Founding Issues
Morality

Also see Immorality

1. "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness. ... And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds ... reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of religious principle. ... Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge."
   - George Washington, United States Founding Father, "A compilation of the Message and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897", James D. Richardson, (Published by the Authority of Congress, 1899), Vol. 1, P. 220, September 17, 1796
2. "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 was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other"
   - John Adams, United States Founding Father, "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798
3. "The great pillars of all government and of social life ... [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible."
   - Patrick Henry, United States Founding Father, Moses Coit Tyler, "Patrick Henry" (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1897), p. 409, to Archibald Blair on January 8, 1799.
4. "As morality and piety rightly grounded on evangelical principles will give the best and greatest security to government and will lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligations to due subjection; and as the knowledge of these is most likely to be propagated through a society by the institution of the public worship of the Deity and of public instruction in morality and religion; therefore, to promote these important purposes, the people of this State have a right to empower, and do hereby fully empower, the legislature to authorize, from time to time, the several towns, parishes, bodies corporate, or religious societies within this State to make adequate provision at their own expense for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality."
   - New Hampshire Constitution, "The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America", (Boston: Norman and Bowen, 1785), p. 4, New Hampshire, 1783, Article 1, Section 6, “Bill of Rights.”
5. "As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the People of this Commonwealth have a right to invest their Legislature with power to authorize and require ... the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic or religious societies, to make suitable provision at their own expense for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality."
   - Massachusetts Constitution, "A Constitution or Frame of Government Agreed Upon By the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-Bay", (Boston: Benjamin Edes & Sons, 1780), pp. 7-8, Article III, “Declaration of Rights.”
6. "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
   - United States Congress, "Northwest Ordinance", Stating the Requirements for Statehood. July 21,1789 Passed the House of Representatives, August 4, 1789 Passed the Senate, August 7, 1789 Signed into law by President George Washington, "The Constitutions of the United States of America With the Latest Amendments", (Trenton: Moore and Lake, 1813), p. 364, “An Ordinance of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio,” Article III.
7. "Nothing could be more offensive to the virtuous part of the community, or more injurious to the tender morals of the young, than to declare such profanity lawful. ... The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject, is granted and secured; but to revile ... the religion professed by almost the whole community is an abuse of that right. ... [W]e are a Christian people and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors [other religions]. ... [We are] people whose manners ... and whose morals have been elevated and inspired ... by means of the Christian religion. Though the constitution has discarded religious establishments, it does not forbid judicial cognizance of those offenses against religion and morality which have no reference to any such establishment. ... This [constitutional] declaration (noble and magnanimous as it is, when duly understood) never meant to withdraw religion in general, and with it the best sanctions of moral and social obligation from all consideration and notice of the law. ... To construe it [the constitution] as breaking down the common law barriers against licentious, wanton, and impious attacks upon Christianity itself, would be an enormous perversion of its meaning."
   - New York Supreme Court, "People v. Ruggles", 8 Johns 545-547 (Sup. Ct. NY. 1811), The Opinion of the Court was delivered by James Kent, co-"Father of American Jurisprudence", author of "Commentaries on American Law"
8. "[C]onsider all morality in general as conformity to a law."
   - John Witherspoon, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, "The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), Vol. VII, p. 70, from his “Lectures on Moral Philosopy,” Lecture 9. [All legislation is legislating morality]
9. "This court is ... invested with power to punish not only open violations of decency and morality, but also whatever secretly tends to undermine the principles of society. ... [W]hatever tends to the destruction of morality in general may be punished criminally. Crimes are public offences not because they are perpetrated publicly, but because their effect is to injure the public. Burglary, though done in secret, is a public offense; and secretly destroying fences is indictable ... hence, it follows, that an offence may be punishable if in its nature and by its example it tends to the corruption of morals; although it be not committed in public. The defendants are charged with exhibiting and showing ... for money, a lewd ... and obscene painting. [I]f the privacy of the room was a protection, all the youth of the city might be corrupted by taking them one by one into a chamber and there inflaming their passions by the exhibition of lascivious pictures. ... [A]lthough every immoral act, such as lying, etc., is not indictable, yet where the offence charged is destructive of morality in general ... it is punishable at common law. The destruction of morality renders the power of the government invalid. ... The corruption of the public mind, in general, and debauching the manners of youth, in particular, by lewd and obscene pictures exhibited to view, must necessarily be attended with the most injurious consequences. ... No man is permitted to corrupt the morals of the people; secret poison cannot be thus disseminated."
   - Pennsylvania Supreme Court, "Commonwealth v. Jesse Sharpless and Others", 2 Serg. & R. 97, 101, 104 (1815).
10. "I sat next to John Adams in Congress, and upon my whispering to him and asking him if he thought we should succeed in our struggle with Great Britain, he answered me, "Yes, if we fear God and repent of our sins." This anecdote will, I hope, teach my boys that it is not necessary to disbelieve Christianity or to renounce morality in order to arrive at the highest political usefulness or fame."
    - Benjamin Rush, "Letters of Benjamin Rush", L. H. Butterfield, editor (NJ: American Philosophical Society, 1951), Vol. I, pp. 532-536, to John Adams on February 24, 1790.
11. "On Monday last the Circuit Court of the United States was opened in this town. The Hon. Judge Paterson presided. After the Jury were impaneled, the Judge delivered a most elegant and appropriate charge. ... Religion and morality were pleasingly inculcated and enforced as being necessary to good government, good order, and good laws, for "when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice [Proverbs 29:2]." ... After the charge was delivered, the Rev. Mr. [Timothy] Alden addressed the Throne of Grace in an excellent, well adapted prayer."
    - "United States Oracle", United States Founding Newspapers, (Portsmouth, NH), May 24, 1800; see also "The Documentary History of the Supreme Court", Vol. III, p. 436.
12. "As piety, religion and morality have a happy influence on the minds of men, in their public as well as private transactions, you will not think it unseasonable, although I have frequently done it, to bring to your remembrance the great importance of encouraging our University, town schools, and other seminaries of education, that our children and youth while they are engaged in the pursuit of useful science, may have their minds impressed with a strong sense of the duties they owe to their God."
    - Samuel Adams, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, "Father of the American Revolution", Governor of Massachusetts, "The Writings of Samuel Adams", Harry Alonzo Cushing, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), Vol. IV, p. 401, to the Legislature of Massachusetts on January 27, 1797.
13. "If we continue to be a happy people, that happiness must be assured by the enacting and executing of the reasonable and wise laws expressed in the plainest language and by establishing such modes of education as tend to inculcate in the minds of youth the feelings and habits of "piety, religion and morality"."
    - Samuel Adams, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, "Father of the American Revolution", Governor of Massachusetts, Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, , Vol. IV, p. 371, to the Legislature of Massachusetts on January 16, 1795.
14. "The attainment of knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the larger term of education. ... [A] profound religious feeling is to be instilled and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances. All this is comprised in education."
    - Daniel Webster, "Defender of the Constitution", "The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1853), Vol. II, pp. 107-108, remarks to the ladies of Richmond, October 5, 1840.
15. "Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as Divine revelation in the college [school] - its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained and its glorious principles of morality inculcated? ... Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?"
    - Joseph Story, United States Supreme Court Justice, co-"Father of Amerian Jurisprudence", "Vidal v. Girard’s Executors", 43 U. S. 126, 200 (1844).
16. "I cannot omit this occasion of inviting your attention to the means of instruction for the rising generation. To enable them to perceive and duly to estimate their rights; to inculcate correct principles and habits of morality and religion, and thus to render them useful citizens, a competent provision for their education is all essential."
    - Daniel Tompkins, Vice-President of the United States, Governor of New York, "The Speeches of the Different Governors to the Legislature of the State of New York, Commencing with Those of George Clinton and Continued Down to the Present Time" (Albany: J. B. Van Steenbergh, 1825), p. 108, Governor Daniel Tompkins on January 30, 1810.
17. "[G]overnment ... is a firm compact sanctified from violation by all the ties of personal honor, morality, and religion."
    - Fisher Ames, United States Founding Father, United States Congressman, Author of the House of Representatives language of the First Amendment, "Independent Chronicle" (Boston), February 22, 1787, Fisher Ames writing as Camillus; see also Fisher Ames, "The Works of Fisher Ames", Seth Ames, editor (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1983), Vol. I, p. 67.
18. "Religion and morality ... [are] necessary to good government, good order, and good laws."
    - William Paterson, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Constitution, United States Supreme Court Justice, "United States Oracle", (Portsmouth, NH), May 24, 1800; see also "The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800", Maeva Marcus, editor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), Vol. III, p. 436.
19. "The study and practice of law ... does not dissolve the obligations of morality or of religion."
    - John Adams, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, "Atlas of the American Revolution", First Vice-President under the Constitution, Second President of the United States, "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States", Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), Vol. II, p. 31, from his diary entry for Sunday, August 22, 1756.
20. "I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. ... [They] preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty Sovereign of the Universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization."
    - John Adams, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, "Atlas of the American Revolution", First Vice-President under the Constitution, Second President of the United States, "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States", Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), Vol. IX, pp. 609-610, to F. A. Vanderkemp on February 16, 1809.
21. "[W]ithout morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure ... are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
    - Charles Carroll, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Bernard C. Steiner, "The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry" (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475, to James McHenry on November 4, 1800.
22. "Vain indeed would be the search among the writings of profane antiquity [secular history] ... to find so broad, so complete and so solid a basis for morality as this decalogue [Ten Commandments] lays down."
    - John Quincy Adams, United States Founding Father, Sixth President of the United States, "Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings", (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), pp. 70-71.
23. "[A] free government ... can only be happy when the public principle and opinions are properly directed ... by religion and education. It should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality."
    - Abraham Baldwin, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Constitution, Charles C. Jones, "Biographical Sketches of the Delegates from Georgia to the Continental Congress", (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1891), pp. 6-7.
24. "Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society."
    - George Washington, United States Founding Father, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, President of the Constitutional Convention, First President of the United States under the Constitution, "Father of his country", "The Writings of George Washington", Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Ferdinand Andrews, 1838), Vol. XXXV, p. 416, to the Clergy of Different Denominations Residing in and Near the City of Philadelphia on March 3, 1797.
25. "His [George Washington's] private character, as well as his public one, will bear the strictest scrutiny. ... He was the friend of morality."
    - David Ramsay, United States Founding Father, Member of the Continental Congress, Surgeon in the Continental Army, "Eulogies and Orations on the Life and Death of General George Washington", (Boston: Manning and Loring, 1800), p. 91, from an oration by David Ramsay, M. D., on January 15, 1800.
26. "We have seen that his [George Washington's] private life was marked in an eminent degree with the practice of the moral virtues. ... He taught (and his own practice corresponded with his doctrine) that the foundation of national policy can be laid only in the pure and immutable principles of private morality."
    - Jeremiah Smith, United States Founding Father, Revolutionary War Soldier, Judge, United States Congressman, Governor of New Hampshire, "Eulogies and Orations on the Life and Death of General George Washington", (Boston: Manning and Loring, 1800), p. 190, from an oration delivered by Jeremiah Smith on February 22, 1800.
27. "[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand."
    - John Adams, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, "Atlas of the American Revolution", First Vice-President under the Constitution, Second President of the United States, "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States", Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), Vol. IX p. 401, to Zabdiel Adams on June 21, 1776.
28. "[T]hree points of doctrine, the belief of which, forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of a God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark; the laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy."
    - John Quincy Adams, United States Founding Father, Sixth President of the United States, "Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings", (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), pp. 22-23.
29. "The practice of morality being necessary for the well-being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses."
    - Thomas Jefferson, "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson", Albert Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington, D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XII, p. 315, to James Fishback, September 27, 1809.
30. "[C]herish and promote the interest of knowledge, virtue and religion. They are indispensable to the support of any free government. ... Let it never be forgotten that there can be no genuine freedom where there is no morality, and no sound morality where there is no religion. ... Hesitate not a moment to believe that the man who labors to destroy these two great pillars of human happiness ... is neither a good patriot nor a good man."
    - Jeremiah Smith, United States Founding Father, Revolutionary War Soldier, Judge, United States Congressman, Governor of New Hampshire, "A Selection of Orations and Eulogies . . . In Commemoration of the Life . . . of Gen. George Washington", Charles Humphrey Atherton, editor (Amherst: Samuel Preston, 1800), p. 81, from an oration by Jeremiah Smith, February 22, 1800.
31. "Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy [depravity] and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time but beyond a certain pitch even the best constitution will be ineffectual. ... What follows from this? That he is the best friend to American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion and who 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 to his country. ... God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both."
    - John Witherspoon, United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, "The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon", (Philadelphia: William W. Woodard, 1802), Vol. III, pp. 41-42, 46, “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men,” May 17, 1776.
32. "No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged and is the religion of the country. ... Christianity is part of the common law. ... Its foundations are broad and strong and deep. ... It is the purest system of morality ... and only stable support of all human laws."
    - Pennsylvania Supreme Court, "Updegraph v. Commonwealth", 11 Serg. & R. 393, 406 (Sup. Ct. Penn. 1824).
33. "[W]hatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government ... because it tends to corrupt the morals of the people, and to destroy good order. ... [O]ffenses against religion and morality ... strike at the root of moral obligation and weaken the security of the social ties."
    - New York Supreme Court, "People v. Ruggles", 8 Johns 546 (Sup. Ct. NY 1811).
34. "The morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity. ... [We are] people whose manners are refined and whose morals have been elevated and inspired with a more enlarged benevolence by means of the Christian religion."
    - New York Supreme Court, "People v. Ruggles", 8 Johns 545, 546 (Sup. Ct. NY 1811).
35. "[A] malicious intention ... to vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures. ... would prove a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows and young women for the brothel. ... Religion and morality ... are the foundations of all governments. Without these restraints no free government could long exist."
    - Pennsylvania Supreme Court, "Updegraph v. Commonwealth", 11 Serg. & R. 398-399, 405 (Sup. Ct. Penn. 1824).
36. "In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character. ... It is alleged by men of loose principles or defective views of the subject that religion and morality are not necessary or important qualifications for political stations. But the Scriptures teach a different doctrine. They direct that rulers should be men "who rule in the fear of God, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness” [Exodus 18:21]. ... [I]t is to the neglect of this rule of conduct in our citizens that we must ascribe the multiplied frauds, breaches of trust, peculations [white-collar larceny] and embezzlements of public property which astonish even ourselves; which tarnish the character of our country; which disgrace a republican government."
    - Noah Webster, United States Founding Father, Revolutionary War Soldier, Judge, Educator, "Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education", (New Haven: S. Converse, 1823), pp. 18-19, Letter 1.
37. "[I]f we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity."
    - Daniel Webster, "The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster", (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1903), Vol. XIII, pp. 492-493, from a speech on February 23, 1852.

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