Constitutional Restoration

When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate.  They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel.So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand.  He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand.  And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law. . . .

 Ezra opened the book.  All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people lifted their hands and responded, "Amen! Amen!"  Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.  Neh. 7:73b - 8:3, 8:5, 6 (NIV)

The people of Judah had fallen away from following God and they had suffered the judgment of being conquered and carried into exile in Babylon.  In time the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians and a series of Persian Emperors allowed groups of Jews to return to Israel and to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

One of the observances that had been neglected for a long time was the command that the Book of the Law be read to all the people assembled every seventh year during the Feast of Sukkot (Deut. 31: 10-13).  In 444 B.C. the people decided to remedy this breach.  They called on Ezra, who had led a group of returnees from Babylon fourteen years earlier, to bring out the Book of the Law and read it aloud to the whole assembly.  As the people heard the Law read they repented of their sins and resolved to follow God's commands.

Why am I telling this story?  Because we Americans have neglected our Constitution in much the same way that Judah neglected the Law of God.  And I think what we need as a nation is to rediscover the Constitution and decide whether we will follow it or junk it.  Whatever we do we should at least be honest with ourselves.

Every two years we elect a bunch of politicians to federal office and, almost without exception, they all perjure themselves as their first official act when they swear an oath to uphold the Constitution.  Most of them go through their terms of office never giving a thought as to whether their actions are permitted by law to which they pledged fidelity and from which they derive their authority.


The fact is that today's politicians find the Constitution inconvenient.  They get away with ignoring it because the people who elect them are just as negligent.  Voters are no longer taught to read the Constitution and think for themselves.  We are assured by Very Smart People that "the Constitution is whatever the Supreme Court says it is."

The political and legal elites treat the Constitution in much the same way that the medieval Church treated the Bible.  Ordinary people were cautioned not to read the Scriptures for themselves.  Instead they were to listen to what the priests told them about the Bible.  This arrangement was reinforced by the fact that there were no translations of the Bible into the common languages of the people.  Only the educated classes, who could read Latin, could read the Bible.  Several Church reformers of the middle ages were burned at the stake simply for daring to translate the Word of God into a language common people could understand.

The Constitution is much shorter and much easier to understand than the Bible, which, after all, can only be truly understood with the help of the Holy Spirit.  The Constitution, by contrast , requires only a reasonable command of the English language and basic comprehension skills.  The thousands and thousands of pages produced by various courts are necessary mainly to make the Constitution mean something other than what it says.

So we as a people need to make a deliberate choice.  We can't continue to lie to ourselves, pretending that our government officials are acting within their Constitutional authority.  Fortunately we don't have to assemble physically in one location as the people of Judah did to hear the Law read by Ezra.  Just as the earliest translations of the Bible into common languages were facilitated by the printing press, so we have the internet available to host a national conversation about our Constitution.

One resource for those seeking an understanding of the Constitution is Hillsdale College's online course Constitution 101.  This is a free ten-lesson course featuring video lectures by members of Hillsdale's faculty.  Each lesson includes readings from primary source materials and a quiz.  Another excellent resource is Constituting America, an organization founded by Cathy Gillespie and Janine Turner, best known as Maggie O'Connell in Northern Exposure.  The Constituting America web site features an archive of essays on constitutional issues along with information on programs designed to increase public understanding of the Constitution.

I realize that a lot of people, perhaps a majority, are so attached to the panoply of government programs that have sprung up ever since we abandoned constitutional government during the thirties.  But there's no reason those people should continue to delude themselves that there is any legal authority behind those programs.  It's time to make a deliberate, informed choice.