Cure to Aging
The Law Our Founding Fathers Longed For
Even with our founding fathers’ brilliant accomplishment, our U.S. Constitution, our supreme law, they were searching for something more, something they never quite found, something they longed for.
Consider the concerns of Benjamin Franklin who said, when asked as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, what kind of country the framers had given us, he replied “A republic, if you can keep it!”
Consider the concerns of all the framers who feared the degeneration of politicians and bureaucrats and civilization…and the eventual fall of our republic into despotism.
Consider the concerns of George Washington, warning us in his Farewell Address that political parties would inevitably pull our government down into a cesspool of corruption. For good reason, political parties are not mentioned in our Constitution, for our first president feared they would tear our country apart. And today we see he was right. He feared that politicians and bureaucrats would start doing what’s best for their party rather than what’s best for the country. Yes, he was right. George Washington was absolutely right!
Most Americans do not know about our Founding Fathers’ fears. Their fears and warnings tell us they wanted something more, something that could put their worries to rest, something that made political parties obsolete, something that could end their fears of losing our republic to despotism. They tried, but actually were not satisfied, with the Bill of Rights. They came so very close to the one law, the only amendment needed, to forever remove all their fears of eventually losing their country to despotism.
Franklin’s key message: “if you can keep it” — meaning that human nature, when offered power, leads to abuse of that power for easy advantages over others…Franklin’s and the other framers’ great fear of the imminent degeneration of politicians and bureaucrats and civilization itself. They all felt that the Constitution could not hold our freedom when faced with the decay of human beings in positions of power. Again, they tried to combat that eventuality with the Bill of Rights, trying to protect individual liberties from the government itself. But they all feared that was not enough. And they were right! One-hundred percent right!
What they missed, what they were searching for, was the Prime Law. With the Prime Law, the republic is forever safe as Benjamin Franklin wanted. With that final integration in the Constitution, political parties become unnecessary and extinct as George Washington wanted. With the Prime Law, the degeneration of politicians and bureaucrats and their abuses of power cannot happen as all the framers wanted. Indeed, with the Prime Law, politicians and bureaucrats can ONLY do what is best for the country…what’s best for the individual. And no decay is possible.
I am convinced by studying the well-documented fears of the framers that they longed for and searched for the Prime Law…and that they would have created it given a little more time, with a little less political pressure to write and ratify the Bill of Rights in order to hold the fledging Union and its new Constitution together. Instead of enumerating specific individual rights in the Bill of Rights that they knew would weaken over time with the decay of our political leaders, as we witness today…instead our founders longed for something generalized that would protect all individual rights throughout all time regardless of politicians’ raw lust for power. They longed for but fell just short of the fundamental natural law of individual protection, the Prime Law.
Just as our framers feared, today America faces a very difficult divide BECAUSE we have political parties fighting for power, the country be damned. We have degenerative, power-thirsty politicians, bureaucrats and justices stealing from us our enumerated, specific Bill-of-Rights’ freedoms, dragging us toward our founders’ greatest fear: abusive government power, despotism…the rule of man overtaking the rule of law. Yes, dragging us toward socialism. We are witnessing today the warnings of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and all our other founding fathers.
However, if we successfully ratify the one amendment that they longed for: the fundamental natural law of individual protection that protects all individual rights throughout all time — the Prime-Law Amendment — then the rapidly growing abuse of power ends instantly. Political parties would suddenly become meaningless, for every political action would have to answer to the Prime Law…to what’s best for the individual — for YOU and, therefore, for our country. Indeed, the Prime Law is that final integration our founding fathers searched for, longed for but missed. Every concern, every fear our founding fathers had about preserving our freedom and well-being is instantly removed with the Prime Law:
Concerns About the Bill of Rights
An underlying concern our founding fathers had with the Bill of Rights was: upon naming specific rights, then unspecified rights go unprotected…or, perhaps more accurately, opens our Constitution to small breaches on civil liberties that can grow bigger over time. Getting too specific weakens the full, general protection of the original Constitution. Over time, we begin to lose our freedom, putting a timer on our experiment of government for the people, by the people. We clearly see that decay of our civil liberties — of our Bill of Rights today.
The Bill of Rights rose out of the fears of the anti-Federalists — namely Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason (and eventually federalist James Madison, the main author of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights). The anti-federalists worried that individual rights (and the states) needed more protection from the newly empowered federal government.
Again what Jefferson, Henry and Mason and all the founding fathers were seeking, desperately searching for, was the Prime Law…the fundamental natural law or God-given law of protection of individual rights. The Prime Law protects all individual rights without the need to enumerate them — solving the founding father’s concerns of specificity.
The Bill of Rights — especially the First Amendment — is regarded as the world’s beacon of individual liberties, THE example the entire world reveres. The Bill of Rights, with its prized First Amendment, is the reason America has remained so free for so long. Few people (beyond the framers themselves) realized that the Bill of Rights could not stop and eventually left America vulnerable to the disease of mankind: the rule of man. The brilliant framers knew, however, and that was why they all believed it would only be a matter of time until despotism took over. And without the Prime Law, they were right.
With the full individual-rights coverage of the generalized Prime Law, the supreme law that trumps all other law, the founding fathers would have needed just one amendment, not ten, to fulfill and complete and forever put to rest their concerns about our individual-rights protection. …They most likely would have named that one amendment: the Individual Rights Amendment. And THAT amendment would have become the guiding light of freedom for the whole world, forever.
Had the founding fathers made that final breakthrough they were searching for, the Prime Law (or their one Individual Rights Amendment), the country would NOT have slowly but steadily lost more and more of its freedoms…on its way toward today’s rise of socialism.
Indeed, prior to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the founding fathers witnessed the tendency of human nature to degenerate, and they sought to protect the people from politicians and bureaucrats of the new centralized federal government who would, like an evolving resistant disease, weaken and eventually kill our freedoms. The framers’ effort to protect the people from that disease — i.e., government overreach also known as rule of man — led to the creation of the Bill of Rights.
Realize as you read through the following warnings from the framers of our Constitution how the Prime Law solves every worry of our founding fathers and framers of the Constitution. (The following warnings from five founding fathers are drawn from Dr. Skousen’s book The Majesty of God’s Law.) Skousen provides the framers’ quotes and his own comments, below:
The Warnings of Benjamin Franklin
Franklin served as one of the foremost architects in structuring the Constitution, and while most of the Founders were congratulating one another on their remarkable charter of liberty, Benjamin Franklin injected this note of prophetic insight. “I agree to this Constitution … and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” All of this went along with Franklin’s basic philosophy of sound government; namely, that no people can remain free if they become wicked and immoral. When a society decays to the point where people begin to fear for their lives and their property, the demands for a police state have always been inevitable.
The Warnings of George Washington
One of the most significant doctrines set forth in the Farewell Address was Washington’s extremely insightful warning concerning the peril of allowing candidates to be nominated and national policies to be promoted by competing political parties. In fact, he prophesied exactly what would happen if the American leaders ever fell into the seductive trap of trying to run the nation with opposing parties. He said: “They serve to organize factions … to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority…. Let me … warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party….” Almost prophetically he anticipated the encroachment of one branch of government over the others. He said: “It is important … that … those entrusted with its administration … confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department any encroachment upon another…. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create … a real despotism.” Nothing aroused the wrath of Washington more than arrogant bureaucrats actually changing the fundamental structure of government by sheer despotic assertion of administrative power. He said: “If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpations; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”
The Warning of John Adams
Among the warning voices of the Founders none was more forceful in proclaiming the need for a virtuous people to make the Constitution function than John Adams. He said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The Warnings of Thomas Jefferson
During his two terms as President, Jefferson detected some evil and subversive trends which were luring the American people away from the original Constitution. Notice how direct he was in pointing the finger of accusation at the judiciary for corrupting the original constitutional plan: “Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit, by consolidation first, and then corruption…. The engine of consolidation will be the federal judiciary; the two other branches the corrupting and corrupted instruments.” In other words, the Supreme Court uses its judicial mandates to draw more and more power to Washington; then the Congress and the Executive use this new power to shatter the Constitution and corrupt the dual federalism which was designed to balance the political powers between the government and the states. Once Jefferson’s distant cousin, John Marshall, became chief justice of the Supreme Court, Marshall set himself and his associates up as the “final arbiter” on all constitutional issues. Nowhere in the Constitution was the federal judiciary given the power to enforce its will on the states or the other two federal departments. Jefferson had the Supreme Court in his gun sights when he wrote: “The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the [state] governments into the jaws of that [federal government] which feeds them.”
The Warnings of James Madison
Madison was known to be the philosophical soul-mate of Thomas Jefferson, but sometimes his contemporaries considered him somewhat paranoid and suffering from fears for the nation that would never happen. But the passing of time was to prove him more insightful than many of his contemporaries had thought. He said: “If Congress can employ money indefinitely, for the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, the establishing in like manner schools throughout the union; they may assume the provision of the poor…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.”
Thank you Dr. Skousen for those insights into our founders’ fears. Today, tragically, our government manifests our founders’ prophetic fears. The Prime Law would have prevented all their fears. We would be as free today as the day our U.S. Constitution took effect. The Prime Law protects not just specific individual rights for a stretch of time as does the Bill of Rights; the Prime Law protects all individual rights for all time.
I propose we begin a Prime-Law Movement to bring to our constitution what our founding fathers were looking for…longing for. I propose this Prime-Law Movement begins with the end-goal of making the Prime Law the 28th Amendment of our U.S. Constitution. Instead of a Bill of Rights, ten very specific amendments, the Prime Law should have been our one-and-only generalized Individual Rights Amendment.
If we bring this comprehensive Individual Rights Amendment to the U. S. Constitution over 230 years after its precursor, the specific Bill of Rights, then the manifestations of the founding fathers’ fears go away! The warnings of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison mentioned above all go away when the Prime Law becomes our 28th Amendment.
If Our Founding Fathers Visited Us Today
If our founding fathers visited us today, they would see, to their horror, that all their warnings came true: political parties tearing the country apart, fighting for power as their politicians serve their factions and not the people…the aggressive rise of socialism with the alarming demise of individual rights…the ever-growing power of the federal government over the states…growing abuse and overreach of federal justices who essentially legislate from the bench instead of properly interpret the Constitution…the ongoing and growing corruption of congress…the destructive deep-state bureaucracy undermining freedom and capitalism…the federal government’s liberal influence and power over our state educational systems…reckless printing of unbacked currency to serve political agendas…undisciplined and unsustainable federal spending and annual deficits…welfare programs politically designed to garner votes…unsustainable debt…out-of-control political correctness trampling upon individual liberties. The founding fathers’ fears have all come true with the degeneration of power-hungry politicians, bureaucrats, judges, and an increasingly lazy populace dependent on welfare.
The disease of civilization — the rule of man — has grown more and more resistant to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. As they warned us, our Constitution can no longer sufficiently protect our freedoms, our individual rights, our individual liberties. The Constitution, even with the specific Bill of Rights, ultimately could not hold up as we steadily march toward despotism just as Franklin and the others warned us.
The framers would today see how the enumerated, specific Bill of Rights, as predicted, fell short of what was needed to sustain our freedom…just as they feared. Indeed, the specific rights left open small breaches for the rule of man to eventually find its way through. The specific Bill of Rights could not hold back the rule of man forever, no everlasting individual freedom after two long centuries of gradual abuse. Take a moment to see the specificity of the Bill of Rights. Here (from U.S. Constitution.net) are those enumerated rights (summarized).
Today the framers of the constitution would see that their cautious hesitation for a Bill of Rights was justified. I will explain in a moment why the Bill of Rights could not hold back the rule of man forever. The framers needed a generalized Individual Rights Amendment that protected all individual rights — for all situations, for all time. They needed the Prime Law. I will explain in a moment why the Prime Law can hold back the rule of man forever.
Had the framers pulled together that final, missed integration — had they pulled together the Prime Law — today we would enjoy non-depreciating freedom and prosperity for eternity because of just one amendment: the Prime Law Amendment probably called the Individual Rights Amendment (with no Bill of Rights). …Put in the Constitution the Prime Law today as the 28th Amendment, and pure freedom will quickly return.
The founders’ cautions and warnings make clear to me that they sought and deeply longed for the Prime Law. They fell ever so short and had to uncomfortably settle with their objections for their Bill of Rights.
After extensive research, I really do believe they came very, very close to making this final integration — the Prime Law or what they most likely would have called it: the Individual-Rights Amendment. You see, the framers of the Constitution admired and studied the writings of John Locke, who wrote extensively about natural law and natural rights and their superior role in politics. Well, the Prime Law is THE fundamental natural law of individual protection/individual rights.
Natural rights come from natural law. Natural law is timeless law that applies in any country, any political system, anytime, anywhere…throughout the world, throughout history, forever into the future. Natural law is derived from the laws of nature. Natural rights, based on natural law, are universal and inalienable and cannot be repealed by human laws. The Prime Law is the fundamental natural law of individual protection/individual rights: every person may live free from force initiated upon him/her.
The framers of our Constitution, major Locke fans, would have been right on the brink of unearthing the fundamental law of nature — the Prime Law. In fact, Locke’s work on separation of powers as well as natural rights had profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Locke believed that in a natural state, all people were equal and independent and had a natural right to defend their life, liberty and property. Jefferson’s phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence is believed to trace back to John Locke’s works “life, liberty and property” and “life, liberty and estate” replacing the words “property” or “estate” with “the pursuit of happiness.”
All the framers had strong Lockean roots with a powerful connection to natural law or God’s law (i.e., Divine law) we are born with, beyond the reach of any government or man’s law. Inalienable natural law or God’s law provides people with protection from governments or rule of man. Natural law or God’s law is Divine law, supreme law that stands above man’s law.
Of course, this primacy of Divine law was needed by the people to limit man-made laws of government, thus the concerns of John Adams: “Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Benjamin Franklin and the others shared this same concern.
The people today are not as religious as they were in the early days of our country, but with the Prime Law in our Constitution, we still would not lose any of our freedom. Not any.
In any case, fully in sync with natural law, the founding fathers may have been — most likely were — very close to pulling together the Prime Law. I believe they would have made that final integration if they were not under enormous political survival pressure to expedite the Bill of Rights. Indeed, the Bill of Rights was largely a political necessity to prevent the new Constitution from falling apart. I won’t go into that history in this publication, but let me emphasize the point that the framers, including Thomas Jefferson, were not completely comfortable with the Bill of Rights. In fact, Jefferson who was the driving force behind the Bill of Rights said this to a worried James Madison: “Half a loaf is better than no bread. If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.”
I believe if they had more time, if the fragile Constitution were not in potential political peril, the framers of the Constitution would have made that final integration of the Prime Law, the fundamental natural law of individual protection, beyond the reach of man. They were too close to it not to have found it. But their focus for a generalized Individual Rights Amendment ended with the all-out race to write and ratify the Bill of Rights. The newly formed Union would have otherwise fallen apart, which would have been a disaster to the postwar fledgling country buried in debt.
As I wrote earlier, if they could visit us today, they would shriek in horror that all their fears and warnings came true. Yet they would leap for joy upon seeing the Prime Law, and they would smack their foreheads for not pulling that final integration for their masterpiece — the U.S. Constitution.
If they could visit us today, George Washington would call upon the framers of the Constitution, and together they would start a PR campaign to the American people to embrace the Prime Law — the generalized fundamental natural law of protection, beyond the reach of rule of man. The founding fathers would implore the people to bring us the Prime Law through an Individual Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Our founding fathers would wisely know the peace and prosperity the Prime Law would bring our country. Once the Individual Rights Amendment (aka the Prime Law Amendment) were ratified by the states, then finally, our founding fathers would rest in peace.
