Redemption & Forgiveness

    

Jan. 12 -- Following is the transcript of a speech delivered May 8, 1999, at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., by then-Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo. Ashcroft is President-elect George W. Bush's nominee for attorney general.

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A slogan of the American Revolution which was so distressing to the emissaries of the king that it was found in correspondence sent back to England was the line, "We have no king but Jesus." Tax collectors came, asking for that which belonged to the king, and colonists frequently said, "We have no king but Jesus." It found its way into the fundamental documents of this great country. You could quote the Declaration with me. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus.

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It is not accidental that America has been the home of the brave and the land of the free, the place where mankind has has the greatest of all opportunities, to approach the potential that God has placed within us. It has been because we knew that we were endowed not by the king, but by the Creator, with certain inalienable rights. If America is to be great in the future, it will be if we understand that our source is not civic and temporal, but our source is godly and eternal. Endowed by the Creator with rights of life, liberty and the pursuit if happiness.

» ABCNEWS.com : Transcript of Ashcroft Speech at Bob Jones U.