EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s that time of year again when political campaigns are in full swing, and citizens are tasked with the job of figuring out who’s the right person for the job. The rhetoric is flying in all directions, there are a multitude of opinions, and the different media platforms seem to be in constant meltdown mode over a politician’s words and/or actions. So, what is a citizen’s responsibility in all this back and forth? How do we filter everything into a proper and informed decision?
Every election is important because we have an opportunity to choose those who best represent our values and principles. The editorial below was written for a different midterm period, but the information is just as valid to consider for this cycle. Let us be informed and share what we learn as we gain understanding.
Ramon Arias | October 27, 2014
Every election is important because it produces consequences for better or for worse. No election is inconsequential; this includes the mid-term elections, which are despised by millions. No person that is appealing to the community to be their representatives at any level lacks importance.
In every election, people vote for ideas and principles whether they understand this or not. Others do understand this and know full well what agenda they are promoting. Since the political machinery was invented, the tendency is for one political party to dominate the national and international scope of life. In the United States of America it is becoming clearer, at least to a good portion of the voting population, that there are only two main political agendas with opposing views. One is determined to transform America’s foundation into some worldview that has proven to produce devastation wherever it is implemented. The other has some of the same elements within its ranks but for the most part they proclaim to uphold the original principles that make this nation unique.
Just like you want the best medical attention for you and your loved ones, or the best service in any given area, the same principle applies when selecting any official to public service because they will be working for you. It is inevitable that his or her decisions are going to impact the future of your family and generations to come.
Yes, it does take a lot of work to research and know your candidates’ values and political convictions in any given area. It is not just the office of the presidency that affects our lives for better or for worse. I strongly encourage you to get to know your local candidates, if they are serving as public officials or have served check their voting records while they were in office. Even if they have not served in public office, you can still find out a lot about the values they uphold. Do your best effort to know about every candidate running for U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representative, State Senate, Statehouse, County Commissioner (including those at large), Clerk of Court, County Chairs, State Supreme Court Chief Justice, State Supreme Court Associate Justice, Court of Appeals, Superior Court, County Board of Education, Ward, and any other elected position. You also have to pay special attention to the proposed laws that come with every election.
Failure to do our homework in knowing whom to vote for, or if we failed to vote for, does have consequences, and we have no one else to blame but ourselves. America has been rejecting God’s moral absolutes, but not without the permission of Christians. Restoring America back to her foundation will require that Christians take personal responsibility in electing godly individuals in the stature of the Forefathers and the Founding Fathers and their respective generations who understood the importance of being under God’s law and order.
Long before America was born as a nation William Penn (October 14, 1644–July 30, 1718), founded the province of Pennsylvania, and said:
“Governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. . . . Let men be good and the government cannot be bad. . . . [T]hough good laws do well, good men do better; for good laws may want [lack] good men . . . but good men will never want [lack] good laws nor suffer [allow bad] ill ones.”
Let us look at the counsel of those who would be considered extreme radicals nowadays by those on the left:
John Adams
“We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands; we have a check upon two branches of the legislature . . . the power I mean of electing at stated periods [each] branch. . . . It becomes necessary to every [citizen] then, to be in some degree a statesman, and to examine and judge for himself of the tendency of political principles and measures. Let us examine, then, with a sober, a manly . . . and a Christian spirit; let us neglect all party [loyalty] and advert to facts; let us believe no man to be infallible or impeccable in government any more than in religion; take no man’s word against evidence, nor implicitly adopt the sentiments of others who may be deceived themselves, or may be interested in deceiving us.”
[John Adams, The Papers of John Adams, Robert J. Taylor, ed. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1977), Vol. 1, p. 81, from “‘U’ to the Boston Gazette” written on August 29, 1763.]
Samuel Adams
“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual – or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.”
[Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), Vol. IV, p. 256, in the Boston Gazette on April 16, 1781.]
“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust be men of unexceptionable characters. The public cannot be too curious concerning the character of public men.”
[Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), Vol. III, p. 236-237, to James Warren on November 4, 1775.]
Matthias Burnett
“Consider well the important trust . . . which God . . . [has] put into your hands. . . . To God and posterity you are accountable for [your rights and your rulers]. . . . Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you. . . . [L]ook well to the characters and qualifications of those you elect and raise to office and places of trust. . . . Think not that your interests will be safe in the hands of the weak and ignorant; or faithfully managed by the impious, the dissolute and the immoral. Think not that men who acknowledge not the providence of God nor regard His laws will be uncorrupt in office, firm in defense of the righteous cause against the oppressor, or resolutely oppose the torrent of iniquity. . . . Watch over your liberties and privileges – civil and religious – with a careful eye.”
[Matthias Burnett, Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Norwalk, An Election Sermon, Preached at Hartford, on the Day of the Anniversary Election, May 12, 1803 (Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin, 1803), pp. 27-28.]
Frederick Douglass
“I have one great political idea. . . . That idea is an old one. It is widely and generally assented to; nevertheless, it is very generally trampled upon and disregarded. The best expression of it, I have found in the Bible. It is in substance, ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation; sin is a reproach to any people’ [Proverbs 14:34]. This constitutes my politics – the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole of my politics. . . . I feel it my duty to do all in my power to infuse this idea into the public mind, that it may speedily be recognized and practiced upon by our people.”
[Frederick Douglass, The Frederick Douglass Papers, John Blassingame, editor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), Vol. 2, p. 397, from a speech delivered at Ithaca, New York, October 14th, 1852.]
Charles Finney
“[T]he time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them. . . . Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has come when they must act differently. . . . Christians seem to act as if they thought God did not see what they do in politics. But I tell you He does see it – and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course they [Christians] take [in politics].”
[Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1868), Lecture XV, pp. 281-282.]
James Garfield
“Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. . . . [I]f the next centennial does not find us a great nation . . . it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.”
[James A. Garfield, The Works of James Abram Garfield, Burke Hinsdale, editor (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1883), Vol. II, pp. 486, 489, “A Century of Congress,” July, 1877.]
Francis Grimke
“If the time ever comes when we shall go to pieces, it will . . . be . . . from inward corruption – from the disregard of right principles . . . from losing sight of the fact that ‘Righteousness exalteth a nation, but that sin is a reproach to any people’ [Proverbs 14:34]. . . .[T]he secession of the Southern States in 1860 was a small matter with the secession of the Union itself from the great principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, in the Golden Rule, in the Ten Commandments, in the Sermon on the Mount. Unless we hold, and hold firmly to these great fundamental principles of righteousness, . . . our Union . . . will be ‘only a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.’”
[Rev. Francis J. Grimke, from “Equality of Right for All Citizens, Black and White, Alike,” March 7, 1909, published in Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence, Alice Moore Dunbar, editor (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2000), pp. 246-247.]
John Jay
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
[John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed. (New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1890), Vol. IV, p. 365.]
“The Americans are the first people whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing the forms of government under which they should live.”
[John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed. (New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1890), Vol. I, p. 161.]
Thomas Jefferson
“The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people.”
[Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, ed. (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903), Vol. 10, p. 235.]
“[S]hould things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights.”
[Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford, ed. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), Vol. 10, p. 245.]
Daniel Webster
“Impress upon children the truth that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every elector is a trustee as well for others as himself and that every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own.”
[Daniel Webster, The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1853), Vol. II, p. 108, from remarks made at a public reception by the ladies of Richmond, Virginia, on October 5, 1840.]
Noah Webster
“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate – look to his character. . . . When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor, he betrays the interest of his country.”
[Noah Webster, Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education to which is subjoined a Brief History of the United States (New Haven: S. Converse, 1823), pp. 18, 19.]
“When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, ‘just men who will rule in the fear of God.’ The preservation of government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”
[Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), pp. 336-337, �49.]
John Witherspoon
“Those who wish well to the State ought to choose to places of trust men of inward principle, justified by exemplary conversation. . . .[And t]he people in general ought to have regard to the moral character of those whom they invest with authority either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches.”
[John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), Vol. IV, pp. 266, 277.] 1
Only heartless Christians can continue to ignore the condition of our dying nation. On the other hand, other Christians are beginning to understand their responsibility for our dire situation and are rising up. Let us pray it is not too late for God Almighty to give us another opportunity to turn America back to Him.