My final argument against a national divorce has been touched on in nearly every other argument, but its importance warrants standalone thoughts.
The United States isn’t just a nation, it’s an experiment. Before the founding of our nation, mankind was almost universally subject to wretched despotism. Kings and queens declared themselves greater than those they were equal to, oppressing them for the sake of whatever selfish ends they desired. In the few feeble attempts at democracy, tyranny of the majority arose.
Our government is an experiment of liberty—an attempt at republicanism that rejects the tyranny of both monarchy and democracy. It is built upon the consent of the governed and the recognition and protection of the people’s lives, liberties, and property. The natural law, and the Creator from whom it originates, were expressly acknowledged by our founding documents, and in so doing the positive law was restrained by that higher law.
It cannot be overstated how revolutionary these things were and still are. Upon our founding, the city on the hill awoke, and at once the eyes of the world turned to see if this experiment would prevail or if darkness would overcome it.
The Framers and those other great American generations knew our government was a grand experiment of liberty. George Washington said in his inaugural address, “[T]he preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” Thomas Jefferson said, “[T]hat the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.”
That our nation gives credence to either liberty or tyranny on the basis of our success or failure has placed a responsibility upon us that persists to this day.
Slavery and segregation anywhere is evil, but American slavery and segregation was the worst, as our Creed exposed how evil it was, yet we engaged in it nonetheless. Our sin not only defiled our own nation, but stained the very notion of liberty itself.
Even before he was president, Lincoln understood this, saying of slavery, “I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world–enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites.”
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address would most poignantly define America’s essential purpose. Our republic was and is still “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” As it was in the midst of the Civil War, it remains a question “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure?”
The American experiment has already had tremendous benefits. The world is more free and prosperous than ever before thanks to our efforts. Yet even still, the experiment remains in its infancy and has yet to prove to be either a success or a failure. No other nation has achieved a level of liberty on par with ours. Much of the world remains under the darkness of tyranny. And there are those who desire to see us fail.
The Chinese are attacking our system and our empire of liberty; doing all in their power to ensure the Evil Empire subdues the world. The Russians have similarly declared our system ending as they attempt to supplant us on the world stage. For these tyrants, the failure of the American experiment is a condemnation of liberty and an endorsement of the oppression they wish to subject the world to.
If we pursue disunion, we are declaring to the world that America is a failure; that the experiment of liberty is a failure. A national divorce is a resounding repudiation of our Founders’ insistence that republicanism is just and that men do not need a master. The failure of America would perhaps be the greatest proof of the necessity and validity of tyranny this world has ever seen.
The experiment of liberty must work. If men are to be free, if the empire of liberty is to prevail, America must endure. National divorce cannot be allowed.
Upon our nation, and our nation alone, is the ability to bring forth a golden age of liberty for all mankind, or surrender it to an endless tyranny. It is our responsibility to ensure that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. A national divorce will ensure the interests of those who love liberty are destroyed forever. Let us resolve to abandon the notion of disunion and prove this experiment to be a success.
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
