The U.S. Constitution
Fails To Reconcile The One And The Many

There is an inevitable conflict between the one and the many that emerges when men try to govern apart from God. This was seen in the conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson in Washington's cabinet.

That is, the impossibility apart from a commitment to the Trinitarian God, of balancing the legitimate role of the state with the liberty of the people. R.J. Rushdoony has devoted an entire book to this philosophical conflict entitled, "The One And The Many."

The Trend To Centralize

Jefferson represented the Democratic extreme, siding with the French Revolutionaries. He was in fact living in France when the U.S. Constitution was being debated. Jefferson was a strict constructionist regarding the Constitution and believed Hamilton was returning the country to British mercantilism.

Hamilton wanted a strong central government and implied powers for funding the national debt, creation of a national bank, and an import tariff and whiskey tax. These proposals became known as “The American System” during the early 1800s.

There is a fundamental conflict between the one and the many. The legitimate authority of the state vs. the freedom of the individual can only be resolved in imitation of the Trinity, the one and the many in perfect harmony.

In the United States, the "one" is personified in a chain of development from Hamilton, to Clay, to Lincoln, to TR, to FDR and others, to the present. The "many" is personified in Jefferson, Madison, Jackson (in some respects), Calhoun, Andrew Johnson, and so on. The “One” gradually prevailed because the Constitutional deck was stacked in its favor.

The one and the many never reconciled in American history because of our rejection of the Trinitarian God in 1787 and prior. The “American System” promoted by Henry Clay included centralization for the sake of a national bank, public works such as transcontinental railroads, canals, and the like paid for by the tariff. These were the seeds of our current welfare state, planted by the Great Centralizer, Mr. Lincoln.

Is it not true that men typically desire centralization because they desire to put government in the place of God? When Israel asked for a king, God said they were rejecting Him from being king. They wanted the king to go in and out in splendor and fight their battles like all the other nations.

This trade-off results in the slavery of I Samuel 8. The U.S. constitution abandoning the Confederation, embodied essentially the same desire and rebellion. Through the Prophet God declared that “I gave them a king in my anger, and removed him in my wrath.”

Thus, centralization apart from Christ and His law is tyranny, as seen in the great image of Daniel 2. Man dreams of it as a great and glorious image, but God sees it as the ravenous beasts (leopard, bear, etc) described several chapters later in Daniel.

There is of course a Godly centralization, but only under the rule of Christ. The Kingdom of Christ is the mountain that pulverized Daniel's image and filled the whole earth. See also Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, wherein the nations will one day flow to the mountain of the house of the Lord for instruction in His law. In Christ, the one and the many are perfectly reconciled.

Party Spirit

These conflicts early on in America resolved themselves in fledgling political parties. These were the very factions that Madison had sought to suppress with the Constitution.

Although Madison was a member of the original Federalist Party that championed the centralization of power in the Constitution, he ended up as an ally of Jefferson in the Democrat-Republican party. Madison resisted the unfortunate implications that began to emerge from his own brain-child.

John Adams remained with Washington in the Federalist Party, although he was no friend of Hamilton. Adams was antagonistic to France, with a distaste that could be traced to his service as ambassador to the French court during the Revolution.

Political Polytheism

The conflict of the one and the many also found expression in foreign affairs. It was the key issue of Jefferson's campaign against John Adams in 1800.

In the Treaty of Tripoli, Washington had capitulated to the Muslim pirates, who were raiding American shipping in the Mediterranean. There he admitted the obvious : "… the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,...." That is vintage Washington anti-Christianity.

Both Washington and Adams subsequently paid tribute to Islam, which Jefferson picked up as his campaign slogan: "Millions for WAR [against the Muslims], but not a dollar for tribute!" Jefferson of course won, and defeated the Muslim's, which gives us the line in the Marine Hymn about "the shores of Tripoli."

On the whole, the American founders were totally disinterested in the Bible or Christ as the authority for civil government. Their only interest was symbolic, as when Washington kissed his Masonic Bible at his inauguration.

They gave a polite tip of the hat to God and the Bible and then proceeded to totally ignore Him in their deliberations and government formulations. They were secular through and through. Thus, irreconcilable conflicts between the one and the many were inevitable.

This is consistent with the absence of the name of "Jesus" or "Christ" in any of the 10,000 letters written by George Washington. Washington, of course, presided over the Constitutional Convention. Here is a little-known quote that reveals Washington's diffident attitude toward Christianity as a qualification for public office:

In this enlightened age & in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets do not deprive him of the right of attaining & holding the highest offices that are known in the United States. This leaves the door open for Muslims, witches, and unbelievers of all stripes. (SOURCE: Letter To the members of the New Church of Baltimore (22 January 1793). More about the real Washington here: http://www.ministers-best-friend.com/Webs-Largest-Collection-of-George-Washington-Anti-Christian-Information.html

Biblical law or even the Bible in general had no place in any of their deliberations. Christ is never acknowledged as "King of kings" or rarely even mentioned.

This rebellion has manifested itself in 200+ years of gradual social disintegration, punctuated by a bloody Civil War and numerous foreign wars. The ignoble motives driving these conflicts are documented in Thomas Wood's PIG book, "Politically Incorrect Guide to American History."

The religious neutrality of the American founders has led us slowly but surely to our current state of confusion, corruption, and economic calamity -- the obvious judgment of God. By refusing the triune God His rightful place at the heart of our nation, we have made it impossible to resolve the problem of the one and the many.

Thus, it is wrong for us to teach our children that this era and these men represent our "Christian heritage." Such an assertion is based on ignorance at best. If we persist, it may become an egregious sin because we insist on equating the work of Enlightenment man and God. It is exactly what God complained of the Jews throughout the prophets: totally ignoring His law, while maintaining a facade of religion. May we cease and desist referring to the rebellion of the American founders as "our Christian Heritage."

Jeremiah warned Jerusalem not to trust in deceptive words, "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" at the same time they were practicing injustice and oppressing the alien, the orphan and the widow (Jer. 4:4-6). With us it is "the founders, the founders, the founders, let us return to the original intent of the founders."

But all along it was the godless neutrality of the founders that produced our current state of injustice and oppression. I think it is vital that we understand the source from which our current judgment rises.

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