Justice Clarence Thomas and the founding truth America can’t afford to lose
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary next month, the country finds itself in a moment of deep social uncertainty. Americans feel that something very important has been lost sight of: a common understanding of who we are and what we stand for.
Our universities are now debating whether equality is a universal truth or just a product of its time. Public institutions are hesitant to defend the natural rights philosophy that legitimized the American Revolution. Even the idea of a shared national faith feels fragile.
But amid this cultural turmoil, a Supreme Court justice insisted for more than three decades that the Declaration of Independence still meant exactly what it said, and that the country could not survive without its moral framework.
WE PROTECT THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN OUR 250TH ANNIVERSARY
Justice Clarence Thomas, now the Court’s second-longest-serving member, has long argued that the Declaration is not ceremonial rhetoric. This is the fundamental statement of the political principles of the republic. This view may be outdated in elite institutions, but that’s exactly how the Founders understood the document.
Thomas Jefferson called the Declaration “an expression of the American mind.” Abraham Lincoln described it as a “golden apple” as it served as the “silver framework” built to protect the Constitution. Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. Likewise, they considered these claims to be morally binding.
The Founders did not envision a pure democracy. They feared what Elbridge Gerry called “the excess of democracy” and deliberately constructed a constitutional republic to secure natural rights. The Constitution was drafted to protect these rights more effectively than the Articles of Confederation. This is a tool, not an end. The ultimate purposes (the political philosophy that gives the Constitution its purpose) are clearly stated in the Declaration.
Equality and natural rights are the moral premises of the American experiment. The Constitution exists to secure these.
Justice Thomas has been the Court’s most consistent application of this original approach, especially in cases involving civil rights and equality. It interprets constitutional guarantees such as equal protection and due process through the lens of the Declaration’s moral commitments rather than shifting political preferences.
In a landmark case with the government in 1995, Thomas warned that racial paternalism “is at war with the inherent principle of equality which underpins and is inculcated in our Constitution,” citing the equality clause of the Declaration as the controlling principle. For more than three decades, he has argued that the Constitution is incompatible with policies that treat citizens unequally on the basis of race. His monumental settlements in the 2023 Harvard and UNC admissions cases reaffirmed that commitment and reshaped the current legal landscape.
This is not nostalgia. This is loyalty to the constitution.
WILLIAM BENNETT, ROB NOEL: AMERICA’S MORAL DECLINE REQUIRES ACTION. WHAT SHOULD CONSERVATIVES DO NOW
The Founders believed that natural rights preceded government, that equality was a fact of human nature, and that the purpose of government was to secure these rights. Thomas spent more than three decades reminding the country of these vital premises.
His critics often accuse him of clinging to an outdated vision of America. The opposite is true. His jurisprudence is forward-looking precisely because it is based on the only principles that allow the United States to correct its course.
CLICK FOR OTHER OPINIONS OF FOX NEWS
At a time when debates about race, identity, and equality dominate our politics, Thomas’s clarity about the meaning of the Declaration is more relevant than ever.
The upcoming anniversary is a rare opportunity to regain this understanding. A nation that firmly believes that all men are created equal can be held accountable when it falls short. A nation that abandons this belief will have no standard to judge itself by.
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FOX NEWS APPLICATION
The Declaration of Independence is not just the nation’s birth certificate. It is the statement of national purpose that has guided every major movement toward American reform. As we reflect on the United States’ 250 years of independence, it is worth noting that a judge never lost sight of the principles that made the country possible.
If America wants to regain its 250-year-old sense of purpose, it must begin where Clarence Thomas always stopped: with the immutable truths of the Declaration of Independence.
