Founding Issues
Republicanism

  1. "Republicanism in not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind." - United States Founding Father, George Washington, "Maxims of Washington", John Frederick Schroeder, D.D., collector and arranger, 1854, p.20

  2. "[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion." - United States Founding Father, Noah Webster, "History of the United States", (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 6.

  3. "[T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government. ... and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence." - United States Founding Father, Noah Webster, K. Alan Snyder, "Defining Noah Webster: Mind and Morals in the Early Republic" (New York: University Press of America, 1990), p. 253, to James Madison on October 16, 1829.

  4. "Republican government loses half of its value where the moral and social duties are ... negligently practiced. To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens, than any other improvements in our system of education." - United States Founding Father, Noah Webster, "History of the United States", (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 6.

  5. "[T]he moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. ... All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." - United States Founding Father, Noah Webster, "History of the United States", (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 339, s. 53.

  6. "[R]eligion and virtue are the only foundations ... of republicanism and of all free governments." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, 2nd President under the Constitution, John Adams, "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States", Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 636, to Benjamin Rush on August 28, 1811.

  7. "In contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes, and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be Republicans and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, "Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical", (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel Bradford, 1798), p. 112, ¡°Defense of the Use of the Bible as a School Book.¡±

  8. "I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism. ... It is only necessary for republicanism to ally itself to the Christian religion to overturn all the corrupted political and religious institutions in the world." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, "Letters of Benjamin Rush", L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton, New Jersey: American Philosophical Society, 1951)s, Vol. II, pp. 820-821, to Thomas Jefferson on August 22, 1800.

  9. "Without this [religion] there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, "Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical", (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel Bradford, 1798), p. 8

  10. "Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, "Letters of Benjamin Rush", L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton: The American Philosophical Society, 1951), Vol. I, p. 505, ¡°To American Farmers About to Settle in New Parts of the United States,¡± March 1789.

  11. "[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." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, Bernard C. Steiner, "The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry" (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475, to James McHenry on November 4, 1800.

  12. "Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement. ... [T]he very existence of the republics ... depend much upon the public institutions of religion." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock, Independent Chronicle (Boston), November 2, 1780, last page; Abram English Brown, "John Hancock, His Book", (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1898), p. 269.

  13. "[T]he primary objects of government, are peace, order, and prosperity of society. ... To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are therefore objects of legislative provision and support and among these ... religious institutions are eminently useful and important." - United States Founding Father, Member of the Constitutional Convention, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Oliver Ellsworth, "The Connecticut Courant" (Hartford), June 7, 1802, p. 3, from ¡°A report of the Committee ... to the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut¡± by Oliver Ellsworth.

  14. [W]e live in a republic thus highly favored of heaven, and under a social compact from which so many benefits result: and whilst these considerations should animate us with exalted sentiments of patriotism ... they ought above all to inspire us with becoming gratitude to the great ruler of nations, on whose favor all our happiness depends." - United States Founding Father, Revolutionary War General, Governor of New York, George Clinton, "Speeches of the ... Governors ... of New York", p. 80, Governor George Clinton on January 31, 1804.

  15. "[T]he virtue which had been infused into the Constitution of the United States ... was no other than the concretion of those abstract principles which had been first proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. ... This was the platform upon which the Constitution of the United States had been erected. Its virtues, its republican character, consisted in its conformity to the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and as its administration ... was to depend upon the ... virtue, or in other words, of those principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution of the United States." - United States Founding Father, 6th President under the Constitution, John Quincy Adams, "The Jubilee of the Constitution" (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839), p. 54.

  16. "We are now to rank among the nations of the world; but whether our Independence shall prove a blessing or a curse must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue or wickedness. ... Justice and virtue are the vital principles of republican government." - United States Founding Father, Member of the Constitutional Convention, Father of the Bill of Rights, George Mason, "Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches", William Wirt Henry, editor (New York: Charles Scribner¡¯s Sons, 1891), Vol. II, p. 185, from George Mason to Patrick Henry, May 6, 1783.

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