What the Founding Fathers Really Believed About Human Nature, Virtue, and Self-Government
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Depravity, Independence, and Us
As America prepares for the celebration of our 250th national anniversary, there’s one thing a lot of us would rather not think about: The Founders of our country thought we’re depraved.
In Federalist 55, James Madison makes the point strongly: “(T)here is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.” Similarly, in Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton writes the new Constitution would only fulfill its purpose if its Framers were committed to “making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of man.”
As George Washington succinctly put it in a letter to John Jay, “We must take human nature as we find it. Perfection falls not to the share of mortals.”
Yet, the Founders also recognized that depravity – the bent toward sin that infects our minds, emotions, and wills – was not the only characteristic of being human. In addition to our fallenness, wrote Madison, “There are other qualities of human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”
Republican government, or the self-government of a people through their elected representatives, demands high moral character. Why? Because unless we can govern ourselves individually, unless self-restraint, prudence, and integrity rule in our inner beings, our selfish appetites will fall prey to the blandishments of demagogues and charlatans.
The Founders of the United States of America believed personal virtue is the bedrock of a representation-based democracy. As George Washington wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette almost exactly one year before becoming our first president, “Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government… can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppressive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.” And, as John Adams put it, “Public virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.”
This is why the Founders so strongly and consistently emphasized the necessity of religious faith as the basis for ethical and moral behavior.
It is also why they instituted a complex system of checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution: Opportunity for service is extensive in scope but limited in power and duration. As John Witherspoon, Madison’s teacher at the College of New Jersey (today’s Princeton University) wrote, “(E)very good form of government must be complex, so that the one principle may check the other.” Those leading any government “must be so balanced,” he wrote, “that when everyone draws to his own interest or inclination, there may be an even poise (balance) upon the whole.”
The Founders linked personal virtuous character to religious faith. “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion,” wrote Washington in his Farewell Address. “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Fisher Ames, an early Federalist and four-term member of Congress who was instrumental in drafting the language of the First Amendment, wrote shortly after the death of Washington, “Our liberty… is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.”
The late historian A. James Reichley eloquently summarized the Founders’ belief in religion as the foundation of morality: “(T)he principal founders… were convinced of the need for religion as an underpinning for republican government, and though some were skeptical toward some of the tenets of revealed Christianity, all, except perhaps Jefferson, and he not consistently, shared belief in the view of reality on which theist-humanist values are based.”
Declaration signer Benjamin Rush put it succinctly: “Without (religion) there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”
With all of this said, followers of Jesus must remember that high character builds a strong society but offers no promise of personal redemption. Only Christ can do that.
So, let’s get ready for fireworks, music, and great hails to the “red, white, and blue,” all the while bearing in mind that as Christians, we must ourselves be people who model the character our Savior calls us to internalize and practice. That’s Christian patriotism at its best.
