Throughout my adult life I have often heard people claim that you “can’t legislate morality” and that religion and government are incompatible because of the “separation of church and state.” Both statements and the philosophy behind them would have been an anathema to the vast majority of the Founders. Let’s explore.
As I’ve mentioned in previous submissions, the Founders believed that religion was necessary for liberty to flourish and that the best religion to reach this end was Christianity, specifically Protestant Christianity. This view is expressed by John Adams when he addressed the Massachusetts Militia as President in 1798 when he wrote, “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.”
The Founders were very concerned with the moral character of citizens and believed that the government, both state and federal, played a role in inculcating proper morality and virtue upon its citizenry. These virtues were seen as necessary in the character of public officials of a republican government. Regarding legislating morality, we see this ideal expressed in all criminal law. The criminal law itself is an expression of the morality of a society as it protects the citizens from immoral behavior, or as Thomas Jefferson stated, “wicked and dissolute” men. Even today, our criminal and civil laws express a sense of morality, albeit quite a different code of morals in many areas than did our Founders.
State constitutions also “emphasized the importance of the virtues for maintaining a free society” by emphasizing the “obeying of laws, paying debts, and respecting and defending the rights of others.” State legislatures accomplished this goal by implementing laws against public drunkeness, promoting hard work, frugality, and providing for family. Abandonment, adultery, and abortion were deemed illegal as they not only abridged the natural rights of innocents (abortion), but reinforced the need for a moral and virtuous people.
Additionally, the Founders believed that government promotes virtue and morality by punishing criminals and from public officials expressing moral lessons in speeches, ceremonies, songs, etc. One famous example is the institution of a National Day of Prayer by President George Washington, a clear repudiation of the modern ideal of separation of church and state.
At the local level, public education was the primary tool outside of church and family to instruct children on the duties, not just the rights, of citizens in a free society. Schools promoted religion from the very beginning of the country, and laws prevented blasphemy in public.
To modern ears, some of these practices may seem draconian in nature. Some readers may even view them as antithetical to American values. However, the Founders believed that government had to enforce a morality that supported natural rights through legislation and that the moral agenda should be good for everyone. One may ask how anti-blasphemy laws could coexist with the First Amendment protection of free speech. The answer is not as complex an you may think. Firstly, it wasn’t until the first quarter of the 20th century that the First Amendment began to apply to the states through the judicial concept of selective incorporation that stems from the Fourteenth amendment’s equal protection clause, passed in 1868 (the Bill of Rights are actually addressed the the US Congress, not the states). Secondly, while state constitutions guaranteed free speech, they also passed the anti-blasphemy laws and would not have seen the contradiction, especially as 9 of the 13 states had legally established religions/churches (another repudiation of the modern ideal of separation of church and state). However, the anti-blasphemy laws did not preclude discussion about Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, for example, which questioned the validity of religion and the authority of the Bible. The book was banned in Britain but allowed in America as an academic text. Denouncing Christians and/or their beliefs in public, however, would be seen as a violation of such laws.
The Founders also believed in protecting the reputation of individuals, which is why we have laws against slander and libel. Furthermore, religious liberty was not generally seen as incompatible with the promotion of religion. In fact, especially in New England, taxpayer money was used to pay teachers of religion in Protestant schools as religion was seen as necessary to good government. The caveat was that government, at the federal level, could not establish a national church or favor one church over another.
In essence, the Founders would be greatly troubled by our modern society as they would view our system of government as failing to promote a sense of morality and duty in the citizenry. Without morality and duty based on virtue, decay sets in and ultimately rots the culture and soul of a nation. One can hardly argue against the idea that America currently sits on the precipice of national rot. Perhaps a revival of the Founding ideals is what will save us.