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“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”
Founding Quote of the Week
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams, Letter from John Adams to Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798.
What was it that John Adams meant by this? Why was it so important to him that people be moral and religious? Why cannot the laws of the land assure that regardless of the people, that if the law was enforced, it would keep them within certain lanes of conduct regardless of their individual ideas on morality and religion?
When morals or principles no longer have a religious basis — when they are no longer part of a sacred order — they run the risk of being little more than opinions.
Well, for a nation where consent of the governed is fundamental, and avenues exist by which the rules could change, moral principles would have to be deeply imbedded in the fabric of each individual. Our Founding Fathers were very much constructing a government for morally advanced people. Their principles of limited government required that the people themselves increase their sense of virtue in order for government to step…
