Posted on 07/28/2008 4:54:15 PM PDT by Loud Mime
"Statesmen my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand....The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty."
John Adams
1776 - letter to Zabdiel Adams
"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."
Samuel Adams
1778 - letter to John Trumbull
"If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?"
Benjamin Franklin
to Thomas Paine
"Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God."
Gouverneur Morris
1791 - Notes on the Form of a Constitution for France
"[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."
Benjamin Rush
1806 - On the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic
"The moral precepts delivered in the sacred oracles form a part of the law of nature, are of the same origin and of the same obligation, operating universally and perpetually."
James Wilson
(Of the Law of Nature, 1804)
Ping from Beautiful Colorado
BUMP! And Remember for later use. Thanks.
Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of Superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? -—Thomas Jefferson
PLEASE
COMPARE OUR FOUNDERS’ QUOTES
with the quotes
of political, media and literary leaders after 1900
listed at post #76
HERE:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2031425/posts?page=77#77
There is an excerpt from that exchange of letters that, when translated into modern English, would read, "Tom, you and I are reasonably sure that God doesn't exist, but if Joe Sixpack ever got his hands on that information, we'd have anarchy in the streets!"
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 is designed only for a moral and
religious people.
It is wholly inadequate for any other.
John Adams (1735 - 1826)
Thanks, how far we have fallen.
Your note reminds me of something by Plato where he admonished those who claimed to have a special connection with the Almighty and would tender forgiveness for a consideration.
The idea that a republic will run better if people believe in a final judgement is pragmatic and sensible. It fights the pragmatism of the tyrants who believe that elimination of the opposition via extreme prejudice is equally sensible. I will take the former any day.
If we want justice from government, we have to believe in an ultimate good. Some people are good without religion, but stil play the publicity game (as Franklin did). Other scoundrels, such as one that went to church and carried a bible during the impeachment hearings, use it as a one-time publicity stunt. At least the press covered it well.
This issue may boil down to “enforcement.” How can the public count on an official being honest if he does not believe in an ultimate authority?
A most interesting quote.
Why did you post it here?
So true.
Simply to point out that our founding fathers were men of their time and that they suffered from ignorance and prejudice just like everyone else. People tend to deify them, quoting them like the Bible.
People deify them? I believe that’s an exaggeration, but your point is noted; I’ve heard it a lot.
You can find passages in the Bible concerning slavery. I believe Leviticus and Exodus show tolerance to slavery.
The focus I maintain in my life is to the designed form of government and the proper role of its citizens and administrators. Slavery was a necessary element in the foundation of the United States. Without it our union may have split into as many as four nations. There would have been no war between the States and who knows how long slavery would have lasted or if France or Spain would have ruled parts of America?
The additions of the Thirteenth and Nineteenth Amendments completed the design of liberty. The Union stayed intact and we now have the greatest nation in history.
Aside from Slavery, the design of the founders is the best imaginable. The founders do not say to honor them, nor does anybody on these threads “deify” them, but we will build from the good advice dealt to us.
I can imagine a better constitution
Do tell.
Aw, come on! Let us hear about it.
If it were your genuine intent to accurately demonstrate the “ignorance” and prejudice of Mr. Jefferson and his generation, surely you would have felt compelled to insert a more comprehensive understanding of that generation than the skewed perspective you perpetuate with the quote you have offered to this forum.
Perhaps something like the following:
QUERY XVIII. The particular customs and manners that may happen to be received in that State? It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restrain in the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms the child looks on catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patrice of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. 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 of 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 forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation.
. . . . . Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ME, Vol II, Notes on Virginia, pg 225
Or, if you find the above too protracted:
The bill on the subject of slaves, was a mere digest of the existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future and general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment, whenever the bill should be brought on. The principles of the amendment, however, were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degree, as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors.
. . . . . Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ME, Vol I, Autobiography, pg 72
For all of his ignorance, Mr. Jefferson, and many another of his generation, displays an understanding of mankind that entirely escapes the understanding of today’s Liberals, as well as far too many politicians who claim to be Republican.
By the way, can you cite the source of the quote you used, or did you simply lift it off an atheist website without recourse to any further inquiry? Just wondering.
“By the way, can you cite the source of the quote you used, or did you simply lift it off an atheist website without recourse to any further inquiry? Just wondering.”
I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had broken your google.
Second amendment: every citizen has the right to keep and carry arms equivalent to, or better than, those owned by federal and state governments.
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