Our Constitution established specific powers of the federal government, powers that are limited and enumerated. The founders believed that the government exists to perform only those services that the people cannot provide for themselves, such as the national defense. Local and state government powers were also to be limited and enumerated with the people self-governing in all other areas. The founders held that only a moral people – a nation of godly people with common spiritual and social values – were capable of self-government.
The Declaration of Independence eloquently communicates those truths that undergird the Constitution. The document proclaims clearly that rights do not come from men. They come from a Creator. That Creator, said the Founding Fathers in their collective wisdom, is the God of the Old and New Testaments. Of 15,000 writings of the 55 men who signed the Constitution, including newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books, the Bible, especially the book of Deuteronomy, contributed 34% of all direct quotations. When indirect citations were included, over half of all quotations were derived from the Bible.
Origins of Freedom
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson Memorial, Washington DC
Education and Research
A popular Government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
James Madison, August 4, 1822
Proper Role of Government
The concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human initiative, and therefore of human energy.”
“The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power; not the increase of it.”
Woodrow Wilson, September, 1912
Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography
National Defense
If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising, it must be known that we are at all times ready for War.”
George Washington, December 13, 1793
Our Duty
No man is entitled to the blessing of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
General Douglas MacArthur, May 3, 1948