Welcome back to this week’s edition of the constitutional ramblings of Laura’s mind! This week, we explore another distinctive part of a republic versus any other form of government: the necessity of a virtuous people.
Every government formed in history presupposed the existence of a god with power to delegate. The only question is to whom the Supreme Being delegates said power.
In a monarchical system, the Supreme Being delegates power to one person, who then delegates to lower officials in order to rule over the people. As John Eidsmoe puts it so well in his book, “Historical and Theological Foundations of Law,” “The other side agrees that God possesses all power, but He delegates a portion of that power to the people, who in turn delegate power to local officials, who in turn establish the national government, and that national government governs only by the consent of the governed.”
Our founders, however, believed that God delegated His power to the governed. But I posit to you, friends, that God cannot delegate power without also passing on His virtue.
Every major civilization through history agreed that power came from some Supreme Being or beings, and they typically followed the ethics of said Being. Greek mythology informed the ethics of the Greeks. Roman mythology informed the ethics of the Romans. Egyptian mythology informed the ethics of the Egyptians. Muslim ethics govern the practices of Muslim theocracies in the Middle East. So it is clear from history that the delegated power worked hand and hand with a civilization’s ethics.
Our founders knew this. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People,” John Adams said. “It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Writing in Federalist 55, James Madison argued that a republican form of government requires people to have more character qualities that justify esteem and confidence than any other form of government. Although every man has a level of depravity, he must give himself to circumspection, Madison argued. So basically, we must take care to be virtuous people ourselves and fight against depravity within.
What form of ethics and virtue are we looking for here? Our Founders agreed that the Supreme Being who possessed all power was the God of the Bible. Thus, Judeo-Christian values inform our ethics.
Our form of government is founded on the knowledge that men, in their basic nature, are born depraved and that virtue alone can come from God. Anyone with a two-year-old understands this. People are not born a blank slate; they must be taught virtue. For that reason, the law is a tutor. And our laws are built on Judeo-Christian values, as early state constitutions demonstrate.
Unfortunately, our laws no longer reflect the need to teach God’s virtue. Instead, we protect and promote depravity, the exact opposite of what our laws originally intended. Thus, we see our republic crumbling.
We’ve heard Democrats pound the table countless times over protecting “our democracy.” Democracy? We are a Republic, the best structure for a lasting government! Democracies, as noted by Cicero and the American founders, lead to despotism, mob rule, and chaos – exactly what we see today.
A virtuous people is also necessary for a small limited government. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom," Benjamin Franklin famously said. "As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
Less virtue necessitates more law because you cannot govern yourself if you are not a virtuous people. This is something leftists and libertarians alike don't understand. I've noticed that libertarians are simply bright-eyed youths in the world of politics. For all their idealism, they forget that the law must be moral, not neutral. And sometimes that means more law to govern the immoral. The answer is not always less law but sometimes more moral law. But if we wish to achieve less law and less government, we must return the people to virtue.
But I take heart in this mess. Yes, Democrats constantly push for the normalization and protection of depravity – sexual immorality, murder, lawbreaking – to the point of ridiculousness. But recent elections show that even normal Democrat voters cannot get with that program, and the closer they swing toward depravity, the more seats they lose. Jealous and corrupt representatives, as indicated in Federalist 55, are voted out. The American people still have virtue and continue to seek truth. This must be encouraged.
Republican candidates and anyone who seeks to protect our republic must push for a return to virtue and laws that teach virtue. It is the only way to get our republic back on track.
Schools play a major part in this and must do a better job of teaching virtue. That is why I am a huge proponent of classical education. The current system is clearly not doing its job. The supposed neutrality it espouses is just secularism, which leans into depravity. It produces neither virtuous citizens nor educated ones – for proof, just see the current literacy rates.
As we reflect on the impressive 250 years of our American experiment, let us also examine the virtue that makes that experiment possible. God-willing, we can extend our years by returning to that virtue.
