The Ten Commandments: A Line in the Sand
Ray McBerry

Introduction

There have been many attacks upon the traditional heritage and culture of the South over the last generation, but none that are as blatant, perhaps, as that currently being waged against our right to publicly display the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of both American and Southern civilization. They have provided the underpinnings of our legal and moral foundations, as well as our religious basis. They are the principles upon which all of our institutions and mores have been predicated.

Because of the never-ending, unscrupulous attacks upon our Christian and constitutional foundations in the South, many elected and appointed officials have attempted to appease the Marxist, anti-Christian enemies of the South by giving in to one of their demands after another. These officials claim, whether sincere or not, that if we are just willing to compromise “some” of our traditions for the sake of “balance,” that it would somehow appease those who have waged cultural war against our People… and then they would be satisfied to cease their constant attacks upon who we are in the South.

But now they have chosen to attack the very core of our civilization… something which could not have even been conceived a mere generation ago… they are bent upon forcing Southerners to remove every public vestige of the Ten Commandments from public eye. Furthermore, this battle has been intentionally made into more than a religious battle over our Christian heritage; the enemy has chosen to use the vehicle of unconstitutional federal courts to wage their vicious attacks, in large part due to the fact that most Southern courts still, to some degree, respect the Constitutional right of states to exercise their sovereignty in this most basic area. Therefore, this issue has become both a Christian AND a States’ Rights battle.

We have reached a point at which there is nothing more to yield… nothing more that can be compromised. We have reached a point at which we, as Southerners, must say, “No more!” In short, the attack upon the Ten Commandments must be A LINE IN THE SAND!

Background

Several years ago, the federal courts usurped legitimate authority and removed both Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and his monument of the Ten Commandments from the Judicial Building which belongs to the people of Alabama. Where were the governor and attorney general of Alabama during this attack? They were standing AGAINST Justice Moore for the purpose of campaign funds for re-election and the promises of federal appointments by the Bush Administration in Washington (which both happened within weeks of their betrayal of the people of Alabama).

Again, in recent years, the federal courts unconstitutionally claimed the right to hear the case of an “anonymous” plaintiff in Barrow County, Georgia to have a donated display of the Ten Commandments removed from the county courthouse there. And, again, where was Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia during this unconstitutional attack upon the sovereignty of the state of Georgia? He sat motionless in Atlanta, paying lip service to his “dedication” to the Ten Commandments, instead of threatening to invoke the same power that Georgia used during the early years of the Constitution in the federal case of Chisholm v. Georgia. At that time, the state of Georgia declared that federal courts did not have jurisdiction over her affairs and that any federal agent attempting to enforce the decision of federal courts within the state would be “hanged by the neck until dead, without benefit of clergy.”

In cases like these all across America, but particularly in the South, the enemy is attacking public displays of the Ten Commandments.

The Real Issue

Upon reading the actual Commandments, anyone is left asking the question, “Why would someone be opposed to having those publicly displayed?” Is it a problem that someone might read them and then go out and actually do them? How awful that would surely be!

As the Bible, prayer, and now the Ten Commandments, have been taken out of public life as a society, we have seen a distinct change in our society… an increase in crime, in divorce, in illegitimate births, in abortion, in dishonesty in government, and so much more.

In I Samuel 4:21,22 in the Old Testament, the Bible tells of the grandson of the priest of Israel being named as a sign of God’s judgment upon Israel for their turning from Him. The name was “Ichabod,” meaning “the glory has departed.” Surely, we have been experiencing a departing of Divine favour in our own generation.

The Ten Commandments have always been historically recognized by honest students of history as both the moral AND legal foundation of the American Republic. History is replete with examples of peoples who have created republics but then became decadent in their social lifestyles… only to end up in a dangerous cycle of democracy, anarchy, followed by the tyranny of a few.

Southerners then and now have hastened to talk about the importance that our Christian heritage plays in the maintenance of our unique Constitutional Republic. The Virginian, James Madison, is regarded as the “Father of the Constitution.” It was he who said, “Our Constitution is written for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.” And Patrick Henry, another famous Southern Founding Father, said, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religions, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

So, should Southerners be required to post public displays of the Koran or teachings of Buddha in our county courthouses, too? The answer is emphatically, “No!” Neither of those documents provide the bulwark of our cultural foundations. And, while every other group may have a right to their own view of life, so do we who are descended from those who forged a living here when America was yet a wilderness. Every people has a right to preserve its valuable way of life… and the Ten Commandments are the foundation of our valuable way of life.

The real issue – and the one for which this battle is really being waged – is that it is only one part in an on-going cultural war which is being waged against ALL of the traditional values of our Republic, especially here in the South. And it is crystal clear to the enemies of this Republic that the last bastion of those values is “Dixie” …the “Bible Belt.”

The attack is intended to destroy our moral fiber – our families and our faith in God. Those who are attacking the Ten Commandments are doing so, in part, because they also wish to destroy our form of government (or what still remains of it) – namely, a constitutional republic where sovereign States jealously guard the liberties of their people against the continual encroachments of an unconstitutional tyrannical federal government.

America has been transformed from a Republic to an Empire! And the South is the only thing which stands in the way of the final transformation!

Like Cicero of Roman history, it’s time to begin “mouring the death of the glorious Republic of our Fathers and warning of the dangers of Empire.”

It is high time that those who have pledged to uphold the Constitution and defend our God-given liberties as elected officials in our Southern states begin to, once again, exercise their responsibilities to invoke such practices as interposition and nullification to prevent the unconstitutional usurpation of federal judges from attacking our valuable way of life as found in the Ten Commandments.

The South needs statesmen, not politicians. The South needs citizens who will not sit idly by while these attacks continue. The South needs a true Christian revival. And the South needs… to draw a line in the sand.

There is absolutely nothing more that we can give in this culminating war against our families and our liberties. If you haven’t already drawn your own personal line in the sand, as to what it will take to get you to take a stand for Southern liberty and the restoration of a constitutional Republic, TODAY ought to be the day that you do just that! May God, and our children, find us faithful in our duty.