A Charter to Cherish

I'm not sure where or why it came up, but the other day I heard or read chatter about whether the ideas represented in the founding documents of our nation - in particular the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution - are fundamentally outdated, given that we have seen two centuries of modernity, ideas and progress sweep over our civilization. Obviously, I have my own views on the matter, some of which I address indirectly here. The topic got me thinking about a passage I read recently in Matthew Spalding's interesting work We Still Hold These Truths. On page 220 of the hardback edition, Spalding raises the issue of Europe's slow decline from its heritage as the birthplace and home of Western Civilization, and suggests that the statist and socialist nature of today's Europe represents the antithesis of progress and freedom. (As an aside, I mean, seriously: there is a proposal in the UK that suggests that all payroll - private and public - should be administered by the government for the sake of "efficiency." In such a model, it's hard not to see how the private sector could utterly disappear. But I digress). Spalding goes on to relate a portion of a speech given by President Calvin Coolidge in 1926, on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. You can read the speech in its entirety here, but below is the excerpt Spalding includes in his book. I'll leave it there for you to ponder, without further elaboration or embellishment.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.