Discovered after his death, Abraham Lincoln’s secretary found a private record of the President’s that was never published. Reflecting on the relationship of the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, Lincoln wrote the following personal meditation on Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”
He believed that the expression of the Declaration of Independence declaring “liberty to all” –
…was the word "fitly spoken" which has proven an "apple of gold" to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple -- not the apple for the picture.[1]
Lincoln identifies the Declaration’s principles of liberty and equality as the heart and soul of the Constitution that it was designed to protect and preserve. The Declaration of Independence states:
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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
To summarize these basic principles:
1. It is a self-evident truth is that all men are created equal;2. Another self-evident truth is that all men are endowed with natural (or inherent) rights from their Creator, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;3. Governments are instituted among men to secure these rights and to provide for their safety; and4. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Therefore, how do these principles both define the purpose of government and offer guidance on the proper constitutional form of government? How does the Constitution provide a frame of protection for these principles?
The first proposition is that the primary purpose of government is to secure the natural rights of men. The Framers recognized that two great threats to liberty and equality in a democratic republic were: (1) factions; and (2) tyranny – encompassing the human tendency to exercise arbitrary power. In Federalist No. 10 [2] James Madison defines a faction as either a minority or a majority of citizens who are united “adverse to the rights of other citizens.”[3] He concludes that since we are unable to remove the causes of faction we can only control its effects. Madison shows that through the “republican principle” of the Constitution a majority may defeat minority factions “by regular vote.”[4] Further, he argues that through the mode of representation in a republic, a chosen body of citizens (the representatives) will “refine and enlarge the public views”[5] to check and ameliorate majority factions. The second remedy is to “extend the sphere” of the republic by expanding the number of citizens and enlarging the territory so that it will be “less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.”[6] He concludes that through Constitutional representation and a large republic, the people may be able to defeat the diseases of minority and majority factions.
In regard to guarding against tyranny, Madison stated in Federalist No. 47, the maxim that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”[7] Because of this danger, in Federalist No. 51 he writes that “all may admit” that the preservation of liberty requires a “separate and distinct” exercise of the different powers of government. Following this principle of separation, Madison then states that it is evident that each department (or branch) should have “a will of its own” and “as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others.”[8] The fundamental assertion of Madison and the Framers of the Constitution is that when given power, men are most often influenced by ambition. The Founders had also learned from history and experience that those who are given authority almost always exercise unjust dominion, or control, over others (which may also be characterized as “arbitrary power”). As Madison observed in Federalist No. 15, “Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged.”[9] Thus, in order to “check” that rival ambition, and the inevitable arbitrary or unjust exercise of power, others in authority must be vested with an equal or offsetting “balance” of power. The end result was a Constitutional system designed to let “ambition counteract ambition,” thus restraining the tendency of human nature to exercise arbitrary power.
Another key feature of the Constitution designed to protect our rights adopted by the Convention was a bicameral legislature. The Framers acknowledged that “in a republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.”[10] They had observed and experienced the “multiplicity of laws,” the “mutability of laws,” and the “injustice of the laws” enacted by the majorities in State legislatures.[11] The agreed remedy at the federal level was to “divide the legislature into different branches” and provide for “different modes of election and different principles of action.” [12] The debate over legislative powers in the Convention eventually led to the establishment of the House of Representatives and the Senate imbued with different modes and terms of representation, separately defined powers, and a right of Executive veto over legislation.
Significantly, the Framers also wisely provided for a federal government of enumerated powers. Each vesting clause and the respective powers delegated by the people to each branch of government were vigorously debated and carefully worded. James Madison stated:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce …The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people …. [13]
Madison also wrote, “The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general.” [14] Thus, pursuant to the precepts of the Declaration, federal powers under the Constitution are “few and defined” and “confined to specific objects.” Additionally, by dividing governmental powers between the federal government and the States in a compound republic, the construct of federalism provides “a double security arises to the rights of the people.”[15]
The second proposition from the Declaration is that “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Following this principle as a guide, the Framers infused the Constitution with recurring methods of popular consent. Because the primary form of consent in a republic is regular elections, the Convention specified that members of the House of Representatives would be elected every two years, Senators every six years, and Presidents every four years. And, in larger sense, the Framers also provided the means by which the Constitution could be amended by the consent of the people (through Congress and the States), which resulted in the Bill of Rights and, over time, seventeen additional Constitutional amendments.
However, as an even more important and essential element of consent, the Constitution was “ordained and established” by “We, the People.” In other words, the Declaration affirms that because we each possess individual natural rights, the only proper source of governmental power is the people themselves, who are sovereign. As John Jay wrote in Federalist No. 2, “Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government; and it is equally undeniable that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers.”[16] To accomplish this, the Constitution was adopted by the people directly through ratifying conventions in the States, not through their legislatures. As Madison described in Federalist No. 39, “the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose.”[17] In summary, as guided by the Declaration, the Constitution’s republican forms, separation of powers, bicameral legislature, and enumerated powers secure our rights against the enemies of factions and tyranny. In all of these ways and others, the Constitution upholds the Declaration’s injunctions and serves as a fitting “frame of silver” to its principles.
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[1] Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1953), 4:168 (italics in original).
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[1] Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1953), 4:168 (italics in original).
[2] Page references are to the Charles Kesler, Signet Classics paperback edition of The Federalist Papers (2003).
[3] Ibid. p. 72.
[4] Ibid. p. 75.
[5] Ibid. p. 76.
[6] Ibid. p. 78.
[7] Ibid. p. 298.
[8] Ibid. p. 318.
[9] Ibid. p. 106.
[10] Federalist No. 51 p. 319.
[11] James Madison, “Vices of the Political System of the United States,” April 1787, in Gordon Lloyd, ed., The Constitutional Convention: Core Documents (Ashbrook Center, 2018), pp. 41-43 (cited as Core Documents).
[12] Federalist No. 51, p. 319.
[13] Federalist No. 45, p. 289.
[14] James Madison, Speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794; Lance Banning, ed., Liberty and Order (Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 2004), p. 158 (emphasis added).
[15] Federalist No. 51, p. 320.
[16] Federalist No. 2, p. 31.
[17] Federalist, No. 39, p. 239.
