The book lists how the Founding Fathers of the United States used 28 fundamental beliefs to create a society based on morality, faith, and ethics,[4] which Skousen asserts resulted in more progress having been achieved in the last 200 years than in the previous 5,000 years of every other civilization combined.[2] Those beliefs are:
- The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is natural law.
- A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.
- The most promising method of securing a virtuous and a morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders.
- Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.
- All things were created by God, therefore upon Him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible.
- All men are created equal.
- The proper role of government is to provide equal rights, not equal things.
- Men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
- To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.
- The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.
- The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.
- The United States of America shall be a republic.
- A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.
- Life and liberty is secure so long as the right to property is secure.
- The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free market economy and minimum of government regulations.
- The government should be separated into three branches—legislative, executive and judicial.
- A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power.
- The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution.
- Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to the government, all others being retained by the people.
- Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.
- Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.
- A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of man.
- A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.
- A free people will not survive unless they remain strong.
- Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none.
- The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.
- The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.
- The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.