Principle #2: A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong

As I was reading principle 2 from “The Five Thousand Year Leap” I couldn’t help being amazed at how far our country has strayed from the very basic principles that shaped our Constitution and the people it represented. According to Skousen’s words, the question of American independence from England was intrinsically related to the question of Americans being able to have the morality and virtue to govern themselves and be a free people.
Numerous notable figures of those times voiced their opinion and concern on what it meant to be a moral and virtuous people, and the ramifications this would have to the future government of our country. Benjamin Franklin wrote,
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
George Washington later said the American Constitution could only prevail “so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.”
With so much argument about morality and public virtue, I wondered what the Founders’ concept of them were. Skousen states that “morality is identified with the Ten Commandments” and that early Americans associated virtue with maturity in character and service in accordance to the Golden Rule. Many early Americans also associated lack of public virtue with non-involvement in the affairs of government. It’s self-evident that religion and moral conduct were an essential part of the people, and that our Constitution reflects that fact.
James Madison said,
“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend upon their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.”
According to his words, the Founding Fathers trusted that America would remain virtuous and moral enough that the elected government officials would represent the morality and virtue of the people in general.
The Founders knew that as time passes, societies evolve, but the principles that inspired our present form of government are immovable and unchangeable. Right would remain right, and wrong would still be wrong. Do we see this belief in society today, a time when a minority can decide how the majority will be governed, and when the very principles of what is good and right change from year to year? For the sake of freedom of speech and expression, we are witnessing all kinds of changes in the government and society denying the very essence of our Constitution, which was created to help our people remain a free people.
Samuel Adams’ voice resonated in me when I read, “...if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.”
For those who proclaim our Constitution is outdated and not in accordance to our days, maybe they are right. But maybe it’s not the Constitution that needs to be changed to mirror our society, it’s society that needs to reflect on the values that govern our actions and revert to the ones that shaped our Constitution and our country. That is, if we still want The United States of America to be what they were supposed to be, a haven for a free and happy people, moral and virtuous.
by Yamile Saied Mendez