Certainly they are. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson called them sacred and undeniable.

But herein lies the rub — to assert them is to confess them, to hold oneself accountable before God, before our fellow countrymen, in some sense, before all good men — to govern ourselves in accord with them. It is to sign up for The American Test. To pass The Test brings the resplendent glory and profound happiness of a Free Country. To sign up for it and fail, to be found wanting before its unequivocating demands, is to merit a special kind of ignominy.

To date, only Americans have dared the American Confession or passed the American Test.

To our credit, we have never formally repudiated the Confession. Insisting on judging us by the light of our own Confession, however, God has administered that same Test to every succeeding generation of would-be Americans. At times, we have only barely passed the Test. In 1861, we had failed it so miserably that God scheduled a severe Reexamination; we were made to slaughter each other on a hundred battlefields for four horrendous years.

Today we are failing miserably. We are markedly less free than any previous generation, more disunited than at any time since 1861. Is the God of Liberty about to schedule a Reexamination? What form will it take? Will we finally pass and become Americans once more?

A free country is not self-sustaining. Once it is lost, or nearly so, there can be no Renewal without a Reknowal. Nor without conscious Reconversion and Repentance.

In this our Beloved Country’s 250th year, let us sit down to our Reexamination together, in fear and trembling before the God of Liberty, in humility, mildness, and liberality before each other. Let us try to become Americans again, together.

Our Reexamination will commence when we formally and deliberately write out the Test Questions in the blue book of our minds, by first committing the Declaration to memory. It will unfold as we begin to recite the Truths and recount the Wrongs and Rights to each other, to explore their implications, in the Confessional of our own hearts, and with each other.

With God’s grace, the Reconversion and Repentance may follow. We may yet become Americans once more, together. We may yet govern ourselves again in accord with the Declaration’s Truths. We may yet again pass the American Test. Let us pray that the God of Liberty will so confirm our souls in self-control, our Liberty in Law.