Our pastor admonished us to vote Tuesday. The wide-eyed expression I gave my husband revealed my surprise. Was Election Day so imminent? Then someone in the congregation mentioned the sixteen propositions every Texas voter faces.

You have to be prepared when you go to the voting booths.

So finally tonight, November 5, I started my research. What was I thinking? The proposed Constitutional amendments are overwhelming. I have some principles to guide me, but, even still, it is hard to decipher the full implications of any law especially in our bureaucracy.

In an election sermon from J. Wingate Thornton’s The Pulpit of the American Revolution written in 1860, Payson said,

The slavery of a people is generally founded in ignorance of some kind or another.

Admittedly, I am rather ignorant about this ballot, but I am not ignorant of my heart’s desire to be free. Payson further explains,

It is no easy matter to deceive or conquer a people determined to be free…The baneful effects of exorbitant wealth, the lust of power, and other evil passions, are so inimical [repugnant] to a free, righteous government, and find such an easy access to the human mind, that it is difficult, if possible, to keep up the spirit of good government, unless the spirit of liberty prevails in the state.

Are we determined to be free? It takes effort to fight against the passions and passiveness of our society. Early Americans did not take the easy way. The unalienable rights they fought to keep are now ours to perpetuate. Seeking wisdom and virtue, instead of entertainment and comfort, is a good place to start.

Payson’s election sermon is reprinted in The Christian History of the Constitution.