Self Evident
By Jack Wyman
They gathered in the small boarding house on Market Street.
They sat down in high-backed wooden chairs around a simple wooden table. There was no air-conditioning to sooth the summer heat. In the descending rays of the late afternoon, a candle was their light.
To them was given the awesome responsibility to craft a declaration; the “power to begin the world over again.”
I sure wish I could have been in that small, unadorned room that day.
There was John Adams, the short, rotund, and pugnacious New England patriot. Short of temper too, but no one was more devoted or resolved. He was joined by the wise, old man of this coming revolution; bespectacled, disheveled, and bemused Benjamin Franklin. When he spoke, everyone listened.
Then there was Mr. Jefferson, the tall, urbane, soft-spoken Virginian. The man with the literary flair, he brought with him the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. Adams had been asked to draft it; he declined and insisted Jefferson do so. Adams marshalled his arguments, all of which were utterly true and logical.
Jefferson was the gifted writer, Adams firmly concluded. Anyone disagree? Maybe Jefferson himself, but he was persuaded. And so it was.
The Committee of Five also included Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert Livingston of New York. Tonight, though, it was just Franklin, Adams and Jefferson.
Through the gathering mists of the centuries, these icons grow dim to all but historians. Civic literacy is at an all-time low. July 4th is for swimming, barbeque, and fireworks—all of which John Adams would highly approve. He prophesied that this day would be forever happily and noisily celebrated with appropriate rambunctiousness. And should be.
We easily forget, these were not gods, but men. With the usual sensitivities, suspicions, ambitions, and rivalries all men have always had.
Like most writers, Jefferson didn’t like being edited. But he was edited—heavily. An entire section condemning King George for the evil of slavery, for example, was stricken by the convention of delegates. Slavery was off the table—for now. Not because it was a good thing but because there would be no country if it was confronted.
We remember the most memorable words—the ones we were taught in school, the words that united and rallied the farmers and blacksmiths; the words that won the war, forged a nation, defined a people, and transformed the world forever.
Those words were his. All 36 of them.
“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.”
No mere mortal has ever penned anything more immortal. In all of history. The punctuation was also Jefferson’s. He capitalized Creator, Rights, Life, Liberty, and Happiness.
This wasn’t exactly Jefferson’s original wording.
Franklin was a publisher and possessed the roving eagle eye of an able editor. Franklin cleared his throat.
“Mr. Jefferson,” he might have gently suggested, “I think we should change the wording just slightly. Where you have written, ‘sacred and undeniable’, perhaps we should say, ‘self-evident.’”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident.
They may also be “sacred and undeniable,” but “self-evident” is more succinct, direct, unmistakable—and perhaps a bit more . . . self-evident.
Stronger too, one suspects. These truths are above question, beyond doubt, and outside debate or rejection. Obvious to all. That’s what these men were driving at.
Here, they were saying, is transcendent truth. Truth for our time, truth for all time.
Here was inescapable, “sacred and undeniable”, truth. Objective truth. Absolute truth. Truth about the human race. Truth about God. Truth about fundamental rights. Truth about equality. Truth about life. Truth about liberty, and truth about happiness.
Truth about important things.
Adams didn’t say, “Well, that may be your truth, but it’s not mine! And it may not be my neighbor’s.”
There was not a single delegate in Philadelphia, who voted to change history and create a nation, who stood and argued with a snarl, “That may be ‘self-evident’ truth to Mr. Jefferson, but it’s sure not self-evident to some of us in this chamber!”
Nobody questioned bringing the “Creator” into the business of independence.
Nobody asked:
“Why does Mr. Jefferson insist on invoking the Creator, with a capital ‘C’? Does he mean God? A Supreme Being? Some of us here are not so sure about the existence of God. And besides, there’s all kinds of gods. What about our rights? Isn’t Jefferson the guy who built a Wall of Separation to make sure football coaches don’t pray on the field?”
None of this from these men who created America.
To them, there was such a thing as truth. It could be known. In fact, truth could be self-evident. No intelligent, objective, and fair-minded person could possibly deny it. The belief in God and that he made all men equal, and gave to each one the right to life, liberty and the full opportunity to pursue happiness, is what united Americans against insurmountable odds.
Truth inspired them.
Transcendent, unchanging truth—about the supremacy of God and the dignity and rights of humankind—united and guided a great nation. Through all manner of crises and divisions, there were always Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words, an unfailing lodestar of democracy.
The promise of life, freedom, justice and equality under the law. The opportunity for individual happiness and achievement; holding us always to a higher standard, a more noble calling, and a purpose greater than ourselves.
Self-evident truth.
It's worked for most of our history. It’s bound us together as one people. Through it all.
Truth today is no longer shared, agreed to, or transcendent. It’s private, personal, diverse, and arbitrary.
Abandoning truth—relegating it to subjective, self-indulgent whims, polls, and the latest preference, opinion, and argument—has torn our nation asunder to a dangerous, life-threatening degree. There seems nothing left important enough to bring us together.
Reaffirming our faith in God and the truths that once united us can unite us again.
It’s the only way.
It’s self-evident.
To order Jack Wyman’s book, “Everything Else: Stories of Life, Faith and Our World”, go to amazon.com, Christian Book Distributors or barnesandnoble.com. It is also available on Kindle and eBooks.
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