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We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future

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This is a well-written, thoughtful and very timely book that I believe every American would do well to read, regardless of political persuasion. Whether you're liberal or conservative, you will learn something about the history of American political ideas, and you'll learn a lot about how profoundly different our government is today from the American government of the 1787 Constitution. You'll encounter scores of amazing quotes from the Founders and 20th century figures that you've probably never heard.

The book focuses on ten principles: Liberty, Equality, Natural Rights, Consent of the Governed, Religious Freedom, Private Property, the Rule of Law, Constitutionalism, Self-Government, and Independence. It concludes with two chapters -- The New Republic, which describes the ideas of the Progressive movement, and American Renewal, which makes the case for a return to the ideas of the American Revolution.

The author, Matthew Spalding, is associated with the Heritage Foundation. This may cause many on the Left to dismiss the book without reading it, and many on the Right to expect another conservative manifesto, but both of them would be wrong. If you read this book, you will have a better appreciation of the history and evolution of ideas that gave us the government we have today. In The New Republic, Spalding does a remarkable job of connecting the dots from the new thinking about relativism and human nature in 1900 to the New Deal, Great Society, public education, and the role of the judiciary, in a single chapter.

You will gain from reading about the Founders' idea of natural rights, and the Progressives' very different idea of rights that should be guaranteed by government. These different ideas are at the basis of many political debates and conflicts. You may or may not change your mind, but you will better understand the "other side".

This is a book about ideas and principles, just as the subtitle says; there's only a page or two about current political issues. In American Renewal, Spalding is concerned with systemic issues such as civic education in high schools, treatment of the Constitution in law schools, how Congress delegates legislation to bureaucrats and regulators, and how government has become so much more centralized. But it's hard to see what would cause these things to change, unless there's a broad reawakening on the part of the American public.

The book begins with an introduction about the National Archives building in Washington, where the original Declaration of Independence and Constitution are on display. It quotes President Harry Truman, dedicating the building in 1952, saying that liberty "can be lost, and it will be, if the time ever comes when these documents are regarded not as the supreme expression of our profound beliefs, but merely as curiosities in glass cases." It grieves me to say this, but I think that is where we are today. Most Americans I know have at best a fuzzy idea of what these documents say, and almost no idea what they mean in practical terms. It's obvious that Congress pretty much ignores constitutional limits on its power (this book will help you understand how this came to be). But Spalding is optimistic: In his final chapter he writes "Our principles always await rediscovery, not because they are written on faded parchments in glass cases, but because the immutable truths of liberty are eternally etched on the human soul." I hope that he is right.

A prodigious work communicating the foundation of our American society and government. Although I've had the opportunity to read just the first two chapters, I find its style and substance enriching.

For me, so far, this book clearly explained: The Founders believed our rights do not emanate from our great Constitution, but pre-date that work. They are not directly from the great documents of Great Britain. Indeed, they do not come from this or that legal document at all (an easy mindset to adopt in America and the West). Instead, the author illustrates how our rights are Natural Rights springing from our human nature. And, that the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There is no book I have seen that better explains the theological, philosophical, historical, and political roots for the creation by the Founders of the American Constitution and the U.S. government than "We Still Hold These Truths." Anyone who has any interest in understanding and maintaining the freedom and prosperity that has characterized America for the past 200+ years needs to read this book.

If you are looking to better understand the meaning of the "Declaration of Independence" and "The Constitution," especially the way it's authors intended it to interpreted, "We Still Hold These Truths" is the book for you. The book is a well written, easily understandable look at a vitally important subject, whose meaning is invariably twisted by liberal and so called conservative leaders alike. Going back to the Constitution's foundational principles contained in "The Ten Commandments," that were championed by our wise, God fearing forefathers could turn the woes of the nation around. The self evident,unchanging truths found in Scripture, "The Declaration of Independence" and "Constitution" are what enabled The United States to become the shinning light to the rest of the world that it became. Matthew Spalding substantiates his arguments with many quotes from the document's writers, which give insight into the wisdom and moral integrity of these men. He also discusses the founder's views on the tough issue of slavery. How we treated the Indians wasn't mentioned, but Westward expansion had not taken place at that time, while slavery was a huge issue in the light of founder's contention that "all men are created equal, with certain inalienable rights." This book will give you a deep appreciation for not only our founding fathers and the enlightened documents they wrote, but for our Godly history as well. I also very much appreciated the moral integrity I saw in the author own personal beliefs, which were presented in a gentle, not heavy handed manner.

Matthew Spalding has written a timely book for all Americans!

Reading the book, I found myself contrasting the principles of our Founding Fathers elaborated in our Freedom Documents - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights - with what is happening today.

Spalding enumerates the founding principles of our Nation: Liberty, Equality, Natural Rights, Consent of the Governed, Religious Freedom, Private Property, the Rule of Law, Constitutionalism, Self-Government, and Independence.

The Declaration of Independence listed the core principles of our Nation, the Constitution provided a means to realize those principles, and the Bill of Rights protects the right of American citizens.

However, what do we have today? Progressives speak of a "living Constitution" and have interpreted the Constitution in light of modern events, only to increase central authority. But the Constitution is a piece of paper, not a living organism! The Constitution enumerates the principles that have led to the greatest and most lasting nation ever, because it allowed individual freedom!

Americans know our Nation is in trouble. Matthew Spalding proposes a return to our founding principles to reclaim our future. And what is encouraging is that he is optimistic!

Revisionist history is alive and well and rampant in our public schools. Spalding retraces our nation's heritage from the first colonists to break free from the political and religious tyranny that permeated the governmental elite so rampant in 17th & 18th century Europe. Read "We Still Hold..." and you will once again know what an exceptional and grand "experiment" that America was, and still is.

Whether you are Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or a-religious, if you will read this book with an open mind, you will be energized to boldly proclaim and live out the freedoms and ideals that are the bedrock of who and what Americans and our great nation were intended to be from our earliest beginnings.

Dr. Matthew Spalding's "We Still Hold These Truths" succintly restates the fundamental principles of the American constitutional order in one modest volume. Spalding clearly relates the basics of the U.S. Constitution through the philosophical prism of the Declaration of Independence. Crucially, he also includes an important chapter addressing the anti-constitutional, anti-Declarational progressivism. The book also points the way to a variety of other books and written works that provide more in-depth treatment of the topics under discussion.

This book is especially relevant for these times when our constitutional system of limited government, free markets, and individual liberty are under attack by massive increases in government power through out-of-control spending, arbitrary regulation, etc. If I were to pick a half-dozen "must reads" for the citizen who cares about upholding the principles of the Declaration and the integrity of the Constitution, "We Still Hold These Truths" would be on it.

Those new to these topics will benefit from the case for the Declaration and Constitution that Spalding has put together. Even serious students of history and constitutionalism can benefit by absorbing the book's succint delivery and thereby becoming better public advocates of fundamental American principles of liberty and self-government. In my view, Spalding's work here is flawless. I will be sure to re-read "We Hold These Truths" in the years ahead.

"We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future" by Matthew Spalding is a must-read for every American who wishes to return a great nation to its true principles.

Spalding, the Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation with a doctorate in government from Claremont Graduate School, has written a beautiful, yet melancholy book. His prose is exceptional, his command of history impressive. In only 239 pages Spalding illuminates the principles of the American founding, how we took those principles for granted and began to lose them, and why we need to "reclaim" those principles.

Spalding crisply sets out the essential foundations of America's beginnings in "We Still Hold These Truths," taking 186 pages to set out in nine chapters the basis of what some still rightly call "American Exceptionalism."

Chapter One, "A New Nation, Conceived in Liberty: The Roots of American Freedom," explains the American concept of liberty, how Revolutionary-era Americans practiced it, and who and what they drew upon for inspiration (the Bible, practical experience, and Locke's "Two Treatises of Government").

Chapter Two, "We Hold These Truths: Equality, Natural Rights, and the Consent of the Governed," sets the historical and philosophical stage for the Declaration of Independence, something that its primary author, Thomas Jefferson said was simply "an expression of the American mind." The Declaration uses Natural Law as justification for equal rights. Writing of the soon to be independent colonists, Jefferson said the Americans claimed "their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate (the king)." Later in the book, Spalding quotes President Calvin Coolidge using the principles of the Declaration of Independence in a devastating critique of progressivism: "About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions."

Chapter Three examines America's religious liberty and the linkage between faith and liberty.

Chapter Four discusses private property and prosperity in a commercial republic.

Chapter Five delves into rule of law and our Constitution with the aim being, as John Adams said of the Massachusetts Constitution he wrote in 1780, "to the end it may be a government of laws, not of men."

Chapter Six explains how the purpose of constitutionalism is limited government so as to secure our "unalienable rights."

Chapter Seven deals with how the principles of the Constitution play out in practice, discussing representation, separation of powers, federalism, and judicial review. It also has a needed treatment of the one of the salient compromises of the Constitution: slavery - one that progressive critics, aggressive opponents of the Constitution because it stands athwart their big government plans, have used to bash the Constitution and the Founders as fatally flawed from the start.

Chapter Eight details self-government, at the virtuous individual level ("Where licentiousness begins liberty ends," said a Revolutionary period pastor), in families, in associations, and in local and state government.

Chapter Nine outlines America's place in the world as an independent nation having a "separate and equal station" with the world's other nations. Prudence, guided by justice, is to be applied in foreign affairs, so that America's citizens may enjoy safety and happiness. The cause of liberty in the world is America's cause, with the question being "not whether but how to advance liberty."

Page 187 marks a jarring turn in Spalding's book, one that the reader expects, but is disheartened to reach: Chapter Ten, "A New Republic: The Progressive Assault on the Founders' Principles." In 26 depressing pages, the author sets forth the Progressive agenda and why it has been at war with the American founding from its seeding in Europe, mainly Germany, to its spawning in the late 1880s. Spalding explains how the Progressives differ from the Founders in two key respects: they do not believe in fixed truths, but rather hold to a relativist view; and, they hold to "historicism," the concept that ideas can only be understood in the context of their time. This leads to the Progressives believing in progress beyond the (fixed) principles of the Declaration. It is what President Coolidge so clearly explained in the above quote where he used a defense of the Declaration to launch a withering attack on the core Progressive philosophy.

After showing how completely Progressives have won the day in government, education, and culture, Spalding dares to light a lamp of hope in Chapter Eleven, "American Revival: The Case for Reclaiming our Future." He aptly begins with Lincoln, "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." Then he catalogues our current situation: soaring debt, a dominating national government, the administrative state, rule by bureaucrats, in short, the Progressive vision made real.

Against this awesome tide of "history" Spalding calls our way back to port, writing that "We don't need to remake America, or discover new and untested principles. The change we need is not the rejection of America's principles but a great renewal of these permanent truths about man, politics, and liberty--the foundational principles and constitutional wisdom that are the true roots our country's greatness." To affect this change, Spalding suggests beginning with education, re-instilling the ideals of liberty. These principles must then be spread through the popular culture. Next, political leaders are needed to prudently govern, seeing the Constitution as the responsibility of all three branches to uphold. Spalding advocates free markets and fiscal responsibility, not "a centrally planned system that suppresses capitalism in order to redistribute wealth and limit individual opportunity." A true revival of self-government, both as self-governing people who willingly "challenge, engage, and reject the relativism and historicism that infect our culture and have caused such great turmoil in our politics" and as local associations, and government on the city, county, and state level is required to stop, then shrink the encroaching sphere of national government. Lastly, Spalding tackles the need for "Upholding liberty in the world" writing this self-evident truth "Without principled American leadership the world will become a more dangerous place--for Americans and for freedom. Transnational terrorism, rampant anti-Americanism, unaccountable international institutions, nuclear proliferation, and regional conflict all represent threats to our security, our liberties, and our prosperity."

Spalding closes his book with the words of Joseph Warren, the leader of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in 1775. Warren, a young doctor and widower with four small children who hoped to soon remarry, was with the militia in positions overlooking the British forces occupying Boston. Three months before the British attack at Breed's Hill (the Battle of Bunker Hill) Warren said:

"Our streets are filled with armed men; our harbor is crowded with ships of war; but these cannot intimidate us; our liberty must be preserved it is far dearer than life.

"No longer could we reflect, with generous pride, on the heroic actions of our American forefathers....if we, but for a moment entertain the thought of giving up our liberty.

"Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of.

"Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution.

"On you depend the fortunes of America.

"You are to decide the important question on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn.

"Act worthy of yourselves."

Warren was killed during the third British charge up Breed's Hill.

"Do we still hold these truths?" Spalding asks. "In times of peace and war, prosperity and poverty, political consensus and social unrest, every generation of Americans is challenged to vindicate the sacred cause of liberty." Spalding closes, "This is our noble task now. Let us act worthy."

Dr. Matthew Spalding, Ph.D. also authored "A Sacred Union of Citizens: George Washington's Farewell Address and the American Character" and was the editor of "The Heritage Guide to the Constitution" which, I can personally attest, is an excellent resource on the original meaning of the Constitution in its entirety.

Reviewer: Chuck DeVore is a California State Assemblyman. He served as a Special Assistant for Foreign Affairs in the Department of Defense from 1986 to 1988, is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, and is the co-author of "China Attacks."

We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future offers a key to fighting progressive actions in America, and to understanding what to fight against. It comes from The Heritage Foundation's director and tells how to identify common issues and how to translate discontent into effective action. Many collections will find this a winner.

Absolutely great book. I truly wish I would have had something like this when I was still in school. So much I wish I could have learned back then just to ask the right questions now! Things make so much more sense now. Our forefathers were really inspiring and I'm so ashamed of myself for not knowing.