Some weeks ago, I wrote about “occasioning hope.”  Of course, it is easier said than done.  Moreover, it requires a certain object—as in, what to hope for.  “What we reverence therefore becomes our Hope,” I said.  In America today, given a fading dream the Founders shared with us: their Republic turned to empire, now arguably in decline—how should we respond in terms of what to hope for? 

I tell you unequivocally that we should hope for a return to the Constitution.  It is as simple and as hard as all that.  For the Constitution was the instrument the Founders left us, both to govern and be governed by.  Their dream returns the moment we bind ourselves to its strictures.  Even the Declaration was not meant to bind us in that manner, since the Declaration declared independence.  After the Revolution, our Founders labored and produced the Constitution, in order to give us a government capable of sustaining independence as well as living up to the ideals of the Declaration. 

According to constitutional scholar, Dr. Larry P. Arnn, government under the Constitution was justified by an account of the nature of man and his relation to God.  Indeed, the biggest reason for the decline of constitutional government in this country may be the decline in a sense of spiritual purpose.  Spiritual purpose subordinates Caesar and the state to unalienable rights inhering in individuals, i.e., to the rights of man and woman in God’s image.  Thus spiritual purpose helps maintain the limited scope and function of government according to the Constitution. 

Utility on earth, as well as everyday practical and special interest politics, were subordinate to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in the Founders’ worldview.  Those who aspired to lead their Republic, or indeed to live well in freedom, were those who would contemplate the divine order of things and make specific application of it in their lives.  Education was entirely separate from any part of the nation-state, and the Constitution contains no language whatsoever to authorize the federal government to have a Department of Education.  Indeed, the purpose of education was both intellectual and moral, since the components were deemed connected.  How different were their notions of freedom then, and of the good society.  How different was their notion of education too, since the Founders looked to a free populace so educated, to maintain their good Republic. 

No Founder would have told us to teach Chinese to five year olds or cram science down the students’ little throats at any grade, just to ensure your kids get a job and remain competitive in the new world order’s global marketplace.  Even if you convinced Ben Franklin it was a good idea, he would not have said the federal government had authority under the Constitution to do it or “make it so.”  Of course, we are far more utilitarian these days, notwithstanding what the Constitution does or does not say; and though I doubt it very much, contemporaries today will say we have so much bigger problems to justify the coercion.  They might as well add that we have sufficient problems to throw away integrity and character too, since we clearly lack the stuff to follow the text or written word of the Constitution—even as we pretend government actions retain legitimacy under some magic penumbra. 

“Train up the child in the way he should go,” Solomon wrote, “and when he is old he will not depart from it.”  Ronald Reagan added that, “Our leaders must remember that education doesn’t begin with some isolated bureaucrat in Washington.  It doesn’t even begin with State or local officials.  Education begins in the home, where it’s a parental right and responsibility.  Both our public and our private schools exist to aid our families in the instruction of our children, and it’s time some people back in Washington stopped acting as if family wishes were only getting in the way.” 

Not only has government forgot the purpose of education, it has forgotten its own purpose too!  The power to hope is the power to see solutions, however.  The power to hope is also the power ultimately to change things.  Hope is not a plan, but what to hope for helps to explain our predicament and points to what must be done.  Our statesmen and citizens must return to Original Intent and to a strict interpretation of the Constitution.  My hope is on the side of people, because people hope and governments don’t.  Hope fires the coming political storm and potentially, the backlash.  As Sam Adams stated forcefully in 1776: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace.  We ask not your counsels or arms.  Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you.  May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!”  Who would have thought that the hope for a return to the Constitution is hope for a Revolution in our time?

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