 95).

In reality the framers left God out of the Constitution because they did not want Him to have any final authority over the laws of the new government they were crafting. They tipped their hand in Article VI, Section 3, which outlaws the religious test oath requiring an office holder to swear allegiance to God. This provision makes it illegal to require an officeholder to govern according to the Bible. This, together with the Preamble that posits “We the People” as the only source and sovereign of this
new “Covenant”, and the absence of any other deference to the Trinity or the Bible; can only leave Man as the ultimate lawgiver and judge.

Natural Law

In Appendix I, Whitehead gives a sobering assessment of the problems associated with natural law theory. Unfortunately, he fails to recognize the influence of natural law theory on Americans of the founding generation.

Whitehead quotes with approval John Burnham who noted that the colonists made reference “not only to Locke, Montesquieu, but Aristotle and Cicero and Plutarch, Hobbes, Burlamaqui, Milton, Hooker, Bolinbroke, Blackstone, Burke, Shaftesbury and a score of collateral branches. The Fathers were the masters, not the victims, of these inherited ideas, and sometimes it is the rhetoric more than the ideas that is taken over.”

Whitehead concludes, “Their common Christian base provided a foundation from which they could sift through the myriad of ideas without being dominated by them.” However, there is no evidence for this conclusion in the notes of their deliberations, which never referred to the Bible as authoritative.

Whitehead notes that “Blackstone states very clearly that all law must be seen in terms of the revealed law, the Bible.” In his commentaries, after affirming the Bible as the source of law, he states: “Yet undoubtedly the revealed law has infinitely more authenticity than the moral system which is framed by ethical writers, and denominated the natural law…”

In spite of this introductory confession, Blackstone referred to the Bible only a handful of times throughout the body of his Commentaries. As noted below, Blackstone represents the triumph of precedent over principle in legal thinking.

Whitehead asserts that, “The framers knew very well that the higher law with its reference point in the Bible provided advantages beyond what was called natural justice.” However, this assertion is not borne out by the document the framers gave us. Instead, they said “This Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, shall be the Supreme law of the land...” There is no reference to the higher law of the Bible whatsoever.

Patrick Henry was a much keener observer of the Constitution and its framers than men like Mr. Whitehead who view it from the vantage point of 200 years later (at least half of which has been heavily influenced by Darwin and Marx). Henry predicted the encroachments of tyranny we experience today, stemming from the Constitution.

At one point Henry asked, “If consolidation proves to be as mischievous to this country as it has been to other countries, what will the poor inhabitants do?” Many of us today are asking that very question. Christian Federalists like John Whitehead would do well to study Henry’s speeches in opposition to the Constitution which spanned the three weeks of the Virginia ratifying convention.

Common Law

In Appendice II, Whitehead upholds the Common Law and the principle of “stare decisis.” Under “stare decisis” courts are bound to follow the precedent of previous cases, the ultimate authority being the Bible.

The problem with stare decisis in the history of the Common Law is that there is a strong tendency for the precedent to quickly replace the authority of the higher law. We have already noted the problem in Blackstone’s legal “Commentaries.”

By the time of the American Revolution there were some 200 crimes punishable by the death penalty in Great Britain under Common Law , a radical departure from Biblical law. The law of God is subtly replaced by the law of man.

We are reminded of the party game called “gossip” in which a message is whispered in the ear of the first contestant, who then whispers it to the second participant, and so on around the room. The message that emerges at the far end has no resemblance to the initial message.

Thus, the Bible itself must be the only precedent for every new case. This demonstrates why the Scriptures must always be available to and read by every class of people, in their own language. It is a great check on the tendency of idolatry in civil law when the simple precedents of civil law from God’s Word are kept before the politician, priest, and plowman.