What do you think of this quote?

Question

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
- John Adams

I think Adams is saying that without religion, or some kind of objective morality, our whole political structure will collapse. Freedom is possible in a society where people are generally moral. If people are generally immoral, a free society cannot function.

Answer 1

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
James Madison
In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
James Madison
"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin."James Monroe

"Of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny." James Monroe

Answer 2

Gosh, I wonder what Adams would think about the immoral liars, Bush and Cheney with all of their avarice (Haliburton/Carlyle Group), ambition (control ME oil), revenge (out Joe Wilson's wife)? I think the whale has been swimming in and out of the net since December, 2000.

Answer 3

IMO: essentially you are correct. I read an excellent biography about John Adams recently.

PS: Some interesting answers. John Adams was the son of a preacher as well as both a friend of and in opposition to Thomas Jefferson.

Answer 4

If you accept religion as a codification of morality, you are correct but some religions now and most in the past have used morality as a tool for genocide and conflagration. There is the dilemma

Answer 5

That is essentially correct. Without an ethical commitment, the rule of law cannot long survive.

Answer 6

I agree, our Consitution is indeed made for a moral and religious people.

Answer 7

Here here. Peace

Answer 8

he is totally correct

Answer 9

i don't.