Category: Thomas Jefferson

Chapter 3: God’s Plan for Self-Government

Genesis 3 details the historical account of the “fall” of Adam & Eve, and how they were turned out of paradise (the Garden of Eden). Adam became a farmer, and later, in Genesis 5:28-29, we see that Adam’s descendants, the children of his son Seth, even hundred of years later, were still farmers.

Each man was commanded (in Genesis 2:24) to “leave his father and mother” and “cleave to his wife.” These were new commands, added to the earlier ones (back in Genesis 1:28-29). So each family was to establish a new, independent household, just as people do today.

Think of “Little House on the Prairie” or the 1991 movie, “Sarah, Plain and Tall“–homesteads spread out from each other, several hours, or perhaps a day’s travel, but not totally isolated from each other. Though always honoring their parents, the new couple would no longer be subject to them.

subject = "Being under the power and dominion of another." (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

In taking on the responsibilities of managing this new, independent household, they became–for all intents and purposes–their parents’ equals. It became the man’s responsibility to provide for and build a home for his wife and their children. The wife was his companion and helpmate (see Genesis 2:18). The husband/father answered directly to God, and was directly responsible to Him for how he lived, how he treated his wife, and they were both responsible for how they raised their children.

They were to owe no man anything, and they were totally free to enjoy their God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Each family tilled their own land, tended their own field, garden, and orchard–though they were also free to pursue their individual gifts and talents. One man, who lived by a stream, might build and operate a mill. A person might choose to operate a loom, or a forge.

But if a miller, or weaver, or smith did not do the work he had promised to do, his customers had no government to go to for satisfaction. Business dealings were done by covenant, an agreement between the two parties that was considered to be enforced, when necessary, by God Himself.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote that:

“Those who labor on the earth are the chosen people of God…whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.”

Thomas Jefferson, 1787, Notes on the State of Virginia

That well describes the culture of the early patriarchs. But it wasn’t easy to be a farmer. You had to get up early in the morning to begin a long day of work; and you had many responsibilities. If you don’t milk the cow, it will stop giving milk. If you don’t feed the chickens, they will stop laying eggs. If you don’t plant your crops, you will have no harvest. In short, if you don’t work, you don’t eat.

And if you’re a day’s travel from your neighbors’ house, you have to learn how to do a lot of things yourself. Think of that Mel Gibson movie from 1984, The River. If your roof leaks, you learn to mend it yourself. If your equipment needs repair, you learn to repair it yourself. In other words, you become self-reliant (see Proverbs 6:6-11).

Many of Seth’s descendants were the kind of people that Jefferson would later say possessed “substantial and genuine virtue”

Yet, at the same time, another culture also existed, the descendants of Adam’s other son Cain, which began with the building of the first city (Genesis 4:16-17). Contrast their lifestyle to Seth’s farming community. If your roof leaks, you call the landlord. If something needs to be repaired, you take it to the repairmen. If your tools need sharpening, you go the hardware store. If you need bread, you buy it at the bakery. In other words, you become dependent.

In his same Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

Thomas Jefferson, 1787, Notes on the State of Virginia

And in the Bible, we find this:

“For I have seen violence and strife in the city. Day and night they go around on its walls; iniquity and trouble are also in the midst of it.”

Psalm 55:9

But Seth’s descendants looked at the glitter of urban life–the beautiful starlets and the famous personalities. And they traded away what they now saw as their simple, unsophisticated farms. But at what cost? They chose not to see the difference in the values of the culture they were becoming part of.

One of Cain’s descendants said this, admiring and wanting to imitate his famous ancestor:

“…I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

Genesis 4:23-24

Even though Cain had murdered his own brother, his descendants still thought of him as a great man, and tried to follow in his footsteps. And Seth’s descendants closed their eyes to the violence and strife, and closed their ears to to the cries of the oppressed, even though they knew it was wrong. And when the Great Flood came, both cultures were destroyed, except for 8 people–the family of Noah. And after the flood, Noah went back to farming.

However, the people–Noah’s descendants–began again to build a city–known as Babel (see Genesis 11).

William Penn, a wise man, and the founder of the state of Pennsylvania once said:

“Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”

William Penn, 1668, “The Sandy Foundation Shaken“

And the Bible–in Genesis 10:8-12–tells us about the world’s first tyrant, Nimrod.

Why do you think the Bible tells us that Nimrod was a mighty hunter? What do you think that has to do with his rise to power?

In any case, he was what the King James version of the Bible calls a man of renown (see Genesis 6:4).

And the Bible quotes Jesus as saying something about men of renown:

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’”

Luke 22:25

Here’s a quote from John Locke, a famous English philosopher who is often called the “Father of Liberalism.”:

“A man may owe honor and respect to an ancient, or wise man…and gratitude to a benefactor…but all these give no authority, no right to any one, of making laws over him from who they are owing.”

John Locke, 1689, SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT

It sounds like Locke was agreeing with Jesus’ criticism of the great men of His time. And later, Alexis de Tocqueville, from whom we have quoted before, gave this warning to his friends in America:

“It would seem that if despotism were to be established among the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them…”

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840, Democracy in America

despotism = "The exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel and oppressive way." (Bing)

Remember that de Tocqueville was a Frenchman, and he was writing in the 1800’s:

He went on to say:

“It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood… For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: What remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

“…Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them and to often look on them as benefits.

“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840, Democracy in America

The Bible says this:

“Wisdom is better than strength… Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard rather than the shout of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war…”

Ecclesiastes 9:16-18

And it says this:

“The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”

James 3:17

What can we do to gain such wisdom? We can listen to the words of those who have gone before us, and learn from their experience. Maybe Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, and William Penn have something they can teach us–even us, in the 21st century.

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