In 1798 President John Adams spoke for the founding generation when he warned his fellow countrymen of an even-more profound challenge to self-government: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by . . . morality and religion. . . . avarice, ambition, revenge or galantry, [these vices] 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.”
In 1798 President John Adams spoke for the founding generation when he warned his fellow countrymen of an even-more profound challenge to self-government: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by . . . morality and religion. . . . avarice, ambition, revenge or galantry, [these vices] 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.”