Constitutional Conversations

• Citation: Vol. 48 No. 4 Pg. 40
• Year: 2025
• Pages: 40

Constitutional Conversations Vol. 48 No. 4 Pg. 40 Wyoming Bar Journal August, 2025

David Gray Adler

Lincoln on the Declaration of Independence: Sheet Anchor of the Republic

[Lincoln] focused on the danger to America from within America, which he perceived to be the real threat, not dangers from abroad. That internal threat reflected not only the citizenry's retreat from the duty to honor and exalt constitutional principles and the rule of law, but also the failure of governmental officials to perform the duties of their office. The result, predictably, would be constitutional failure.

David Gray Adler is President of The Alturas Institute, a non-profit organization created to advance American Democracy by promoting the Constitution, civic education, gender equality and equal protection of the law.

The dawning of a year-long celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which Abraham Lincoln called the "sheet anchor of the republic," reminds us that our founding document spurred the articulation of American ideals when it summoned the radically democratic idea that government, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, exists to serve the people, rejecting the Old World doctrine that the people exist to serve the government. Consequently, American citizens have the patriotic duty, as well as the natural right, to keep their government in line, to prevent it from making mistakes and, when it does, to criticize the errors of its ways and demand corrections and remedies. Liberty and equality, the foundation stones of our nations creation story, and the underpinnings of the Constitution, remain the essential...