The Declaration, The Constitution, The Gettysburg Address and Barney Fife
by FRANK HILL July 4, 2012
So go ahead. Do it.
He wrote to his wife, Abigail:
Which means it might be a good time to actually read it first and see what is in it and not in it.
While you are at it, why not go ahead and read the US Constitution and the Gettysburg Address as well, the two other foundational documents on which our democratic republic stands?
The reason why we think it is important to do so is because it our distinct fear that many elected leaders and citizens know as much about the Constitution as, well, Barney Fife says he knows in one of his best clips ever from the ‘Andy Griffith Show’.
We were taking a look at the Constitution last night and were struck by several things, again, while reading it. This particular phrase from Article V caught our attention:
How about if they can say the following as having sufficient qualifications to be President of the United States of America:
Gerald Ford used it 66 times in about 2.5 years. What is so hard about that?
The Declaration of Independence is about as eloquent of a document you’ll ever read about people wanting to live freely without masters or kings. We liken it to the Gospels in the sense that it is the ‘Good News’ version of human self-governance.
The Constitution, on the other hand is a bit more dense and less eloquent, mainly because it was written by a Committee of Up To At Least 33 Delegates to the 1787 Convention in Philadelphia. In those regards, they are more like Paul’s Letters to the Churches of Corinth and Galatia and Thessalonika because the Constitution lays out the actual ways of self-governance envisioned in the Declaration written 11 years earlier before the Revolutionary War.
And the simple brilliant eloquence of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address of 1863 in 272 words reminds us of the Revelation to John the Apostle, which is not very short or eloquent or easy to read but helps 'reveal what is to come' just as Lincoln's words showed the American People what our nation could become once again after the War was over.
So without being too blasphemous, we hope, try to think of the Declaration, the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address this weekend as the ‘Trinity’ of the American Republic and read them all if you can, out loud perhaps, to your family and children.
You might be as surprised as Barney Fife at what you find in all three of them.
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