A Moral and Religious People

I love this counsel from John Adams.  I find it interesting that he was not advising the conditions the government would provide in order for the Constitution of the United States to be successful but rather what the Constitution requires of the people whose freedoms it protects. 

I recently heard Senator Rick Santorum explain our citizen responsibilities, and the way the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution work hand in hand, better than I think I have ever heard it explained.

Both of these answers were given in response to similar questions when asked how he, Santorum, not only understands the Constitution, but differs from Congressman Ron Paul on this subject.

His responses:

“Today we think of happiness as enjoyment and pleasure and doing whatever makes you feel good. At the time of our founders, the dictionary definition of happiness was to do the morally right thing. So the freedom was not to be free to do whatever you wanted to do. Our founders knew that that would lead to, in fact, not freedom, that would lead to libertinism and lead to chaos, would lead to the French Revolution.

But the reason ‑‑ the freedom to do what you ought to do, what you are properly ordered to do as- as someone living a good, decent and ordered life. And so that’s the differentiation that I believe Ron Paul and I have with respect to what liberty is. His liberty is if you want prostitution, fine. If you want to use drugs, fine. As long as you’re not hurting anybody else, do whatever you want to do, do what makes you feel good. But that’s not how our country was founded. That’s not the moral foundation of our country. And our country is simply not just a collection of freedoms. There is a moral foundation which is declared in the Declaration of Independence with God‑given rights upon which this country was founded and upon which this country succeeded.”

And second…and in my opinion, better and more thorough than the first...

"Ron Paul has a libertarian view of the Constitution. I do not. The Constitution has to be read in the context of another founding document, and that’s the Declaration of Independence. Our country never was a libertarian idea of radical individualism. We have certain values and principles that are embodied in our country. We have God-given rights.

The Constitution is not the “why” of America; it’s the “how” of America. It’s the operator’s manual. It’s the rules we have to play by to ensure something. And what do we ensure? God-given rights. And so to read the Constitution as the end-all, be-all is, in a sense, what happened in France. You see, during the time of our revolution, we had a Declaration of Independence that said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, [that they are] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

So we were founded as a country that had God-given rights that the government had to respect. And with those rights come responsibilities, right? God did not just give us rights. He gave us a moral code by which to exercise them. See, that’s what Ron Paul sort of leaves out. He leaves out rights and responsibilities that we have from God that this Constitution is to protect. And he says, “No, we just have rights, and then that’s it.” No, we don’t. America is a moral enterprise….

My understanding of our founding documents and the purpose of this country is different. I would argue that [Paul’s] understanding of the Constitution was similar to the French Revolution and the French understanding of the Constitution. The French had 21, I think, constitutions, but their constitutions were initially patterned after the American Constitution. Gave radical freedom, like ours does. But their founding document was not the Declaration of Independence. Their founding watchwords were the words, “liberty” and “fraternity.” Fraternity. Brotherhood. But no fatherhood. No God. It was a completely secular revolution. An anti-clerical revolution. And the root of it was, whoever’s in power rules."

Thank you and well done Senator Santorum.