The inevitable price of separation will be a civil war. This price alone is too much to bear in our present circumstance, yet it is the loss of our national inheritance that will be the costliest price of a national divorce.
The Founders gave us the Declaration as our golden apple and the Constitution as the silver frame around it. The American Creed formulated and embodied therein has made our republic the freest and most prosperous nation ever.
Undoubtedly, there are many hardships in the preservation of our Union that we wish to be without. But if we throw away our inheritance in exchange for such an end, then we are as imbecilic as Esau was when he threw away his birthright for stew.
Conservatives may say that the Left is attacking and destroying our inheritance and thus separation is the only way to protect the American Creed. Many leftists are assaulting the Creed, but the answer isn’t to pick up a sledgehammer and help them finish the job.
It may be objected still that absent the Left it would be far easier to preserve and expand upon our Creed. We may suppose that the various factions of Republicanism, having among each other greater understanding and unity, shall be more inclined to tranquility. To suppose this is to forget history. Was it not divisions within the Christian religion that necessitated the Peace of Westphalia? Is the Grand Old Party immune to that which not even the Church is? Strife will surely arise amongst ourselves.
And if we should be so fortunate as to produce immediate reforms that are just and wise, something which is neither guaranteed nor likely, they will be doomed to destruction; for in separating, we will establish the very tool that will destroy not only our present government, but the ones to follow.
A national divorce provides future generations with the precedent that when they grow irritated with the democratic process and republican institutions, they can simply abandon them. We shall find our government made impotent by even the smallest minority.
Liberty is as fragile as it is rare. Governments that strive to uphold liberty are scarce, and governments that succeed in doing so are even moreso. It is our system of governance that allows for the endurance of our inheritance. To strike at the system is to forfeit that inheritance.
Over two centuries after the Founding, America remains the last, best hope on Earth. No other nation has succeeded in building for itself an inheritance of liberty equal to ours. Nations which have attained liberty of an inferior nature have done so with that which only the city on the hill provides them.
The American Creed is distinct from the American System, and it should be the fervent prayer of all who love liberty that another nation’s system someday embodies it, but at present, the Creed and the System remain inseparable. There is but one inheritance, one golden apple.
To throw it away is to do what Reagan warned against, sentencing our children to a thousand years of darkness. The American inheritance will become that of Edom’s. We owe it to both the previous generations whose sacrifices secured our inheritance, and those future generations yet unborn to ensure the republic endures.
Cease the calls for separation and recognize the exceptionalism of the American experiment. Adhere to our Creed, give reverence to our inheritance, and see that forfeiting that inheritance is in no one’s interest.
Jack Shields
Jack Shields is a graduate of Texas A&M University and is currently attending Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He is an editor and columnist for Lone Conservative, and a reporter for The College Fix.
The views expressed in this article are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Lone Conservative staff.
@Jack_Shields20
