Thanks Be to God!
Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, November 25, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler
Whether your Thanksgiving dinner was turkey and all the trimmings or a bologna sandwich, you should thank God you ate it in the United States of America, because this is a special country, which has been, especially, blessed.
Most of those blessings can be traced back to the beginning of this great country when the Founding Fathers honored God in the document that has become the world’s oldest written constitution. Of the original 13 colonies, only Rhode Island refused to participate in the 1787 Constitutional Convention, when 55 delegates from the other twelve colonies hammered out the governmental structure that formed the 13 colonies into one union.
Among the delegates were 31 lawyers, 19 military veterans, 28 former congressmen, two college presidents, three college professors, several doctors and scientists, and a surprising nine from foreign countries. The Bible was the chief source of their education; all but four belonged to mainstream religious congregations; and in their personal writings, 34 percent of their quotations were from the Bible.
A major part of their work was the Declaration of Independence, which sets forth the basic ideals of the United States and is the true preamble to the Constitution. The Declaration refers to God five times: God as Creator of all men, God as supreme Lawmaker, God as the Source of all rights, God as the world’s supreme Judge, and God as our Patron and Protector.For the first time in history, a nation had reduced government from its previous role as master, and made government a servant whose authority depends on the consent of voters, who have power to replace government officials that get out of line.
Tucked within that first-of-its-kind Constitution was an ingenuous plan to make sure all states would be important in presidential elections. That plan is the Electoral College that forces presidential candidates to campaign all over the country, not only in highly-populated urban centers, but in small towns and rural areas, where campaigning would be a waste of time if a popular vote process replaced the Electoral College. If that happens, the most populous states would decide who occupies the oval office, and that is NOT the American way.
Today, I’m thanking God for my family, my friends, my freedoms, AND the Founding Fathers whose wisdom and forethought gave us the Electoral College. For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.