The people who created the Constitution were a people of faith who tried their best to be people of integrity. They created a country founded on values and principles. They demanded and created a government based on the knowledge of right and wrong and warned against what we face today. Yes, they were imperfect and believed in a Christianity that had been tampered with over the centuries and was itself flawed. However, they were influenced by the promise of a fair and just world, as taught by Jesus. They wanted to build the “city on a hill’, the great society of freedom and justice. This informed the drafting of our Constitution more than anything else. In fact, the founding fathers knew that the vision, outlined in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution would never work in a society of moral-free and selfish, greedy people. In other words, for this idealistic society to work, people had to abide by biblical words that tell us to “love our neighbor as ourselves”. Not, me first. Me, second, Me, third. Not, my interests are greater than yours. Not, money, money, money.

John Adams, our second President  may have said it best:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the U. S. House back then said,  “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence stated,  “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

As I said earlier, these early Americans were not perfect. Only white men were allowed to vote and most of the founding Fathers of the US owned slaves.They often fathered children with female slaves. Not much later, American politicians destroyed Native American culture. I don’t want to overlook their contrary behavior, and am happy that subsequent amendments and laws afforded equal rights for all humans.

Furthermore, the word religious had not yet been weighted down as a negative term. It meant, rather, “living by  values and understanding of right and wrong”.  And while I am glad that religious institutions are weakening and dying, I still believe in right and wrong, and wish we followed some kind of principle and values today. My conclusion is that the only way to solve our countries woes it

My conclusion after reading the above and following quotes and hearing a rousing good sermin, is that the only way to solve our countries woes is to return to a life of integrity, guided by universal values and not a gospel of greed and self-interest.

More quotes

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.John Adams

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
John Adams

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31)

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams

He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of this country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man….The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.
Samuel Adams

If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
Samuel Adams

Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.
Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence

Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.
Benjamin Franklin

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth–that God Governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
Benjamin Franklin

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin

How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few his precepts!
O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.
Benjamin Franklin

Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.
Benjamin Franklin

Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature…. If the next centennial does not find us a great nation … it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.
James Garfield, the twentieth president of the United States, 1877

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry, American colonial revolutionary

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.
Patrick Henry

It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.
Patrick Henry

The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!
Patrick Henry

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
Patrick Henry

Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.
Patrick Henry

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson (1807)

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

Thomas Jefferson

I never … believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man.
Thomas Jefferson, In a letter to Don Valentine de Feronda, 1809

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln