The 236 Year Old Message to us From Philadelphia

I originally wrote this back in 2014, sharing again for relevance to this day.

Today, September 15th is a very important day in United States Constitutional history. No, it's not the day we celebrate as Constitution Day, that would be later this week on September 17th. On this day 236 years ago, the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention [today referred to as the Constitutional Convention but actually known to the framers as the Philadelphia or the Federal Convention of 1787] had been going over every section of every article in the final months of the Convention in 1787.

236 years ago, on a Saturday, just two days before the Convention in Philadelphia completed its work, we find a gem in the notes of James Madison, who took extensive notes just about every day of the convention. This item that I refer to as a “gem” is little known and hardly talked about today. On September 15, 1787, George Mason of Virginia (referred to in Madison’s notes as Col Mason), was alarmed that in the text of Article V (the provision for making Amendments to the Constitution), Congress would have sole power to propose amendments; Mason insisted, as he did earlier in June, that the states have authority to call for conventions. Mason explained that an oppressive Congress would never agree to propose amendments necessary to restrain a rogue, tyrannical legislature.

"Col. Mason thought the plan of amending the Constitution exceptionable & dangerous (only by Congress). As the proposing of amendments is in both the modes to depend, in the first immediately, in the second, ultimately, on Congress, no amendments of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the Government should become oppressive, as he verily believed would be the case.” (See Madison’s notes 15 Sep 1787).

To make sense of that, you must understand that earlier in the summer when the issue of even having an Amendment process was first brought up as a provision in the Constitution, many of the delegates thought it unnecessary. Madison’s notes record the following on June 11^th: “Col. Mason urged the necessity of such a provision [Amendments]. The plan now to be formed will certainly be defective, as the Confederation has been found on trial to be. Amendments therefore will be necessary, and it will be better to provide for them, in an easy, regular and Constitutional way than to trust to chance and violence. It would be improper to require the consent of the Natl. Legislature, because they may abuse their power, and refuse their consent on that very account…”.

Then by the time the convention reached its final days in mid September, the Amendment provision had been added as Article V, and the provision had two methods; the national legislature (Congress) could propose Amendments and the states could request that Congress propose specific amendments. However, both methods were left in the hands (power) of the national legislature, that’s what Mason meant when he referred in the first quote above as “both the modes to depend, in the first immediately, in the second, ultimately, on Congress”. Mason had objected to this back in June and now as the convention drew to a close, he rose to his feet to forcefully object with his reasons stated above (“It would be improper to require the consent of the Natl. Legislature, because they may abuse their power, and refuse their consent on that very account”). Madison’s notes of 15 Sept tell us that Mason’s motion was accepted and the language was changed in order to require [mandate] Congress to call a convention upon application of 2/3 of the states.

It is noteworthy to point out that this process does not call for a Constitutional Convention; the inane unscholarly language used in ignorance by today's opponents of the framers provision for the states to castrate an out of control federal government. The language specifies calling a convention for the purpose of “proposing amendments”…to the existing Constitution…it would still require 3/4ths of the states (38) to ratify any amendment proposed in this convention.

We owe George Mason and the other framers a huge debt for this...they had the foresight to understand first of all, that we needed an orderly process in which to amend our Constitution (“regular and Constitutional way than to trust to chance and violence” – Mason 11 June). Secondly we owe them a huge debt for recognizing and understanding the depravity of man and the extremely intoxicating effects of years of power in the hands of the same people (hence a need for term limits) and that these power intoxicated occupants of the United States Congress would “abuse their power, and refuse their consent” (Mason 11 June) to any amendments that would “injure” themselves and return powers never intended for the national legislature or any of the other branches for that matter, they would never take steps to return that power on their own to the rightful owner, the states/people (“no amendments of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the Government should become oppressive” – Mason 15 Sep).

The least we can do as citizens of this great nation today, citizens that do not seem to want to be bothered with taking the time to understand the underpinnings of their liberty, the least we can do is take the time to understand what the framers of this amazing document did for us. When the framers agreed on September 15^th, 1787 to change the text in Article V, they in effect were telegraphing a message to us in 2023, a message to us showing us the way back inside the fence of the Constitution, a way back to what Thomas Jefferson called the “chains of the Constitution”.

 Some Christian Worldview thoughts as we enter Independence Day weekend 2023.

Debate persists today concerning whether or not the men who assembled at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 had the biblical authority to formally enter a state of rebellion against their Romans 13 governing authority who lay across the vast Atlantic Ocean.

Most people never read this part of the Declaration of Independence:

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

 

These words reveal to us that these men most certainly did not take what they were doing lightly. Their words indicate that they not only didn’t take it lightly, they reminded us that experience showed that most of the time the people would suffer long and hard before trying to “right things.” History shows us that the founders in this era most certainly did long suffer before arriving at this point and had exhausted every means before them.

 

Without going into a long discourse of the meaning of the applicable passage in Romans 13 pertaining to civil government, suffice it to say that the command “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” (Rom 13:1) is no more of an absolute command than is the command for a wife to be subject to her husband (Eph 5:22). It is a general command. Using Romans 13 to prove a tyrants’ claim that Christians must give absolute and total submission to civil government is like using Ephesians 5:22 to prove that a guy can beat his wife into submission.

 

There is much more that can be said concerning the proper interpretation of the Romans 13 civil government passage but for the purposes of this article/blog/post I’ll leave it with the mention that Romans 13:1-4 ranks among the most misinterpreted and ripped out of context passages in scripture. Verse 4 is hardly ever read when this is taught and is the verse that gives us context. It is the verse that exposes part of God’s design for civil government, the fact that civil government under God’s design is for the good of people. The founders understood this:

 

“That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”. (See Deuteronomy 1:13 for God’s design of self-government).

 

Civil government under our founding charter is designed to perform a very limited and God ordained function.

 

Today, some of my conservative friends are too quick to repeat the part of the Declaration that explains the need for the founders rebellion:

 

“whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…”

 

Let us remember that these men had exhausted all other recourse. For decades they had petitioned the crown for redress and were met with nothing but more tyranny. They had no recourse under a “rule of law”.

 

That is not the case today. When the framers of the United States Constitution met in Philadelphia in the hot summer of 1787 to revise America’s first governing document (the Articles of Confederation) they completely understood the tyranny that they had come from under the crown of England. They designed a system of federal civil government that would place all of the government under a “Rule of Law” rather than the Rule of Men. Understanding the biblical doctrine of the depravity of man, they designed a system of separating and dividing powers. They instituted mechanisms of redress for the people and the states to affect change if defects in the governing document were discovered. They gave us an incredible document in our United States Constitution, a system of government closely aligned with biblical precept and truth under which liberty could flourish and potential government tyranny could be checked.

Today, the Romans 13 biblical "Governing Authority" is no longer fallen man, but rather the United States Constitution and the Rule of Law. Let the Church in America glorify God for His goodness and His providence by standing up, speaking up, and showing up to defend the gift He has bestowed upon His church in America by engaging in the political process with Constitutional precision.

For more on Romans 13 and the "Governing Authority" you can access a more in-depth message I gave on this subject here.