“But let it be remembered, that whatever marks of wisdom, experience, and patriotism there may be in your constitution, yet like the beautiful symmetry, the just proportions, and elegant forms of our first parents before our Maker breathed into them the breadth of life, it is yet to be animated, and till then may indeed excited admiration, but will be of no use. From the people it must receive its spirit, and by them be quickened. Let virtue, honor, the love of liberty and of science [he is likely referring to the sciences of government, law, and economics] be, and remain, the soul of this constitution, and it will be the source of great and extensive happiness to this and future generations.” John Jay, September 1777.
Liberty Letters comment: Jay’s main point was that the Constitution was only a piece of paper, without adaquate support from the people. If the people, in turn, are corrupt, uneducated, given to factions and passions, disunited by common traditions and religious morality, that Constitution will fail.
And so what of modern interventionists who impose democracy on such people – and for that matter, impose democratic forms that resemble more a socialist/secular leaning parliamentary system than our mixed Republic with its strict limitations on power, its vertical and horizontal separations of power, and it’s inalienable rights (with religious freedom number one)? Freedom, like enlightenment and morality, must be earned, must originate from within, and must be chosen by an wise and moral people. Inasmuch as the Internationalists ignore this formula, they shall fail, and in failing, create many enemies for America and her free institutions that would otherwise look to our example when they were ready.
