John Adams understood the reality that exists even today: you can’t have a limited government if the people don’t self-limit. It’s just won’t work. And who is best suited to self-limit — to self-govern? People who are “moral and religious.”
When Adams wrote this, he wasn’t thinking of or in any way referencing any religion other than Christianity. John Adams understood that the influence of Christianity was imperative for the Constitution and the form of government it prescribed, a limited, representative government.
He wasn’t invoking Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other “ism.” He was talking about morality derived from the truths of Scripture. To think otherwise is to not understand John Adams and the time in which he lived. He was alluding to ideas such as “in honor preferring one another,” and “be ye kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,” and “bear ye one another’s burdens,” and “don’t defraud your brother,” and so much more that we find in Scripture that tells us how we are to live with deference to others and in personal restraint.
Unlike the world, we derive our ...
