“You are the future of America.” This cliché is a painfully predictable element of almost any speech delivered to a group of young people by a politician. Although their words are both a confusing grammatical structure and a literal impossibility, the thought that our ostentatious orators are trying to express is worth considering. It is a fact that America’s future is in the hands of today’s citizens, young and old, and that the actions we take will affect generations to come.
This brings up the question: What is my commitment to America’s future? Or, more specifically: “What action do I commit to take today that will shape America’s future into one of stability, prosperity, and liberty?” Obviously I wish to do what is most necessary to accomplishing these ends, and there are many possibilities: I could devote my life to science to further America’s status as a technological leader; I could become an economist and contribute to the understanding of commerce and industry. These are noble-sounding aims, however, I believe the answer lies elsewhere.
Alexander Hamilton examined the very question of what is necessary to America’s future in an essay in 1794. He wrote: “If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws – the first growing out of the last.” Hamilton continued, “A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.”
Hamilton understood, as did all the Founding Fathers, that if our republic were allowed to depart from the Supreme Law, tyranny would be the inevitable result. Sadly, the current federal government exercises many powers for which it has no Constitutional authority, but which have been usurped under the guise of necessity.
I believe that the greatest threat to America’s future is our abandonment of the Supreme Law of the Land. Without doubt, foreign invasion is always a significant threat to our country and for that reason I, as should be every American, am ready to give my life in defense of my homeland. However, the insidious encroachments upon our freedoms by our own government are just as dangerous as, and far harder to detect than, open attacks by foreign powers.
The greatest peril to a mighty oak tree is not usually the wind that beats against it from the outside, for it has become inured to such attacks. Rather, the tree’s greatest vulnerability comes when its core begins to rot, or its foundation is weakened by erosion or saturation of the soil. It is only at this weakened state that the tree falls. In the same way, by the grace of God and the strength of her people, America has weathered the storms of foreign wars. But her Constitutional foundation is being subtly undermined and her core principles of freedom allowed to decay.
The reason our country has strayed so far from the Constitution is that far too few of our governing officials possess that “sacred respect for the constitutional law” that Alexander Hamilton considered vital to a free government. Therefore, it is here that my commitment is directed. My commitment to America’s future is to jealously guard our liberties by doing all in my power to return the federal government to its Constitutional limits. I will strive to re-instill a respect for the Constitution in our elected officials by being active in politics and making use of the first amendment freedoms of speech, the press, and peaceable petition.
This is a Sisyphean task for one man, so I call on other patriotic Americans to join me in committing to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1775, “Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.” Those that love this country must fulfill their sacred duty and return America to its Constitutional foundation. Just as hundreds of thousands of Americans have given their lives to defend the Constitution from attacks by foreign governments, so must we guard it from encroachments by our own. If we do so, then, and only then, America’s future can be one of stability, prosperity, and liberty.
