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The View from 1776 presents a framework to understand present-day issues from the viewpoint of the colonists who fought for American independence in 1776 and wrote the Constitution in 1787. Knowing and preserving those understandings, what might be called the unwritten constitution of our nation, is vital to preserving constitutional government. Without them, the bare words of the Constitution are just a Rorschach ink-blot that politicians, educators, and judges can interpret to mean anything they wish.

"We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams, to the Officers of the First Brigade, Third Division, Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1798.

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Monday, March 24, 2008

Rejecting Our Unwritten Constitution

John Adams expressed it forthrightly. A nation of limited, constitutional government can succeed only when its citizens are self-regulated by a common understanding regarding morality and rules of social conduct. In the United States, from its founding era until the 1970s, that common understanding was the Judeo-Christian religious ethic that was the substance of Western civilization.

R. R. Reno, on the First Things website, describes the vast, and deleterious, change that befell the nation in the 1970s.

Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 03/24 at 01:57 PM
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