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by David McAllister

Editor's Note: This article, which appears in two parts (part one appears in the November - December, 2002 issue of The Christian Statesman), is an edited version of chapter 4, "The Philosophical Basis of the Movement," from David McAllister's book, Christian Civil Government in America : The National Reform Movement, Its History and Principles (Pittsburgh: The National Reform Association, 1927; sixth edition, rev. T. H. Acheson and Wm. Parsons). Although the historical circumstance of an America with a largely Christian consensus has changed since McAllister's day, the principles of political science set forth here have not. These principles, along with the explicit scriptural basis for Christian civil government set forth by McAllister in chapter 5 of the above named book, continue to be the principles upon which the National Reform Association stands today.

III. Written and Unwritten Constitutions

The distinction between a written or enacted Constitution and an unwritten or vital Constitution has been carefully drawn by the ablest political writers:

The more we examine the influence of human agency in the formation of political constitutions, the greater will be our conviction that it enters there only in a manner infinitely subordinate, or as a simple instrument; and I do not believe there remains the least doubt of the incontestable truth of the following propositions: 1. That the fundamental principles of political constitutions exist before written law. 2. That constitutional law is, and can only be, the development or sanction of an unwritten pre-existing right.

No written constitution can exist a priori or have an a priori authority. There must have been an existing sovereignty to originate such constitutions.... The possession of sovereignty being a fact, and not an effect of law, whatever written memories or declarations of the rightfulness of any national sovereignty may exist, they can only proceed from itself, and they can only be taken as historical evidences of its existence.

The Constitution of the United States is twofold--written and unwritten; the constitution of the people, and the constitution of the government. The written constitution is simply a law ordained by the nation or people instituting and organizing the government; the unwritten constitution is the real or actual constitution of the people as a state or sovereign community, and constituting them such or such a state. It is providential, not made by the nation, but born with it. The written constitution is made and ordained by the sovereign power, and presupposes that power as already existing and constituted.

By the constitution of a commonwealth is meant, primarily, its make-up as a political organism; that special adjustment of instrumentalities, powers, and functions by which its form and operations are determined. This is a constitution considered as an objective fact. Besides this, the term "constitution" has a secondary meaning, which is, perhaps, more common than the one given, involving equally the conception of a system of political instrumentalities, powers, and functions, specifically adjusted for the purposes of government, but conceived of, not as an objective fact, but as a systematic written statement of such a fact, in the shape of formulae addressed to the understanding. In other words, a constitution in this secondary sense is the result of an attempt to represent in technical language some particular constitution, existing as an objective fact. This is a constitution as an instrument of evidence.

The constitution of the political people has a two-fold character: there is a real and a formal constitution. The one is the development of the nation in history, the historical constitution; the other is the formal which the nation prescribes for its order, the enacted constitution. The one is the organism; the other is the form for the organization of the nation. The one is in identity with the nation in its organic being--it is written only in the law in which the members are fashioned; the other is the method which the nation establishes for its jurisdiction, and the order to which the whole is to conform.

All these writers, while using each a somewhat peculiar terminology, point out essentially the same distinction. Whether we use the terms unwritten and written constitution, or, constitution as objective facts and as instruments of evidence, or, the constitution of the nation and the constitution of its government, the essential point--the reality and necessity of the distinction--remains intact.

The relation which a written constitution sustains to the constitution of the nation for which it is framed, demands that the former shall give legal expression to the essential principles of the latter, and authoritative sanction to the distinctive fundamental features of the national life.

On this point Judge Jameson writes as follows:

When a people frame a constitution in the second sense [a constitution as an instrument of evidence, or a written constitution of government], or make a law or treaty which becomes a part of such a constitution, what is the nature of their act? It is a translating into appropriate legal language, and a formal registering among the archives of the nation, stamped with the fiat which marks the national acquiescence and gives to it authenticity, of the constitution, or part of a constitution, which has in the progress of the nation and under the operation of its social forces, actually evolved itself as a fact.

On the same point Mr. Mulford writes:

The formal constitution must correspond to the real.... There can be no sacredness attaching to the abstract form, and neither devotion nor sacrifice for the constitution when it is regarded only as an abstract formula; it is sacred only in so far as it is affirmative of the law which is implicit in the nation, or as the life of the nation may be affected in its maintenance.... The life of a people cannot be sacrificed for a political form or a political dogma.

What firmer philosophical basis could the National Reform Association ask for its great work of securing an undeniably legal basis in our written Constitution for the Christian facts of our national life? For what is the character of the vital constitution of this nation, in reference to morals and religion? And what is the moral and religious character of the written constitution of its government? Is the latter, as it now stands, the translation into legal language of the former? Does it authenticate the nation's practical acquiescence in the actually evolved and long upheld and distinctive features of our national life? Does it give authoritative sanctions to institutions which largely form the vital constitution of the nation, evolved, as a fact, by its social forces? The vital constitution of this nation is and always has been unquestionably Christian. This land was originally settled, not by colonies of infidels or atheists or pagans, but by bands of Christian people. Every American colony, as a matt er of state duty, recognized the Christian religion. In every case it was Christian men who founded our civil institutions on the basis of Christianity. The Bible was everywhere, the recognized standard of political morality. In the system of education projected by the colony of Massachusetts and imitated in other colonies, the Bible and the Christian religion was conspicuous. As Daniel Webster said:

Our Ancestors founded their government on morality and religious sentiment. They were brought hither by their high veneration of the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate it with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influences through all their institutions, civil, political, social, and educational.

Now, turning to the written Constitution, we are confronted with the fact that it has not a corresponding Christian character. Whatever traces of Christianity or of a recognition of God, good men may think that they can find in it, it is notoriously the boast of the infidel and the atheist that in all questions concerning Sabbath laws, the Bible in public schools, public fasts and thanksgivings appointed by the President, and all other similar questions, the Constitution is on their side. In two treaties made under the Constitution, and, according to its express provision, thus made part of the fundamental law of the land, it is distinctly declared that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

Here we have a direct violation of what we have already seen to be a fundamental principle of constitutional law--a non-Christian, or rather, as it is necessarily proves in its practical working, an anti-Christian constitution of government for a Christian people. Here we have the anomaly of a nation distinctively Christian in its civilization and institutions, with Christianity, as Chancellor Kent and numerous other eminent judges have decided, as its common law, adopting a constitution of government by which Muhammadanism or any other false religion, or even atheism, is in effect held to be as closely related and as beneficial to our national life as the one true religion, the religion of Christ. Here we have a nation undoubtedly Christian in its vital constitution, and yet a written constitution of government for it which, instead of giving legal expression and authentication to the facts of its real character, formulates a principle never evolved as a fact by the social forces of the nation--the principle that the religion of Muslims, that infidelity and atheism, politically and nationally viewed, shall be placed on a perfect equality with Christianity.

A non-Christian written Constitution and an unwritten Christian Constitution. These are the facts. Now what is to be done? Let political science give the answer. And the answer is all the more striking and conclusive because it is not given in reference to any point in particular, but as a general principle, applicable to all points alike: "Not only may the people," says Judge Jameson, in such a case of want of correspondence, "but if they would insure peace with prosperity, they must by amendments cause the former to conform substantially to the latter."

Coming now to the second aspect of a nation's written constitution, political science teaches that it is "the fundamental law of the state, containing the principles on which the government is founded, and regulating how the division of the sovereign powers is to be confided and the manner in which it is to be exercised. The constitution is made by the authority of the people themselves...and can be changed only by the like power. The legislature, which is the creature of the constitution, cannot make any change in such fundamental law."

Judge Jameson, with his customary clearness and fullness, thus distinguishes between a constitution or fundamental ordinance, and an ordinary law:

Ordinary laws are enactments and rules for the government of civil conduct, promulgated by the legislative authority of a state, or deducted from long established usage. It is an important characteristic of such laws that they are tentatory, occasional, and in the nature of temporary expedients. Fundamental laws, on the other hand, in politics are expressions of the sovereign will in relation to the structure of the government, the extent and distribution of its powers, the modes and principles of its operation, and the apparatus of checks and balances proper to insure its integrity and continued existence. Fundamental laws are primary, being the commands of the sovereign establishing the governmental machine, and the most general rules for its operation. Ordinary laws are secondary... fundamental laws precede ordinary laws in point of time, and embrace the settled policy of the state.

The application of this principle concerning fundamental law is the work of the National Reform Association. It regards the nation as sovereign under God, and the government as its agent. The nation speaks authoritatively in the Constitution on fundamental law, laying down principles and rules to govern its agent, the government. A fundamental principle thus embodied in the Constitution is felt throughout the whole political structure erected upon it. The absence of a fundamental principle that ought to be there will also be powerfully felt. If ours is a Christian nation, born of Christian parentage, with a glorious inheritance of Christian institutions that we seek to preserve and pass down to children and children's children, we should register our national Christian aim and purpose in our fundamental law as the only way of giving it authoritative expression, to make permanently binding upon the national government and upon all state governments as well. This is what a written Constitution is for, in its v ery nature; and if a Christian people will not thus embody their Christian principles of civil government in their organic law, as the supreme authoritative act of national life, they need not expect to remain a Christian people.

The logical effect of our national failure to express the Christian principles of government in our Constitution is thus admirably presented by Dr. T. P. Stevenson:

Most plausibly they [the enemies of our Christian laws and customs, such as Sabbath laws, and the Bible in the schools] reason thus: "The Constitution is our political covenant, on the terms of which we have united in forming the American government. In that Constitution there is no reference to any system of morality or religion, and therefore, it is unfair to foist upon the government, in its administration, a religious character not agreed upon in our mutual covenant." Or again they say: "The Constitution is the charter of the government. It contains all the functions it may properly perform, all the powers it may ever exercise. The exercise of any religious function is, therefore, extra-constitutional, a clear departure from that secular sphere which alone is covered by the language of the Constitution. This departure may have been tolerated by general consent in the past, but it must cease whenever any party falls back, as we now do, on the letter of the Constitution, and demands strict adherence to it s provisions."

They have an argument in the silence of the Constitution, an argument which is strong in proportion to the overshadowing dignity and authority of that instrument, and an argument which is used as a powerful lever to overturn the most cherished and important features of our institutions. We must wrest this argument from the unbeliever, or he will wrest from us every argument which defends our Christian institutions. We can no longer leave so precious, so vital a body of laws and usages as those which defend the Sabbath, Christian marriage, the sacred name of God, and the oath, exposed to the argument drawn from a Constitution which contains no utterance in their favor. We must throw around them the shield of constitutional provision, we must provide for them a basis in our fundamental law, or they perish out of our life as a nation.

Right of a Christian People to a Christian Government

A principle of political science too frequently ignored in our day and in our country is the right of society as against the so-called rights of the individual. True liberty, and that means both civil and religious liberty, regards the rights of the whole body as well as the rights of the constituent members of the social unit. Indeed, its chief regard must be for the former, inasmuch as the maintenance and security of these is essential to the maintenance and security of the latter. Dr. Frances Lieber, the eminent publicist, defining true liberty, says:

It consists in the civil guarantees of those principles which are most favorable to a manly independence, and ungrudged enjoyment of individual humanity; and those guarantees which ensure the people, meaning the totality of the individuals as a unit, or the nation, against being driven from the pursuit of those high aims which have been assigned to it by Providence as a nation or as a united people. Where the one or the other is omitted, or exclusively pursued, there is no full liberty.

If it is asked what the rights of society are, the answer is found in the words of the above extract--"the pursuit of those high aims which have been assigned to it by Providence as a nation." And if Providence, interpreted by the historical and documentary evidence that America was founded and was developed as a Christian nation on Christian principles, has assigned to America one high aim above all others, it is to maintain her Christian institutions of government. Our country has no enemies to be so greatly dreaded as those aggressors who, in the name of religious liberty and individual rights of conscience, are infringing upon the rights of Christian people. If those men but knew it, in their assaults upon our national Christianity they are striking at the bulwarks of the nation's freedom, and destroying their own liberties. The National Reform Association is striving to prevent the nation from being driven from the high Christian aims assigned to it by Providence, and in this noble work it is the champio n of the truest liberty. It would save those inherited institutions of national Christianity which have been giving to the men who seek to strike them down, the very rights and privileges which they now enjoy, and of which, in their blindness, they would rob both themselves and others.

Judge Cooley, while vigorously defending religious freedom, and while making concessions that would embarrass the maintenance of our national Christianity, still holds that civil authorities should not be restrained "from such solemn recognition of a superintending Providence in public transactions and exercises...." He states further:

Whatever may be the shades of religious belief, all must acknowledge the fitness of recognizing in important human affairs the superintending care and control of the Governor of the universe, and of acknowledging with thanksgiving His boundless favors, or bowing in contrition when visited with the penalties of His broken laws.... Nor, while recognizing a superintending Providence, are we always precluded from recognizing also, in the rules prescribed for the conduct of the citizen, the notorious [well-known] fact that the prevailing religion in the states is Christian.... The same reasons of state policy which induce government to aid institutions of charity and seminaries of instruction will incline it also to foster religious worship and religious instruction, as conservators of the public morals, and valuable, if not indispensable, assistants to the preservation of public order.

The Supreme Court of Maine has given clear and strong expression to the right of the state against that of the individual. Suit was brought by a scholar against the superintending school committee, who required the reading of the Bible by all the school. Judge Appleton held that a citizen is not absolved from obedience to rules and laws, "because they may conflict with his conscientious views of religious duty and right. To allow this would be to subordinate the state to the individual conscience.... With laws dispensed with whenever they happen to come into collision with some supposed religious obligation, government would be perpetually falling short of the exigency."

The Legislature of New York has borne a remarkable testimony to this principle of true religious liberty. Its act of April 11, 1842, intended to guard the rights of conscience in connection with the Christian common schools, provides that "nothing herein contained shall authorize the Board of Education [of the city of New York] to exclude the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, or any selections therefrom, from any of the schools provided for in this act."

Free schools, free to the masses of the people, and free as seminaries of liberty, not of licentiousness, while they are not to be sectarian, are nevertheless not to be secular or godless, but Christian. To be and continue free, they must be Christian.

Summing up these principles of Christian political science we have:

1. The nation is a collective being, with moral character and accountability, directly responsible to the Author of its existence, God Himself.
2. As such a moral being, a true moral person, it is under the moral law of the Supreme Ruler of nations, which includes both the law of nature and the Revealed Will of God.
3. The necessary aims of national life compel the nation, in its own proper sphere, as distinct from that of the church, to have regard to the moral laws of the Christian religion, and to base its action upon these or set itself against them.
4. The written constitution of a nation to which Providence has given an unwritten and vital Christian constitution, should correspond, in explicit terms, to that which it is designed to express and authenticate; and the Christian principles which are fundamental to the nation's life should be embodied in fundamental law as the supreme rule, under God, of the government which the nation establishes as its agent.
5. Christianity, as "the perfect law of liberty" for nations as well as individuals, can infringe on no man's rights of conscience. In being true to this law, the nation best preserves its own rights and liberties, and those of all its citizens and subjects.

On this firm philosophical basis, and in harmony with the principles of sound political science, the National Reform Association finds a solid foundation.

David McAllister (1835-1907) was one of the founding editors of The Christian Statesman in 1867 and was the editor of this journal for many years. He also served at one time as general secretary of the National Reform Association. He was vice president of Geneva College and held there the Chair of Political Science. He was also the pastor of Pittsburgh Reformed Presbyterian Church from 1887 until his death in 1907.

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