American Values and Principles Part Seven

Part Seven: American Values and Principles
Would you agree with the following statement?: “A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.”
I would say that this statement is true and that we as a people have become less virtuous and morally bankrupt. Did you know that heated and sometimes violent debates took place in the thirteen colonies between 1775 and 1776 over whether or not the people were sufficiently “virtuous and moral” to govern themselves.
Franklin: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
Has our nation become corrupt and vicious?
George Washington said the Constitution could survive only “so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people.”
“One of the most strident voices in the debate was Thomas Paine, who’s Common Sense had been a best-seller. He pointed out that most of the people were “industrious, frugal, and honest.” He added that few Americans had been corrupted with riches the way people had been debilitated in Europe, where all they wanted was “luxury, indolence, amusement, and pleasure.” (The Five Thousand Year Leap) Of special note here Thomas Paine was a Brit.
I ask what do we strive for America? Over the years have we become the very same “Europe” that Thomas Paine warned us about? Do we crave “luxury, indolence, amusement, and pleasure” over a return to basics, virtues, morality, and principles?
Note this: In colonial America it had begun already and now two hundred years later we find ourselves here. “In colonial America, British influence was already taking its toll. One alarmed American wrote, “Elegance, luxury and effeminacy begin to be established.” David Ramsay declared that if Americans had not revolted “our frugality, industry, and simplicity of manners, would have been lost in an imitation of British extravagance, idleness and false refinements.” (The Five Thousand Year Leap)
A Warning from the Founders

Samuel Adams (Father of the Revolution): I thank God that I have lived to see my country independent and free. She may long enjoy her independence and freedom if she will. It depends on her virtue.

John Adams: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Samuel Adams: The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While, on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.

So if we as a people can get back to becoming a virtuous people again, grounded in our principles and values, what is the next step to turning the country around? Well the most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable country when the people are virtuous is to elect virtuous leaders. Once again let us return to the words of Samuel Adams: "But neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man."
So how do we elect virtuous leaders you might ask? Simple I say, read Thomas Jefferson. “It was believed by Jefferson and the rest of the Founders that citizens should accept major roles in public life. Instead of having an aristocracy like what was found in Europe. Jefferson spoke of a “natural aristocracy” of virtue, talent, and patriotism. This natural aristocracy of ordinary men should allow themselves to be called away from their work, and they should have the same sense of duty toward their country that Washington showed when he allowed himself to be called out of retirement three separate times to serve the country.
Jefferson felt it should be the goal of the whole nation to use education and every other means to stimulate and encourage those citizens who clearly exhibited a special talent for public service. He felt one of the greatest threats to the new government would be the day when the best qualified people refused to undertake the tedious, arduous, and sometimes unpleasant task of filling important public offices.” (The Five Thousand Year Leap)