But does the Declaration have any legal status such that these words can be truly deemed to state the American creed? It does, although virtually no one seems to know it. In 1878 Congress enacted a revised version of the United States Code that included a new first section entitled "The Organic Laws of the United States." The story behind the 1878 revision of the Code is told in the introduction to political scientist Richard Cox's valuable book Four Pillars of Constitutionalism: The Organic Laws of the United States. (Cox credits the idea for the book to Professor Harry Jaffa, Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute.)
The Code is Congress's official compilation of federal law; the organic laws of the United States are the country's foundational laws. First and foremost of the four organic laws of the United States is the Declaration of Independence. Following the Declaration among the organic laws are the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Why was the Northwest Ordinance included among the organic laws of the United State? That, gentle readers, is the subject for another day.
Anybody who's read the Constitution of the United States knows that this has exactly zero legal force, for the Constitution itself is the highest law of the land, and it would take procedures outlined in the Constitution, not some act of Congress by itself to change that fact.
If the lawyers at Powerline don't know this, I would say they have fools for clients.
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