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"Statesman...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."
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
"[Our] Form of Government... is productive of every Thing which is great and excellent among Men. But its Principles are easily destroyed, as human nature is corrupted... A Government is only to be supported by pure Religon or Austere Morals. Private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics."
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
"If you give to every man who has no property, a vote, will you not make a fine encouraging provision for corruption, by your fundamental law? Such is the frailty of the human heart, that very few men who have no property have any judgment of their own. They talk and vote as they are directed by some men of property, who has attached their minds to his interest."
"The moment the idea is addmitted into a society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there in not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty can not exist."
"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: that it tied together in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
"Let divines and philosophers, statesman and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and...the love of their country...in short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system."
"In all free states the constitution is fixed; it is from thence that the supreme legislature as well as the supreme exceutive derives its authority. Neither, then can break the fundamental rules of the constitution without destroying their own foundation."
"Laws they are not, which the public approbation hath not made so."
"...as to liberty, how can I be said to enjoy that which another may take from me, when he pleases. The liberty of one depends not so much on the removal of all restraint, from him, as on the due restraint upon the liberty of others. Without such restraint, there can be no liberty..."
"Faction and enthusiasm are the instruments by which popular governments are destroyed... The people when they lose their liberties are cheated out of them. They nourish factions in their bosoms, which will subsist so long as abusing their honest credulity [disposition to believe] shall be the means of acquiring power. A democracy is a volcano, which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption, and carry desolation in their way."
"Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering contumelious reproaches on our Savior Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land."
"For every man, rulers as well as others, are bound by the immutable laws of God and reason, always to do what is right. ...[if this was the only restriction]... The government would always say, their measures were designed and calculated to promote the public good; and there being no judge between them and the people, the rulers themselves must, and would always, judge for themselves."
"the Congress are authorized only to control in general concerns, and not regulate local and internal ones;"
(In 1830's America) "...almost all education is intrusted to the clergy."
"The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom."
"Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention...The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other...Religion in America...must...be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country...From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."
".....there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of Years, and can end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other."
"He knows not how to rule a Kingdom, that cannot manage a Province; nor can he wield a Province, that cannot order a City; nor he order a City, that knows not how to regulate a Village; nor he a Family that knows not how to Govern himself; neither can any Govern himself unless his reason be Lord, Will and Appetite her Vassals [servants]; nor can reason rule unless herself be ruled by God, and (wholly) be obedient to Him."
(Federalist 28) "...State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large. The legislatures will have better means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power and confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty."
(Federalist 32) "...the plan of the convention [U.S.Constitution] aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States."
(Federalist 78) "The judiciary...has no influence over either the sword [Executive] or the purse [Legislative]...and can take no active resolution whatever.It may be truly said to have neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm for the efficacy of its judgments."
"It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasures to the constitutional intentions of the legislature...The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the subjection of their pleasure to that of the legislative body."
(Federalist 79) "The precautions for their [the judges] responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments. They [the judges] are liable to be impeached for malconduct by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate; and, if convicted, may be dismissed from office and disqualified for holding any other."
"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!"
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels or idolators should be a nation of freemen. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated [defective] state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom."
"The proposition that the United States of America [is] a Christian...nation, is...the statement of a fact. That fact is not simply that the great majority of the people are Christians...but that the organic life,the institutions, laws, and official action of the government, whether that action be legislative, judicial, or executive, is...in accordance with the principles of...Christianity....
If a man goes to China, he expects to find the government administered according to the religion of the country. If he goes to Turkey, he expects to find the Koran supreme and regulating all public action. If he goes to a [Christian] country, he has no right to complain, should he find the Bible in ascendancy and exerting its benign influence not only on the people, but also the government....
In the process of time thousands have come among us, who are [not] Christians. Some are...Jews, some infedels, and some atheists. All are welcomed; all are admitted to equal rights and privileges. All are allowed to acquire property, and to vote in every election...All are allowed to worship as they please, or not to worship at all...No man is molested for his religion or his want of religion. No man is required to profess any form of faith, or to jion any religious association. More than this cannot reasonably be demanded. More, however, is demanded. The infedel demands that the government should be conducted on the principle that Christianity is false. The atheist demands that it should be conducted on the assumption that there is no God...The sufficient answer to all this is, that it cannot possibly be done."
"Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others...The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both.The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the executive."
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the dbates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
"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."
"It is error alone which needs support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature."
"Nothing in the Constitution has given them [the judges] a right to decide for the Executive, more than the Executive to decide for them...The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional, and what are not..for the legislature and the executive ...would make the judiciary a despotic branch."
"You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so....and their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal."
"The germ of dissolution of the federal government is in...the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow,) working like gravity by night and day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States."
"They [the judges] have retired into the judiciary as a stronghold....and from that battery, all the works of republicanism are to be beaten down and erased."
"...those that by their Atheism undermine and destroy all Religion, can have no pretence of Religion whereupon to challenge the Privilege of a Toleration..."
"Thus the law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions, must...be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e. to the will of God...no human sanction can be good, or valid against it."
"Laws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made."
"We have staked the whole future of Americn civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the ten commandments of God."
"Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe...Religion...[is] the basis and foundation of government."
"The powers of the General Government relate to external objects, and are but few. But the powers in the States relate to those objects which immediately concern the prosperity of the people. Let us observe also, that the powers in the General Government are those which will be exercised mostly in time of war, while those of the State Governments will be exercised in time of peace."
"[Some contend] that wherever [the Constitution's] meaning is doubtful, you must leave it to take its course, until the judiciary is called upon to declare its meaning...But I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another...I do not see that any one of these independent departments has more right than another to declare their sentiments on that point. Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the legislature as by the judicial authority."
"The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which seperate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them suffer to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves."
"As the courts are generally the last in making the decision [on laws], it results to them, by refusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. This makes the Judiciary dept paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended, and can never be proper."
(Federalist 62)
"It will be of little avail to the people that laws are made by men of their choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tommorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed."
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations...This danger ought to be wisely guarded against."
(Considered the father of public education) "...our system [of public schools] earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its morals on the basis of religion; it welcomes the religion of the Bible; and in receiving the Bible, it allows it to speak for itself. But here it stops, not because it claims to have compassed all truth, but because it disclaims to act as an umpire between hostile religious opinions...the religious education which a child receives at school is not imparted to him for the purpose of making him join this or that denomination when he arrives at years of discretion, but for the purpose of enabling him to judge for himself, according to the dictates of his own reason and conscience, what his religious obligations are and whether they lead..."
"The Federal Sheriff, says he, will go into a poor man's house, and beat him, or abuse his family, and the Federal Court will protect him......Were a law to authorize them, it would be void. The injured man would trust to a tribunal in his neighborhood. To such a tribunal he would apply for redress, and get it."
"Is not private property as an idea abolished when the non-owner becomes legislator for the owner?"
(Communist Manifesto)
"...the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat [non-property owning worker, "who have no means of production of their own"] to the position of the ruling class, to win the battle of democracy."
"...the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
"There are...eternal truths, such as freedom, justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."
"Law, morality, religion, are to him [the proletariat] so many bourgeois [owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour] prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests."
(The Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto)
"1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. [the government defines who are rebels of course]
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. [the Federal Reserve]
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extention of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. [Note: common plan]
8. Equal liability [legally binding together, i.e. a national union] of all labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. [so government can control what is taught, i.e. indoctrination] Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. [Note: present form] Combination of education with industrial production... [school to work legislation]"
"As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities."
"The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth."
"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom and political happiness which mankind now enjoy. In proportion as the genuine effects of Chritianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom...Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."
"Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man towards God."
"Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to pass suitable laws...to encourage schools and the means of instruction."
(Article III) "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
"If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him....Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."
"Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn. I know some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better; for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill men; but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones."
"...government seems to me a part of religion itself..."
(Updegraph v. The Commonwealth)"Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been part of the common law...not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church...but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men... thus...the laws and institutions of this state are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity...In this the constitution of the United States has made no alteration, nor in the great body of the laws which was an incorporationof the common-law doctrine of Christianity ...without which no free governmentcan long exist...No society can tolerate a wilful and despiteful attempt to subvert its religion...No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country... Its foundations are broad and strong, and deep...It is the purest systemof morality...and only stable support of all human laws...Christianity is part of the common law...."
"The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the bebeficient ends of its institution."
"Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating [removing] Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools."
"Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law, but that which is certain, and universal in its operation, upon all the members of the community."
"A simple democracy is the devil's own government."
"An oath [of office] is a religious obligation, no arbitrary ceremony."
"The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenence, much less to advance, Mahomedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious persecution (the vice and pest of former ages), and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age...
Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the first amendment to it ...the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State, so far as was not incompatible with the previous rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions and to make it amatter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation."
(Vidal v. Girard's Executors) "Christianity...is not to be maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against, to the annoyance of believers or the injury of the public...It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider the establishment of a school or college, for the propagation of... any... form of infidelity. Such a case is not to be presumed to exist in a Christian country."
"The propitious [favorable] smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation which disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained."
"True religion affords government its surest support."
"...it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor...And also that we may unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions..."
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensible supports...The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them...Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education...reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
"Moral habits... cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits... Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens."
"Our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible."
"In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed. . . . No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."
"It is extremely important to our nation, in a political as well as religious view, that all possible authority and influence should be given to the scriptures, for these furnish the best principles of civil liberty, and the most effectual support of republican government. The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer."
"There are two powers only which are sufficient to control men and secure the rights of individuals in a peaceable administration. These are the combined force of religion and law, and the force of fear of the bayonet." (Note that he includes law with "religion", not with "the fear of the bayonet" that is government.)
(His 1828 Dictionary) "RELIGION. Includes a belief in the being and perfections of God, in the revelation of his will to man, and in man's obligation to obey his commands, in a state of rewards and punishment, and in man's accountableness to God; and also true godliness or piety of life, with the practice of all moral duties...the practice of moral duties without a belief in a divine lawgiver, and without reference to his will or commands, is not religion."
(His 1828 Dictionary)"EDUCATION. ...instruction and dicipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties."
(His 1828 Dictionary)"LAW. A rule...prescribed by the supreme power...The laws which enjoin the duties of... morality, are prescribed by God and are found in the Scriptures. Laws of nature... have been established by the Creator, and are, with a peculiar felicity of expression, denominated in Scripture, ordinances of heaven."
"...God commands you to choose for your rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God [2 Sam. 23:3]. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty..."
"The religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and his apostles, which enjoins humility, piety and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or sister, a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government."
(On his death bed) "I know in whom I have believed, and that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."
"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense raised in the United States."
"Christianity is part of the common-law."
"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."
"...everything which is not given [to the general government] is reserved. [to the states]"
"...no danger could possibly ensue, since the proceedings of the Supreme Court are to be regulated by Congress, which is a faithful representation of the people;"
"...he is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true religion, and sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not [would not hesitate] to call him an enemy of his country."