The American republic is the product of historical western heritage. The western heritage banks upon the mosaic of Greco-roman concepts and the Judeo-Christian ideas. Early Christianity was not temporal but a spiritual movement. It had none of the attributes of the political one. The two streams of thought overlapped after few centuries. Under the ambit of sweeping intellectual reforms carried out by great thinkers like Aquinas, some changes were introduced to harmonize both Christianity and Greco-roman traditions.
After Renaissance, Greco-roman tradition bounced back with full fervor and the whole weight of the reformation-enlightenment era was the exclusion of the church from the political realm. This particular idea was thrust into law by the first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America. The significance of the individual and the sanctity of life were all central to the conceptions of Plato, Aristotle, or Cicero. Regard for the individual occupies a large chunk of their writings.
There is a concept of rule of law. It is very much special to the Greco-roman concepts. Though considerable time was consumed to collect strength against the encroachments of plunderers. Again and again, in the writings of Greco-roman authors, we are overwhelmed with the idea to revere the rule of law, as it is the starting point of all happiness. The Greeks proved their reverence for the laws by holding in esteem Draco as “Draco the Lawgiver”. However, the Judeo-Christian idea of law was manifestly spiritual and non-political. When Christ was shown the visible clash between the secular and religious law, he uttered, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s”.
Citizenship was also a Greek idea, which was elaborated and refined by the Romans. The idea of democracy is Greek innovation. The concept of the republic is a Roman invention (“res publica” — public affairs). The Roman Republic was in existence before the arrival of Christ for about 400 years back..” Their major contributions are strong laws, the importance of the state, the idea of a “heroic” leader, and a strong leader with a strong senate (Devine, 2004).
These ideas all highly provided a source of inspiration to the founding fathers of the American constitution. The founding fathers mostly imbibed the enlightenment traditions. Thomson Jefferson was the ardent supporter of this school of thought. If we comb the writings and operations of the founding fathers, it becomes more than obvious that they did not want even the most negligible traces of religion as part of the constitution.
The first amendment is holistic and absolute: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, none prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” There is a small difference between our interpretation of the term “respecting” and their meaning of that term. For the Founding Fathers, it meant both “advancing” and “with respect to”. It is the latter one, which is more than absolute. They assert openly that congress shall make no laws concerning any religion.
In those times there were laws, which demanded that citizens should pay dues to the ecclesiastical authorities. The first amendment in fact was aimed at eliminating the influence of these laws. There were many attempts to secretly introduce clauses in the constitution to bring back the influence of outdated laws but these attempts were very well foiled. As a matter of illustration, we can point out here that one clause of the constitution says that congress shall have the power to choose the method of electing its members. This clause was a source of concern for many supporters of the rights of the state as it was an affront to the internal working of the individual states.
Even so, it went owing to the fact that a number of states had electoral laws that put limitations on the candidacy of Christians. Such laws contravened the intentions of the Founding Fathers that even the states’ rights support accepting the logic. “He Declaration of Independence was a call to arms, intended to be a stirring document inspiring citizens to bold and dangerous action” (Judeo-Christian heritage?, errasmatz library).
American society desires freedom, energy, and a capable government, which can shield its citizens against all kinds of threats against the right of citizens to exercise, their freedom legitimately. The constitution is highly reminiscent of the ideas of John Locke. He supports the idea that no one should possess absolute power. It is his ideas, which were highly influential in the formation of the constitution. The distribution of power vested in various governmental departments is an indicator of the fact that no one is vested with the concentration of power.
No individual but institutions are holding the reins of the country whether it is executive or legislature; the Monarchical conception of power is gone forever. The separation of powers is the fundamental basis of the constitution from which flows all the essential conditions of a republic and assertion of individual freedoms. It curtails the excessive intrusion of the state in the lives of the citizens.
The constitution specifies the mode of running of the government. It elaborated that which branch of government will execute which functions and so on. This intersects with the ideas of Locke, who outlines how men congregate from the commonwealth and bring themselves under the jurisdiction of the government for the protection of their property. He also puts in detail that how societies should be governed by rules and what are the actual contents of those rules. The constitution espouses the detailed distribution of powers among the pillars of the state and those of course are the executive, legislature, and judiciary.
The great political thinker also envisioned a system of check and balance that would compel all organs of the state to work in a manner, which is constitutional, and if any organ exceeds its limits certain foolproof measures automatically come into play. The conception of check and balance is the parlance of Locke s’ idea of absolute equality of mankind. The right to exercise the will of the people by means of the electoral process with each citizen having this right without any discrimination is a reminder of the thoughts of this political thinker. This is common to both constitution and Locke. He and our founding fathers concur that all citizens have equal rights to be heard in this great country, which stands for the freedom of all people without any kind of discrimination.
Locke s’ philosophy suggests that everyone should have equal opportunities and he or she must be allowed to avail themselves. He says that nature endows everybody to exercise power. He pumps up tenderness, saying that the safety of an individual is not for offensive purposes but he must strive to safeguard the preservation of others also. He stresses that all mankind is equal by all accounts and everyone is born with certain fundamental rights, which cannot be detached under any circumstances. It simply that these rights have been conferred by no other than providence and they can neither be given nor taken.
Before him, life, liberty, and property are some of the most sacred fundamental rights. His theory of natural rights was ultimately accepted and used as the fundamental basis of making the nitty-gritty of the revolution under the able-minded leadership of Thomson Jefferson. The greatest political philosopher says that the most fundamental human law of nature is the safety of mankind.
His conception of the property goes far beyond merely mentioning the land and good which could be marketable or taken possession of by the government under typical circumstances. It extends to embrace the ownership of one’s self, which also means the right to private welfare. It is exactly here from Thomson extracted the term “pursuit of happiness”. Both personalities had much in common. Both agreed that people were the arbiter of the destiny of the government.
It derived its legitimacy from the volition of the people. As long as people want a certain regime to continue to look after the interests of the people, it must remain but if it is contrary it should accordingly cease to exist. They are of the opinion that laws were subject to the will of the people and they could make or unmake laws according to their dynamic needs. All people should also follow natural laws. The declaration of independence stands for that ‘all men are created equal’. This is the greatest reflection of the ideas of Locke who most strenuously argued that all creatures of the same species and born under the same conditions are equal before each other.
Another intersection is their common references to providence. While Locke sees these rights to be the right of self-preservation and to take punitive measures against those who violate these rights within rational limits, on the other hand, the founding father treats them as “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” All that Locke stands for is equality of citizens in the eyes of the state. If one is tending to go astray it is the responsibility of the government to take action with prudence. All branches of the government must act with the parameters of the constitution and there are certain boundaries of each of these branches of the government that must not exceed.
What responsibilities do individual citizens have in such a system for the maintenance of a healthy and productive society?
It was Glaucon who said that people would be inclined to move in a just manner only on the condition that such an act is instrumental in the accomplishment of their desires and necessitates. No people should act in an imbalanced way for the sake of society and no rational society is going to appreciate it. As a useful ingredient of society, we all share explicit and implicit responsibilities to guarantee a healthy and peaceful society.
These values, which we must cherish, are important but they vary in their significance. However, they have some importance. They do not end with certain fairness, affection with neighbors, actions steeped in morality, biased free attitude, listening patiently to the views of others, the pursuit of learning to maximize the potential of the society, noble acts, struggle for the right which have been usurped or these is such danger of being usurped, work legitimately to make a living and obey the commandments of just laws. Being honest demands a neutral approach in search of truth. Honestly has not been able to entrench itself as a cultural norm in society.
Honesty is a matter of conviction. It is about when one thinks that his worldview is truly right and he says it all from the depth of his conscience. Honesty is the maker of one s’ character and it shares common functions with integrity. The latter shape a larger pie of
forming character than any other sort of mannerism. It stands not merely for honesty but it also constructs the reputation of a person with others and thus a person gains ground in society and his views start to carry weight in the effective sections of the society.
Voting is the most important onus, which citizens of a responsible state owe to their state and society and for the sake of their well-being too. When a citizen is discontented with living conditions or feels anything missing or wrong with the apparatus of government machinery he can exercise his vote to send the existing government out of power. If a citizen does not activate his right to vote and the government at hand persists in follies, naturally citizen becomes an accomplice in the crimes committed and he is also infringing the rights of all fellow citizens by allowing the negligent government to rule in an unjust manner.
The matter here is not only the preservation of the right of a single citizen but of the entire community. If all citizens become conscious of their voting strength they can accomplish anything but politically on earth. Not voting is also the negation of all respect for the long struggle of our forefathers who waged their efforts unceasingly to bring about a democratic dispensation in which nothing matters a lot but just the right to voting. In any capacity, a citizen must vote.
He or she may belong to any section of society, but the responsibility is equal as everyone s’ right to vote is equal. This right is inherent in-laws as the representatives sent in the legislature’s draft laws. If legislatures do not represent the interests of the majority of the people, they would not make laws keeping in view the interests of commoners. This will initiate the intrusion of certain vices in the system, which would engulf society soon.
America is the land of a free nation and everyone is free to pick one s’ mode of life here subject to the laws of the land. Every citizen shares the responsibility to make America great and a living beacon of idealistic values for the citizens of the rest of the countries. It is possible only when we act gracefully and cherish these values and keep them close to our hearts rather than merely a show-up. The most important thing, which citizens of an ideal state must follow, is the complete submission to the commandments of laws.
This is crucial to the formation of a healthy and productive society. It has been historically proved that societies cannot survive when discrimination is exercised in the follow up of laws and certain individuals or sections of society have privileges, which are denied, to other sections of the society.
All citizens must be equally placed and all forms of discrimination must be uprooted. It is only when a large number of citizens against whom any excess is being perpetrated, feel their responsibilities and come forward to raise their voice to alter laws according to standards prescribed by the constitution. Citizens should most vociferously act to safeguard the interests of all sections of society failing which the country may suffer from decline among the comity of nations. The responsibility and freedom carry great significance in the eyes of the founding fathers as is exemplified in the declaration of independence.
This document also appeals to the citizens that it is the right of the people to have the pursuit of happiness and to make this right possible for all. The rich citizens have the responsibility to give their wealth away so that the poor one benefit from it and share some of the happiness of lives and make it less burdensome for them. The founding fathers also believed that “no man is made more honorable than another or wealthier and out of any particular and singular respect to him.” He also attempted to appeal to the Christian side of life and believed that the rich should give or sell their wealth to the poor (Western Visions pp. 206- 207).
Constitution, which was, drafted in the initial phases of American life, also suggests that citizens are free to exercise their rights and thus facilitates and heartens them to execute their rights in a conscientious way. It is most vocal of the fact that the right of the citizens cannot be encroached or usurped by the state in any manner or method. (Western Visions, p. 237).
Even with solid guarantees available America witnessed a long struggle waged by different sections of society to assert their equal rights. Slaves, women, and black Americans were subject to discrimination but they stood their ground and persisted in what they thought for themselves and followed in the traditions of the founding fathers to raise their voice to exercise their interests. In the absence of people like Martin Luther King, Chief Seattle, Malcolm X, Abigail Adams, and Mary Wollstonecraft, minorities would have still subject to the injustices. It was Adams who stressed that women must be given civilized treatment and they are not the property of men whom they must police.
Mary Wollstonecraft was also another advocate of the assertion of the freedoms of women. She stood for the ground that women must be allowed to be educated and they could contribute to the well-being of society. These two women played a great role in bringing the agony of women in limelight and encouraged them to throw away the traditional yoke of slavery and come forward and snatch their rights. The teachings of all these great men and women make us know that we must all concede the rights of others and raise our voice against the injustice whether it is being perpetrated against our own interest or against the interest of others with whom we are not associated.
Reference
Bellevue University (2003). Western Vision and American Values. United States of America.
Donald J. Devine (2004). In Defense of the West. United Press of America, Inc, Lanham, MD.
errasmatz library(2004). Judeo-Christian heritage?. Web.