Founding Issues
Licentiousness

1. "LICENTIOUSNESS, n, Excessive indulgence of liberty; contempt of the just restraints of law, morality and decorum. The licentiousness of authors is justly condemned; the licentiousness of the press is punishable by law. "Law is the god of wise men; licentiousness is the god of fools." Plato."
   - Noah Webster, United States Founding Father, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
2. "There is a natural and necessary progression, from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny; and arbitrary power is most easily established, on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
   - George Washington, United States Founding Father, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, President of the Constitutional Convention, 1st President of the United States under the Constitution and President for the signing of the Bill of Rights "Maxims of Washington", John Frederick Schroeder, D.D., collector and arranger, 1854, p.20
3. "The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed within this State to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of conscience hereby granted shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness. ... ”
   - Constitution of New York, 1777
4. "What gave to us this noble safeguard of religious toleration ... ? It was Christianity. ... But this toleration, thus granted, is a religious toleration; it is the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, with two provisos, one of which, that which guards against acts of licentiousness, testifies to the Christian construction. ... What constitutes the standard of good morals? Is it not Christianity? There certainly is none other. ... The day of moral virtue in which we live would, in an instant, if that standard were abolished, lapse into the dark and murky night of Pagan immorality. ... In the Courts over which we preside, we daily acknowledge Christianity as the most solemn part of our administration. A Christian witness, having no religious scruples about placing his hand upon the book, is sworn upon the holy Evangelists — the books of the New Testament which testify of our Savior’s birth, life, death, and resurrection; this is so common a matter that it is little thought of as an evidence of the part which Christianity has in the common law. ...I agree fully to what is beautifully and appropriately said in Updegraph v. The Commonwealth ... - Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a 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.""
   - Supreme Court of South Carolina, City Council of Charleston v. S.A. Benjamin, 2 Strob. 508, 522-524 (Sup. Ct. S.C. 1846).
5. "The cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness ... inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric. 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."
   - Daniel Webster, United States Founding Father, "Defender of the Constitution", The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1853), Vol. II, p. 615, from an address delivered at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the Addition to the Capitol on July 4, 1851. and Vol. I, p. 44, from a Discourse Delivered at Plymouth on December 22, 1820.
6. "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. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty."
   - Fisher Ames, United States Founding Father, Author of the House of Representatives Language for the First Amendment

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