“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.”
—Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781
“There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of it’s conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and most free nation on earth.”
Alexis de Tocqueville