Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at the University of Texas (UT) in Austin where he urged Americans to be familiar with the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence. He praised Dean Justin Dyer and the new School of Civic Leadership, asking that the school’s mission be “to revitalize the teaching and research of Western civilization and the American constitutional tradition will lead the way in the reform of our nation’s colleges and universities.” While emphasizing the importance of the Constitution, Thomas referred to the Declaration as the foundation of America. “The Constitution is the means of government. It is the Declaration that announces the ends of government,” he said.

Thomas lamented mistakes of past Supreme Courts, including the 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson which “endorsed government-enforced racial segregation and validated the Jim Crow South that I grew up in.” He claimed the decision had been made under the temptation of expedience. “It could not possibly have taken my Court 60 years to know that Plessy was a hideous wrong,” he said. He also warned against the dangers of progressivism, calling it “retrogressive.” “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government,” he warned. He encouraged his listeners to embrace courageous citizenship, one that rejected complacency and defended the ideals of the US.

In an op-ed for The Christian Post, John G. West emphasized the importance of rights coming from the God and not the government, a view that less than 4 in 10 Americans hold today. “Societies that do not believe human beings are fundamentally equal have caste systems or worse. In the American South, the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation of equality was repudiated in order to uphold slavery and then Jim Crow,” he wrote, adding that “Societies that do not think their rights come from God end up having no hard limits on government power or government intrusions into the Church, the family, and the economy.” He also warned against the move away from the view of people as inherent sinners, claiming such views have led to electing tyrants in “

the hope of creating Heaven on earth.” “They produce the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and Mao’s China — not the American Revolution,” he warned.

Justice Thomas is perhaps one of the most revered living justices on the right. Conservative lauded his speech, calling it “extraordinary.” “In addition to its sweeping condemnation of progressivism, his speech is an immediate classic in civics formation,” wrote Andrew Walker, professor of Ethics and Public Theology at Southern Baptist Seminary. “But that the speech’s content is now so foreign, so unfamiliar, to so many, reveals how successful progressivism has been in memory-holing our national inheritance. Progressivism is a civic, moral, and theological cancer. It must be fought against and defeated if there is to be an American order (and moral decency).”