Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Monday is Independence Day. As children in grade school, we were required to memorize passages from several documents and speeches that epitomized what the concept of independence meant for us.
The opening of the Declaration of Independence states:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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.”
Most of us just remember the, “We hold these truths” part, but it also declares our right to hold these truths that are not granted by any government, but are derived from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”.
The Preamble of the Constitution:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Generally, all I hear people shout today is, “We the people.” Nobody wants to continue doing the heavy lifting grind that comes after that phrase.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered Nov. 19, 1863 notes, in part:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure …
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Can a nation, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” long endure? Will, “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” actually perish from the earth? Will Americans continue to become more and more polarized so we become engaged in another great civil war?
Otto von Bismarck said, “God protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.” I hope he was right.
Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:
