Some quotes from our founding fathers, taken from
here:
George Washington, our first
president, said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. The mere
politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to 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.” Washington also said, “True religion affords to government its surest
support—it is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the
Bible.”
John Adams, our second president,
said, “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.”
Thomas Jefferson, our third
president, said, “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.”
James Madison, our fourth
president, known as the Chief Architect of our U.S. Constitution, said, “We have
staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon 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, to
control ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of
God.”
Samuel Adams, the Father of the
American Revolution, said, “A general dissolution of principles and manners will
more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.” Adams also
said, “Let divines and philosophers, statesmen 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 inculcation (implanting)
in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity—and in subordination to
these great principles, the love of their country—in short, of leading them in
the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian
system. Neither the wisest constitution, nor the wisest laws will secure
the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally
corrupt.”
Gouverneur Morris, who literally
wrote the U.S. Constitution, said, “Religion is the only solid basis of good
morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the
duties of man towards God.”
John Quincy Adams, our sixth
president, said, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this—it
connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the
principles of Christianity.”
John Jay, the first Chief Justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court, said, “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.”
Joseph Story, an early U.S. Supreme
Court Justice, appointed by James Madison, said, “We are not to attribute this
prohibition of a national religious establishment, in the First Amendment, to an
indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity, which none
could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution.” Story also
stated, “It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any
free government can be permanent, where the public worship of God, and the
support of religion, constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in
any assignable shape.”
Benjamin Franklin, one of our
Founding Fathers, said, “He who shall introduce into public affairs the
principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the
world.” It was Franklin who moved that prayers be held every morning
before proceeding with business at the Constitutional Convention in
1787.
Patrick Henry, famous for his
declaration “Give me liberty, or give me death”, also said, “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. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded
asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here (in the United
States).”
Noah
Webster, a Founding Father and founder of the
Webster Dictionary, has been titled ‘America’s Schoolmaster.’ The following is what Webster had to
say about the relationship between government and Christianity. “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 a sister, and a citizen with equal rights.
This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free
constitutions of government.” Webster also said, “The 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.” Webster also understood that Christian principles must be
inseparable from any sound educational system. Webster
said, “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.”
Jedediah Morse, the ‘Father of
American Geography’ said the following about the importance of Christianity to
education: “To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil
freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now
enjoys. All efforts to destroy the foundations of our holy religion
ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and
happiness. 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.”
John Witherspoon, another Founding
Father and educator—trained one President, one Vice-President, three Supreme
Court Justices, ten Cabinet members, twelve Governors, sixty Congressmen, and
others, while serving as President of Princeton University. The
following is what he had to say about mixing politics and Christianity: “It is
in the man of piety and inward principle, that we may expect to find the
uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen, and the invincible soldier. 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.”
Witherspoon also said, “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 (hesitate) not to
call him an enemy to his country.”
Alexander Hamilton, who literally
wrote much of George Washington’s Farewell Address, believed that religion and
morality were indispensable supports to political prosperity. Hamilton penned these words: “In vain would that man claim the tribute of
patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness
(religion and morality).”
Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with
indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”
In summary, the phrase ‘separation of
church and state’ does not appear in either the U.S. Constitution, or the Bill
of Rights, however the phrase has been severely misused in our courts over the
past 50 years, ever since the 1962 case of ‘Engel vs. Vitale’ which declared
voluntary non-denominational prayer in schools to be
unconstitutional.
Abraham Lincoln once stated that
America was “a nation under God”—but that is increasingly in question
today as apostasy seems to be increasingly prevalent in all three branches of
our American government, our American educational system, and in a larger
percentage of our American citizenry with each passing year.
American citizens dare not ignore or fail
to heed the warnings of our Founding Fathers any longer. ‘We the
People’ need to take bold and immediate steps to reverse apostasy and the
practice of ‘separation of church and state’ as found within our
government. If we do not heed the warnings by our visionary founders—then we
face dire consequences in our effort to preserve our nation much further into
the future, a nation with freedom and liberties established by Almighty God and
our Founding Fathers beginning in 1776.
