Revisiting the “Declaration’s” Founding Commitments: America at 250

Revisiting the “Declaration’s” Founding Commitments: America at 250

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: David New

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 7/2/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stand in the Gap today. As Americans prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, many know the date July 4th, 1776, but far fewer understand the commitments made on that historic day. The declaration was much more than a notice of separation from Great Britain. It was a public statement of belief about God, government, liberty, human equality and the source of all human rights. In many respects, it really articulated the principles upon which a new nation could be and was built. Throughout American history, statesmen and pastors, jurists, and reformers have rightly repeatedly returned to the declaration to remind the nation of its founding ideals. One such figure was Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, who during the Civil War referred to the Declaration as embodying the Republics, and he said it this way, “Baptismal vows.” Their original commitment of the nation at that time, he said, “Must be remembered and honored if America was, ” he said then, and I say now is to remain true to its purpose.

Today, nearly two and a half centuries after the declaration was signed Americans face a fundamental question. Do those principles expressed in that document still matter? Do we care? Are the truths declared in 1776 merely historic sentiments now old or are they enduring truths capable of guiding the nation today? Now, in today’s constitutionally focused edition of Stand in the Gap Today, constitutional attorney historian and author David New and I will revisit the declaration’s founding commitments and consider what they meant then and what they have meant throughout our history and what they should mean for all of America and all Americans at our 250. The title I’ve chosen to frame today’s conversation is this, Revisiting the Declaration’s Founding Commitments: America at 250. And with that, David, welcome back to the program that’s not very often. Matter of fact, we’ve never done it before and we will never do it again and that is do a program where we are this close to our nation’s 250th birthday.

David New:

Well, it’s so wonderful to be with you, Sam and all of our listeners. God bless you everybody and happy 4th of July. It’s a great day to be an American.

Sam Rohrer:

It sure is. And David, let’s get into that because let’s start here. Let me ask you a question. Why should Americans view the Declaration of Independence, which is our birth document, obviously, as more than just an historical document and then how should they see it instead as the nation’s foundational statement of purpose?

David New:

The Declaration of Independence is the foundation for the United States Constitution. And if somebody understands that and acknowledges that and recognizes that, because it’s very, very clear that the framers of the Constitution saw themselves as building upon the foundation of the Declaration of Independence. If you accept that fact, then some problems immediately appear for our secular friends. The idea that the Constitution is Gavis because the word God is not in the Constitution immediately loses all power and significance because the foundation of the Declaration of Independence mentioned God several different ways. So it’s very, very important to understand that the Declaration of Independence is the foundation for the United States Constitution and the most important word, the most important word in the Declaration of Independence is the word creator. That is the word. Without the word creator, the Declaration of Independence is a dead letter. The word creator is the power pac of freedom and liberty.

It’s the lithium batteries of heaven to help make this country great to lay its foundation on God. So the word creator is key and it’s one of the reasons why our secular friends are not in love with the Declaration of Independence at

Sam Rohrer:

All. And David, you’re right, because it takes us right there to the beginning. And as believers, as who fear God and understand the Bible, we know that God, the creator, is a sovereign God, he raises up nations. Our founders knew that. That’s why they appealed to God the creator. He raises up rulers and that’s why from them they challenged everyone who would come into office that they submit themselves to the 10 commandments of God. William Penn said that many said that, but they understood that linkage. Now, in the remaining moments here, David, we’ve got a couple minutes here. There are four truths that are identified in the declaration. Let me just name them and ask you to kind of go through and explain the linkage between them and what we’re just talking about. First one, is that what you said? God is creator. Secondly, rights come from God.

Thirdly, human government exist to secure these rights and fourth, that people have a duty to resist tyranny. Those essentially, David, were truth principles that are clearly right there in the declaration that the signers put down they did not use words idly. Walk down through. You just talk about God is creator. Share a little bit novel about rights come from God. Why is that so important to know?

David New:

What you just laid out in those four principles are the guts of the Declaration of Independence. They not only are the guts of that document, but they’re the guts of America. Those four principles are what make America America. Now, because our secular friends do not like the Declaration of Independence, they have a little problem. If you deny the Declaration of Independence, some of them think it was overturned by the framers of the Constitution, which is absolutely crazy. But if you deny the Declaration of Independence as a foundation for the Constitution, then the issue is where do human rights come from? And this is not widely known that our secular friends do not know the origin of human rights. If you don’t believe that God is the source of human rights, which the declaration teaches, then where do they come from? And since they believe in evolution and since they believe that we exist by an accident of the universe, then whatever definition they come up with, however they define it, it has their human rights have no more authority than an accident and that is tragic.

Sam Rohrer:

And Dave, ladies and gentlemen, of course, you’ve heard this before. If government creates rights, they can take him away, but God never changes. What he gives, he preserves what he demands and he says he will honor what he promises upon he will deliver. Our founders understood statements. We’ll come back and we’re going to talk about these baptismal vows. Well, if you’re just joining us today, welcome aboard. This is actually be the last in a number of different programs I’ve done over the last couple of weeks with America at 250 as a focus of attention all from slightly different perspectives. So if you go to our website at standardagapradio.com or search on the app, you’ll be able to find these various programs and I want to encourage you to do that. Today, our theme is this, revisiting the declarations founding commitments. And Attorney David New and I are discussing, and this is actually our bimonthly emphasis on the Constitution and American history.

And you’ll see the combining of these as we walk through that. Now there is an individual I referred to in the first segment. His name was Charles Sumner. You may have never heard of him, but he was a United States Senator and he spoke many times on the floor of the US Senate, but on April 8th, 1864, particularly then during a debate over the abolition of slavery, Senator Sumner made a remarkable statement. He argued that America should be carried back to its, he called it baptismal vows. And by using that phrase, Sumner was drawing on a rich biblical understanding of commitment, identity, and moral responsibility. Those words may sound very strange to Americans today, but it didn’t then. So it’s important to understand about that and why he used it because it does have application to today, but historically baptism signified leaving behind an old life and embracing a new one.

It represented then and now a commitment to living according to certain principles. It’s a declaration of faith, a new identity. Sumner’s argument was that the Declaration of Independence represented something similar for the American Republic. It expressed foundational truths, those four that we mentioned in the last segment, we’ll mention them again, and commitments that defined what America should become because at that point America was a vision. It was a hope. It was a prayer. It’s different now by us looking back, but as we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, is it not worth asking these questions since the declaration contains America’s foundational commitments of equality before God, rights as God given, liberty under law and moral accountability before the supreme judge of the world and having identified the four truths we talked about in the last segment, the core of that document that God is creator, that rights come from God, that human government exists to secure those God given rights and fourthly, that the people have a duty to resist tyranny.

Well, since the declaration identifies and enshrines these principles, shouldn’t we routinely revisit them and ask ourselves the question, do we understand them and have we as a nation remained faithful to them? All right, David, with that set up, let’s focus on one example of a past leader, this Senator Sumner, who chose to stand on the issue of great concern, slavery then, and present a process to redres that problem by urging a revisiting of the declaration’s founding commitment. So here’s the question. Who was this man, Charles Sumner, and why did he describe the founding principles of America as the nation’s baptismal vows?

David New:

The Declaration of Independence from day one was an anti-slavery document and Jefferson included in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence as one of the reasons for our severance from Great Britain is the role that the King of England had in the transatlantic slave trade and he included that on the list as to why we need to break from England. Well, when it went to the Congress for their approval, the state of Georgia and South Carolina said, “Uh-uh, we’re not going to sign it with that in there, and therefore it was taken out. ” But from day one, the Declaration of Independence was seen by the people of this country as an anti-slavery document. Now there’s a reason why Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, he is one of the ring leaders that ended slavery in this country. He’s one of the key players and on April 8th, 1864 is the date that the United States Senate voted to pass the 13th Amendment.

That’s the date and the vote was 38 yays and six nays. And on April 8th, this day is when the United States said we need to get this 13th amendment part of the Supreme Law of the land, 38 to six. So it passed. It was more than two thirds. You need two thirds to get a constitutional amendment through Congress and this worked out very well. When it first went to the house in June, the 13th amendment failed to pass. It was a very tight vote, but it failed. What happened then was in that following November is when Abraham Lincoln is being reelected and one of the issues in that election was the 13th amendment. So then come back January, this lame duck Congress is still there and they decided to file a motion for reconsideration, one of the most popular motions any lawyer loves. It’s where you get a second chance to fight for your client and this time the House passed the 13th Amendment.

The vote was 119 yays and 56 nays, which is barely two thirds majority to need. So what does he Senator Sumner lay the foundation? He calls it baptismal vows. Why would he do that?

Because when Christianity began very, very early on, very early, it was held that a Christian cannot hold another Christian in slavery. It was an unwritten rule and you can see that rule taking shape in the book of Philemon and in the 21st verse where Paul says to the slave master Philemon, “You owe me so much, here’s your slave Onesimus, take him back whatever he owes you, whatever wrong he’s done, put it on my account.” But then he says in the 21st verse, “And I think you’re going to do more than I ask, and you know what he meant.” He meant free Onesimus. That became the foundation later for many nations in the world to free slaves if they would submit to water baptism. The French had that kind of rule. The Dutch had that kind of rule. The Spanish, the king of Spain wrote out a law.

He was holding Florida and British North America was from Georgia on up and he wanted to weaken British North America as much as possible.

So you know what he did? He wrote an edict. He wrote a proclamation. He said, “Any slave in British North America who runs away and runs to Florida and comes down to Florida and gets baptized, you’re free.” And that group of, this is before the revolution of 1776, that group of free slaves formed the foundation for what would become the Seminole Indian nation. So baptism from the very, very beginning had a big super rule. In the United States, in precolonial America, the rule was such a threat to the institution of slavery that slaves are getting themselves baptized that the colonial legislatures, Virginia, 1667, New Jersey, 1704, New York 1706, South Carolina 17:12, Maryland 1692. They all passed the law and they made it very clear, just because you get baptized, you are not free. That’s how powerful this rule was.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, isn’t that interesting because in Senator Sumner’s appeal and talking about the vow concept, the batismal vow, he was appealing to the fundamental moral strength and the power of the principles that undergirded the Declaration of Independence, of which this matter of slavery was but won, but it did include those other ones. God as creator rights come from God, government, the enforcer of those rights, all of that was a part of the strength of what makes the declaration such a powerful document. Isn’t that true?

David New:

The word creator is really absolutely essential and this is why one of the things that I wish I had heard more about was when this celebration of 250th anniversary, the Declaration of Independence, what we are not hearing enough about is the role that it had in the debate for the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery in this country. The Declaration of Independence was the key document.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, David, just hold it there because of time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the link that we must, I’m going to say, not ask the question, should we revisit? We must revisit because God as creator in his word undergirds who we were. Our theme today is this, revisiting the declarations founding commitments America at 250. The declaration was our birth document as we know my guest today, David knew said clearly at the beginning in the first segment that it really was and it is the statement of purpose. It’s our mission statement, our founder’s mission statement for a country that was not yet, but which they hoped and prayed would develop, be blessed of God and emerge as something really historic, but they took and put down those four fundamental principles that are the core elements of the Constitution or of the Declaration of Independence, that God is creator, that rights come from God, that human government exists to secure those rights and that the people have a duty to resist tyranny.

And from that, as we’ve talked, from the concept of creator and rights coming from God is we know biblically established and from that we get the very concept of the sanctity of life all life regardless of color, regardless of anything else, because all life is God breathed. It’s what makes a big difference, what you believe. And our founders believed this. That’s why they could write down what they did. And that’s why Senator Sumner on April 8th, 1864, when he was debating before the US Senate on the matter of the 13th Amendment, emancipation of the slaves and putting that issue to the side, he appealed to their understanding of God as creator and why he referred to the declaration in terms of baptismal vows, vows something a promise made before God. A vow is not just a promise. It is far greater because it’s calling God to witness.

That’s what a vow is. And so he appealed to the fundamental aspect of the conscience of those senators then and they responded fortunately and now we sit here many years later, a lot of things been done. But I want to go back to this aspect because if you throw God off, you also throw off the value of life and the sanctity of life. And I think that’s what we’re doing in our nation today had Dr. George Barnon with me last week and last Friday when we talked about the fact that 52% of Americans today view abortion as acceptable and more than that, do not believe that there’s any sanctity of life at all.

Well, when you shift on who God is, then a lot of things begin to shift. Now let’s go back now to this aspect of what Senator Schumer was appealing because one of the most challenging questions in American history is how a nation that declared that all men are created equal could also tolerate slavery. Critics have often pointed to this contradiction as evidence that the declaration failed, yet many of the nation’s greatest reformers saw this issue differently and rather than rejecting the declaration, they appealed to it. Abolitionists Abraham Lincoln and Senator Charles Sumner, just two of them, just these two of them, others did obviously, but they argued that slavery violated the very principles set forth in 1776. David just talked about that in the last segment, but in their view, the declaration supplied the moral standard by which slavery would ultimately be judged and abolished.

And the story of slavery and emancipation is therefore not simply, I’m going to say a story of failure to the contrary. It’s also a story of how foundational principles can expose injustice and inspire reform. And it raises an important question for every generation. What happens when a nation falls short of its ideals and how does it find its way back? So David, let’s move into this. Why did abolitionists and these two like the president, President Lincoln and Senator Sumner and other anti-slavery leaders, why did they rely so heavily on the declaration of independence and their efforts to end slavery? You’ve already talked about a little, but build that out a little bit more. It’s worth hearing again.

David New:

Absolutely. I want to discuss very quickly something what was going on in Britain. The British on the island itself never had the form of slavery that the Americans did, that the Americans had. They never had slavery, but what they did is they transported slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean and they had slaveries and their colonies and the American colony was one of them. They would send slaves, but on the island itself, no slavery. Well, this creates a little interesting problem. Supposing a British citizen from colonial America gets on a boat, takes his slave with him and sails to England where there is no slavery. What happens? There’s no slavery in England and this slave owner is now in England. He’s not in colonial America where slavery’s legal. What happened? A lot of Christian ministers tried to grab that slave and baptize him.

Get him baptized quick and take him to court and listen, we can’t get him free. This was going on in England and the Attorney General of Great Britain issued a proclamation or a ruling. Forget it. We’re not going to have this. We’re not going to have all these slaves free by being baptized in water. Your baptism does not free you. He did the same thing the Americans did, the colonial Americans. Now come Senator Sumner. April 8th, 1864, one of the great dates in American Senate history the Senate is about to vote for the 13th Amendment to end slavery. Now look what Sumner says. Let’s give the complete quote. He said, he starts his statement this way.

Where is my quote right here? Okay, this is what he says. He begins his argument for the 13th Amendment and he says, “When we vote for the 13th Amendment, we will quote, bring the Constitution into a vowed harmony with the Declaration of Independence.” End of quote. Now remember, I said the Declaration of Independence was the foundation for the Constitution and that’s exactly what he’s saying. He wants to bring the Constitution in harmony with the Declaration of Independence, which seculars today would never do. They don’t like the Declaration of Independence. They reject it because it refers to God all over the place. Then Senator Sumner goes on and this is the key quote and I’m going to read it to you now, ladies and gentlemen. “Happily in our case, the way is easy for it is only necessary to carry the republic back to its baptismal vows and the declared sentiments of its origin.

There is the Declaration of Independence. Let its solemn promises be redeemed. There is the Constitution. Let it speak according to the promises of the Declaration. “What’s he doing? He said,” We need right now our Constitution is out of alignment. We’ve got to bring it back in alignment with the Declaration of Independence. “So this guy is not going from the Declaration to the Constitution. He’s going from the Constitution back to the Declaration of End Independence, they’ve got to be in agreement. They’ve got to be in alignment.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, you have made a great connection there. And ladies and gentlemen, think about this. Again, we talk about it here so often, a person does what they believe. All choices in life are directed from a worldview. It’s not a matter of if there’s a worldview. Everybody has on. Those at that point had a worldview that said God created and from God gave came rights and life became sacred because it came from God and God instituted governments among men. For what purpose? To protect those rights. Well, what do we know about that from? From God’s word.

And the purpose of government to enact justice. Aren’t these all terms we hear in the declaration and early part of our government? Yes, because it’s all off the pages of scripture. So as the senator did then bring into alignment the Constitution with the declaration, what he didn’t have to do because it was already understood was that it was very clear knowledge that the declaration was already in alignment with God’s word that tells us that there is a creator and that he gave rights and the purpose for government and the purpose for justice. See it all makes sense? Being in alignment with who God is establishes basically a biblical worldview. That’s what we talk about here in the program all the time. It’s when you try to get the benefits of a biblical worldview by bypassing what God says that makes a problem.

Just before we go into our final segment here, I need to make one clarification. I think I made a mistake. Actually, I don’t think. I believe I really did make a mistake. I cited a quote or a percentage in the last segment that was not right. Here is what I wanted to say about Americans today and how things change when you do not keep God as creator, which we’ve been talking much about today with the declaration starting right there. God is creator. Here’s what I wanted to say. The Barnard research just completed, we covered this last Friday, was that 57% of Americans acknowledge that they are created in the image of God, 57%. Well, that’s a majority obviously, but that’s a pretty small number when you get right down to 57%. But only 27% believe that human life is sacred, only half of those. And an equal 27% believe that life has no intrinsic value at all.

All right. Again, that’s why we’re saying that all of these things must be connected and must be calibrated together. The Constitution with the declaration and the declaration and the principles and bodies with the Bible, the word of God. That’s the connection. And when anything is severed, then you have problems. Right. Let’s go on with that established. The Declaration of Independence is nearly 250 years old, just a few days, right? Yet its central claims continue to shape debates about freedom, government and human rights. It speaks of rights as gifts from the creator. We’ve talked about that much. Liberty under law, moral accountability, and the proper purpose of government. All of those things come right from the Bible. These ideas, they help to form the American experiment and influenced freedom movements around the world. And the reason we know this is from observation, history, and experience. And the conclusion is that these principles and truths, they did not spring from the mind of secular man, but from the literal pages of scripture as breathed out by God.

In the end, where do we learn of God as creator or rights is coming from God, not government? Or liberty under law is starting first in the spiritual freedom from the bondage of sin that comes from faith in Jesus Christ. Yeshua, the promised Messiah of God and moral accountability of every individual, including all in positions of leadership because we know that one day all will stand before the great judge of the universe as mentioned in the declaration. And who is that? Jesus Christ himself and all will give an account. So the question before us now in 2026 is not simply what Americans believed in 1776. The larger question is whether those beliefs held then will regain their essential importance today because we know that the numbers have really dropped just like the ones I gave you about those few who believe that we actually had a creator.

And can a free constitutional republic endure if it forgets the principles upon which it was founded? Can a nation endure when it walks away from the creator God who caused us to be birthed? Are the truths of the declaration merely part of our history or are they still the necessary foundation for our future? So as we conclude today’s program, we want to consider what it would mean for America to revisit, recommit to and faithfully preserve the founding commitments that gave birth to this nation. So David, I’d like you to take and wrap up this program, but as we approach the 250th birthday or anniversary would look at it, which of the declarations founding commitments are the, which one do you think is most in danger of being forgotten and misunderstood? And wrap it up into this. What lesson should Americans be challenged with right now to recover and do so quickly?

David New:

Surely. The real fight between secularists and people who believe that America is a God-based state, a God-based nation. The real fight, we’re fighting over the Constitution and how to interpret it, but the real fight between secularists and those who believe in Christian America like myself, the real fight is preserving the Declaration of Independence. What role should that have in our law? The secular says the Declaration of Independence should not influence American law because it was overturned by the framers of the Constitution and of course they offer no evidence for it. We argue you should read the Constitution in the light of the Declaration of Independence and when you do that, you come up with the Constitution being a God-centered document. Now I want to quickly explain some key words in the Declaration of Independence. The one I definitely want to get in is this phrase unalienable rights.

Unalienable rights. What is an unalienable right?

In old English to alienate something was to transfer property from one person to another. So to be an unalienable, it means you can’t transfer nothing. You can’t transfer it at all. So an unalienable right is a right that you cannot transfer. You can’t give it to anybody else. I can’t transfer my rights all the ones I have to anybody, not my unalienable rights. They stay with me whether I like it or not. It means that if the government does not respect my right to the freedom of religion or the freedom of speech or freedom of the press, I still have the right. I never lose it. It’s unalienable. So whether the government respects my rights, it doesn’t change whether I have those rights. They never leave me. The next word I want to talk about, look at this thing that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The declaration says among these. That’s because it’s impossible to list all the human rights there are. Nobody knows. We can’t figure it out. It’s too great. God has blessed us so much. The last phrase I want to take a look at is the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness. What does that mean? I’ve recently heard this suggestion as to what Jefferson meant by this. At the time of colonial America, whatever job your daddy had, that’s what you were. If your daddy was a carpenter, you were a carpenter. If your daddy was a fisherman, you were a fisherman. There was very little social and economic mobility from one class to the next. Very, very little, very rare.

Then comes along this idea of the pursuit of happiness. This individual suggested that what he meant by that is that you could become and take any kind of job you want. Just because your father was a fisherman doesn’t mean you have to be one. You can do other things. You can pursue happiness your own way. The last term is self-evident. What does that mean? It means it’s a truth that by reason and by virtue of us being created, it is true. We don’t have to prove it. It’s self-evident. The creator made us. We look at each other. I’m human. You’re human. We all are human. Wonderful. We’re all the same. Nobody’s more human or less human than the next guy. So a self-evident truth is a truth that is absolutely true and it cannot be denied.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, we’re out of time. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being with us today. So what should we do here on our birthday? Revisit the Constitution. Revisit the declaration. Revisit God’s word.