Never has there been a time in our nation’s history when the values and principles our great Republic was founded upon have been more neglected, assaulted, and on verge of overthrow as today. Communists openly parade in our streets and call for the ousting of the president. Marxist terror organizations like Antifa and Black Lives Matter rampage in the cities, looting, destroying, and burning everything to ash. Worse still, our culture had been perverted and de-Christianized beyond recognition. The very idea of America as a shining city on a hill – a refuge for those seeking to protect and enjoy their Faith, Families, and Freedom – is under withering attack. And the compact that holds together the American People as a united force, the U.S. Constitution, is dangling by a single thread.

I have not been shy about stating my unshakable belief that the Constitution of the United States was and is inspired by Almighty God. Nothing matching its brilliance has ever been devised by the minds of men because the Constitution did not originate in mortal minds, but in the mind of the Creator. The American Founding Fathers acknowledged their reliance upon, and faith in, the Lord in The Declaration of Independence. They staked everything on the idea that rights come from God, that Freedom is our birthright, and that the purpose of civil society was to defend and secure individual rights while punishing those who would violate them.

After nominally securing their Independence from tyrannical Great Britain after the Revolution, the American states existed in a loose confederacy. Their governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, was weak and inefficient. It was not strong or wise enough to keep thirteen free and independent states united together under one umbrella of principles and purpose. Just a few short years into Independence, the confederacy was about to collapse into economic ruin, anarchy, and civil war.

Take the time to read the correspondence between America’s early leaders in the period between 1783 and 1787 and you discover that they felt their country tottered on the precipice of cataclysm. The currency was worthless. Congress was powerless to enforce its laws or to extract funds to operate. States began taxing one another and their peoples were on the verge of civil war. Mobs gathered and rioted. And Europe sat licking its lips, waiting to pounce and gobble up the divided fragments of America. The confederated states needed a miracle to survive.

Heaven knew the situation and sent a miracle. The People’s representatives, led by George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, George Wythe, Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamilton, my own relative Caleb Strong, and other illustrious statesmen, met in Philadelphia to revise the defunct Articles of Confederation. At one point during their deliberations, Benjamin Franklin delivered a stiring plea. He remarked:

“[H]ow has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.–Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth–that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

“I therefore beg leave to move–that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.”

Due to a lack of funds, a chaplain’s services were never employed. But the spirit of these humble sentiments rested upon the Convention the remainder of the summer as the Constitution gradually fell into place.

The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. On that day, George Washington penned a letter to the president of Congress, in which he observed:

“In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each State in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution, which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensible.”

The creation of a strong and free Union was one of the crowning achievements of the Constitution. Before the Constitution, the people of America were Virginians, New Yorkers, South Carolinians, and so forth. After the Constitution, they became Americans first and above all else. The authority of the Constitution is in fact embodied in the Presmble’s phrase: “We the People.”

The Preamble beautifully spelled out the purpose of the Constitution; indeed, the purpose of the American People:

“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.”

James Madison called the Constitution the “cement of the Union” (James Madison, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1809). More than any other thing, this ingenious charter of Freedom pulled Americans of all persuasions together and set them on the course to greatness.

As one united People, and under the guidance of the Constitution, Americans did just what they set out to do – they estsblished a Republic that became the freest, most powerful, most prosperous state in the world. Peace prevailed, law and order were upheld, happiness was general, goodness was common, and the blessings of Liberty were enjoyed more widely and by a larger group of people than ever before in recorded history. And it was all due to the People’s native virtue and their careful obedience to the enlightened precepts of the Constitution.

Every American owes a debt to the Constitution and to the men who sacrificed to institute and maintain it. The core idea of America – the revolutionary idea that men can and should govern themselves and that they have rights and a stewardship for which they are accountable to God alone – still exists today, albeit in a bloodied and battered state, because of the Constitution. The Constitution had been attacked on every side since its inception, yet, because of its genius and its sacred origin, it still stands. Millions of Americans would still fight and die to maintain our beloved Constitution.

In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington warned of the very problems facing us in 2020. He warned of factional strife, changes to sound principles, the danger of foreign influence, the scourge of foreign war, and the machinations of a minority combined against the Liberty enshrined in the Constitution. He stated:

“To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable . . . This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; 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 of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

“However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

“Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts.”

The old General may as well have been speaking of the Progressive Congressional Caucus whose members infest Congress, governors who defy the Constitution and oppress their peoples, Black Lives Matter, the ADL, and SPLC, which sow racial division and hate, Antifa and the Communist Party which stir up violence and rebellion, the “defund the police” movement which is paving the way for increased thuggery, the destruction of lives and property, and full-scale insurrection, and any number of acts of presidents, the courts, and legislatures which have divided our People, weakened the rule of law, and made us less free. The remedy prescribed by the Father of our Country is obedience to the Constitution, adherence to its pristine principles, and resistance to the “organized factions” trying to “subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”

America’s #1 enemy, apart from her own unrighteousness, apathy, and ignorance, is the communist conspiracy. Most were fooled into complacency when the Soviets faked their “collapse,” believing that the communists’ threat to our society had ended. In truth, the cabal has worked at breakneck speed the past thirty years to bring America to a tipping point. The current crisis engulfing our nation is their doing. Those of us who warned of this conspiracy are gratified to see people waking up in droves, but lament that it took a national crisis, the loss of so much Liberty, and the shattering of peace to shake them from their slumber.

By returning to the original principles of the Constitution, enforcing them in every state and community for the protection of our inalienable rights, harshly punishing oath-breakers and criminals, and forcefully crushing the illegal and treasonous communist movement and all of its front groups – Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Open Society Foundations, ActBlue, Code Pink, Socialist Party USA, etc. – we can save our special nation from a horrific crisis. The enemy is so entrenched that it will almost certainly require blood to restore our Republic. Blood is always the price of Freedom. By acting swiftly now, however, we can mitigate the quantity of blood and ensure that it is communist, not patriot blood, that refreshes the tree of Liberty.

The American People, united behind the correct set of principles, rallied by the memory of their God, families, and country, and roused by their burning love of Freedom, are unstoppable! We may slip and lose ground temporarily in the coming clash, but don’t lose hope and don’t be afraid; our side will triumph. Freedom will prevail. Americanism will defeat communism. And the Constitution will stand supreme once again.

Long ago, our beloved George Washington affirmed: “The Constitution is the guide which I never can abandon” (George Washington to Boston Selectmen, July 28, 1795). Let that be our pledge as American Sons of Liberty. Let’s follow our General’s lead once more as we surge into battle against our ravenous enemies. Let our bright banner read: “The Constitution Now and Forever!”

Zack Strong,

September 17, 2020