“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams.
John Adams was not alone in understanding that our Constitution functions only if people have a shared morality derived from Judeo-Christian principles. James Madison wrote that our Constitution requires “sufficient virtue among men for self-government,” otherwise, “nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.” It’s not clear that 21st century America has that necessary virtue.
The Ten Commandments are at the center of Judeo-Christian moral teaching. (I have written before about the connection of virtue and morality as it relates to First and Second Amendment rights.) Even non-religious people once understood that these principles are useful guides for moral living in a functioning society. Much has changed in just a few years, though.
The first few commandments are about man’s relationship with God and are not relevant to this discussion. What matters here are the commandments that concern our relationships with others, which define morality as our Framers understood. They have societal value independent of the precepts about the relationship to God. No religious beliefs are necessary to accept their value as moral principles. It was this morality that the Framers saw as essential to constitutional self-government.
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