Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute Volume 4, Number 7 July 2012

Publisher, William L. Armstrong Editor, John Andrews

OUR REPUBLICAN HERITAGE OF MORAL CONVICTION

By Robert P. George
In the middle of the 19th century, a new political party emerged in America, dedicated to two great moral struggles. The Republican Party pledged in its original platform to fight the twin relics of barbarism: slavery and polygamy. By then, slavery was deeply entrenched in the culture of the American south. What, in the time of the American founding, some had regarded as a necessary evil that would gradually die out, had been given a new lease on life by technological developments and the emergence of profitable overseas markets for cotton. An entire social and economic Relics of system was built on slavery. No longer was it reasonable to hope shamed that the peculiar institution, and with it the moral controversy convulsing the nation, would quietly fade away. Powerful interests had a stake, not only in maintaining the slave system, but in extending it into the western territories of the United States. Condemned as Zealots So the Republicans faced a daunting challenge. Pro-slavery Democrats condemned them as fanatics and zealots who sought to impose their religious scruples and moral values on others. Slaveholders demanded that they mind their own business and stay out of the domestic and private affairs of others. Defenders of the right to own slaves pointedly invited northern abolitionists to redirect their moral outrage towards the wage slave system in the industrial north. If you are against slavery, they in effect said, then dont own a slave.
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AMIDST CRISIS, WE SEEK A TIME OF REVIVAL

By Terry Considine
Our great nation faces a crisis, as threatening as Pearl Harbor or Southern secessionand more pernicious because it is self-inflicted. Too many in government have made promises that we cannot keep. Too many citizens expect, even demand, more than we have to give. In one sense, this is a simple problem, a matter of arithmetic. Government undertakings, both federal debt and unfunded entitlements, approach $100 trillion: far, far more than we can ever hope to pay. Their weight burdens economic growth. Their failure will disappoint those who rely on them. Their resolution may well barbarism require a ruinous inflation.

America.

A century of expansion of government is failing economically because, as Lady Thatcher wisely noted, eventually, you run out of other peoples money. Cancerous Growth of Government Today, government efficiency is widely seen as an oxymoron. It has become the punchline to wry observations that society just does not work as well today as it once did, before the cancerous growth of laws and regulations, bureaucracy and public employee unions, taxes and government controls. But in a deeper sense, our crisis is not our economics, but our values. We stand seduced by the unworthy hope to reap where we did not sow, to spend what we did not earn. What
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Robert P. George (Ph.D., Oxford) ) is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he also serves as director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He co-authored the Manhattan Declaration. Dr. George delivered these remarks at a conference in Houston on March 9, 2012.

Terry Considine is chief executive officer of AIMCO, a national apartment company he founded, as well as chairman of the Bradley Foundation and a trustee of Colorado Christian University. He delivered these remarks in accepting an award from the Leadership Program of the Rockies at Colorado Springs on February 24, 2012. Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation. By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom, teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.

Robert P. George Moral Conviction Continued

Polygamy vs. Monogamy By the mid-1850s, polygamy, which had originally been the largely secret practice of the Mormon elite, had come out of the closet. Today, of course, the LDS Church has long since forbidden the practice of polygamyand now it is nobly in the forefront of defending marriage as the permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman. No religious community deserves higher praise for its defense of marriage and the family.

and available way. Where appropriate, they would accept strategic compromises on the road to victory; but they resolutely refused to compromise away their principles. When in the Dred Scott decision the Supreme Court of the United States announced its discovery of what amounted to a constitutional right of slaveholding, Lincoln and other leading Republicans refused to treat the case as a binding precedent. They would not bow to judicial usurpation or yield to the unconstitutional idea of judicial supremacy. When Utah sought admission as a State, the Republicancontrolled Congress made statehood conditional upon incorporation of a prohibition of polygamy into the state constitution.

But polygamists of the time, like renegade polygamists of today, claimed that attacks on plural marriage were violations of their right to religious freedom. Some would bring lawsuits (as some are doing again today) asking In the face of judges to invalidate laws against polygamy as unconstitutional. One case would make Were all made in it all the way to the Supreme Court. Apologists for polygamy denied that plural marriage was harmful to the institution of marriage or to children, and challenged supporters of the ban on polygamy to prove that the existence of polygamous families in American society harmed their own monogamous marriages. They insisted that they merely wanted the right to be married in their own way and left alone. But the Republicans stood their ground, refusing to be intimidated by the invective being hurled against them. They knew that polygamy and slavery were morally wrong and socially corrosive. And they were prepared to act on their moral convictions. No Compromise on Principle For Abraham Lincoln and the other founders of the Republican Party, the idea that human beings could be reduced to the status of mere objects to be bought and sold and exploited for the benefit of others was a profound violation of the intrinsic dignity of creatures made in the image and likeness of God. Similarly, the idea that marriage could be redefined to allow the practice of polygamy was, in their view, deeply contrary to the time-honored meaning of marriage as joining a man and woman in a permanent and exclusive bond. In the great moral struggles of the 19th century, the Republicans sought advantage in every morally legitimate

Gods

efforts today to mute the Republican witness to the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions, and to the dignity of marriage as the exclusive union of husband image. and wife, Republicans would do well to remember their moral heritage. What Lincoln and the other founders of the Republican Party opposed in their day have returned in distinctively modern garb. Embryo Destruction and Sexual Liberationism Abortion and embryo-destructive research are premised on the proposition that some human beingsthose in the embryonic and fetal stages of developmentmay legitimately be reduced to objects that can be created and destroyed for the benefit of others. At the same time, the ideology of sexual liberationism threatens to undercut the traditional understanding of marriage as the permanent and exclusive union of husband and wife. A familiar mantra of pro-choice politicians is that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. Now, however, they seek to validate and fund a massive industry that would create human beings for the precise purpose of destroying them during the embryonic stage of development in biomedical research. What happened with slavery, is now happening with embryo-killing: the people who used to defend it as a necessary evil to be resisted or lessened by means other than legal prohibition, now promote it as a social goodsomething that law and government should not only tolerate but embrace and even promote.

CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. The authors views are not necessarily those of CCU. Designer, Danielle Hull. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787 W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, CO 80226. Call 800.44.FAITH. Or visit us online at www.CentennialCCU.org. Please join the Centennial Institute today. As a Centennial donor, you can help us restore Americas moral core and prepare tomorrows leaders. Your gift is tax-deductible. Please use the envelope provided. Thank you for your support. - John Andrews, Director
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And on abortion, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are, with their mandates, systematically abolishing conscience protection for pro-life physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and others who do not wish to be implicated in the taking of innocent human life whether by surgical abortions or abortion-inducing drugs. At the same time, the sexual liberationist movement seeks to undermine traditional understandings of the meaning and significance of human sexuality. The attempt to abolish the legal concept of marriage as the exclusive covenantal union of a man and a woman is part of a larger effort to liberate people from what the cultural-political left regards as outmoded and repressive ideas about the centrality of procreation and the moral requirement of fidelity in human sexual relationships. Even some leading conservative advocates of samesex marriage have announced their moral acceptance of promiscuity; one has gone so far as to proclaim the spiritual value of anonymous sex. Increasingly, critics of traditional morality are willing explicitly to invoke the authority of ancient pagan civilizations in which practices condemned by the Judaeo-Christian ethicsuch as abortion, infanticide, and homosexual conduct sometimes flourished. Earlier this year, the respected Journal of Medical Ethics published an article by two academic philosophers arguing for the moral permissibility of killing newborn children thats right, newborn childrensimply because their parents dont want them and would prefer not to give them for adoption. Summon the Moral Courage Critics of the Republican stand in defense of marriage and the sanctity of human lifeincluding some within the partyecho the arguments of 19th century supporters of slavery and polygamy. For example, they accuse pro-life and pro-family Republicans of being religious fanatics who disrespect peoples liberty and seek to impose their values on others. If you are against abortion, they say, then dont have an abortion. They maintainoften disingenuouslythat legal recognition of the marriages of same-sex partners will not harm or weaken the marriage culture. These arguments fare no better as defenses of embryo killing and the redefinition of marriage than they did of slavery and polygamy. Justice requires that all human beingsirrespective of race or color; but also irrespective of age, or size, or stage of developmentbe afforded the equal protection of the laws. The common good requires that the laws reflect and promote a sound understanding of marriage as uniting one man and one woman in a bond

founded upon the bodily communion made possible by their sexual-reproductive complementarity. Still, some Republicans will propose abandoning, or at least soft-pedaling, the partys commitments to the sanctity of human life and the dignity of marriage and the family.

They will say that social issues are too divisive. They will suggest that the easy road to Republican Uphold justice electoral success is as the party of low and serve the taxes and low morals. They will counsel capitulation to judges who usurp the common good. authority of the American people and their elected representatives. Let Republicans be mindful of their heritage. It was moral convictionand the courage to act on moral conviction that gave birth to the Republican Party and made it grand. Now the GOP is old, but it need not be any less grand. By summoning the moral courage that enabled the Party to stand proudly against the twin relics of barbarism in the 19th century, Republicans can bring honor upon themselves in the great moral struggles of our own day.
Terry Considine Time of Revival Continued

are we thinking when we believe what never was and never can be? When we imagine that everyone is entitled to such benefits as unlimited and free health care? Or to home prices that do not go down? Or to business cycles that only go up? Wilsonian faith in government by experts has undermined the characteristic American values of hard work and self-reliance, prudence and thrift. Wanting something for nothing, we turn away from the truer faith in our families and ourselves.
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Centennial Review
July 2012

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Double Issue: Independence Day

Americans face a crisis of our own making, driven more by spiritual than material factors, say scholar Robert P. George and entrepreneur Terry Considine. The way forward is for Republicans, the party of the right, to uphold moral conviction raising a standard for each citizen to do what is needed and what is right.

The very offer and acceptance of these entitlements diminish our dignity as independent and self-governing individuals, made in the image and likeness of God. Government grown too large, divorced from the discipline of free markets, can never be efficient. Government grown too large, founded on the inherent coercion of the state, cannot be compassionate in any true sense. Government grown too large, intruding on personal autonomy, makes hollow our boast to be proud and free.

and make more important contributions in the private, voluntary sector by building a business, helping a neighbor, raising a family. You will be our leadersand in that role, expect that you will be pressured to acquiesce and compromise and postpone. You will be tempted to grow in office. Never yield. Let Us Raise a Standard

In these difficult times, we cannot be certain of success, Such government will always overreach and will always fail. but we can be true to our deepest beliefs. Then, as our We saw it two decades ago in the sudden collapse of the founding father George Washington spoke in Soviet Union. We see it now in the travails of the Constitutional Convention, we can hope to Stay true Greece and the European Union. And I fear say: Let us raise a standard to which the wise that we may see it here soon and very soon, and honest can repair. The event is in the hands and fight as the gospel song has it. of God. Time to Say Enough

the good fight.

There will be hardships aplenty when we confront the futility and collapse of utopian fantasies. But it can also be a time of revival. We can say enough to TARPs and stimulus and bailouts. We can say enough to subsidies, whether green or farm, whether for your business or mine. We can say enough to mindless regulation and IRS intrusion. We can end the magical thinking that we are entitled. We can turn again to that older creed, to what we know as common sense gained from experience and tradition, to our historic belief in constitutional restraint and limited government, free markets and free people, individual liberty and personal responsibility, faith and family. Then, in that hard time, there will be need for such Americans as the men and women of Leadership Program of the Rockies, the men and women of Colorado Christian Universityand for those who are likeminded. We will have need of you if you hold public office. We will have need of you also in your higher office as private citizen, where you can influence the political process
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My hope, in fact my prayer tonight, is that at the time of trial you will call to mind what you learn here; that you will be well-grounded, knowing what you believe and why you believe it; that with conviction, you will have courage to do what is needed and what is right. My prayer is that with faith in your fellow citizens, you will trust in the ability of each to manage his own affairs; that in those dire circumstances, you will stay true and rise to the moment, fighting the good fight, finishing the race, keeping the faith.

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