John Adams, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Second President of the United States
"It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue."
(Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 401, to Zabdiel Adams on June 21, 1776.)
Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."
(Source: William V. Wells, The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1865), Vol. I, p. 22, quoting from a political essay by Samuel Adams published in The Public Advertiser, 1749.)
Fisher Ames, Framer of the First Amendment
"Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it 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."
(Source: Fisher Ames, An Oration on the Sublime Virtues of General George Washington (Boston: Young & Minns, 1800), p. 23.)
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and which insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
(Source: Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475. In a letter from Charles Carroll to James McHenry of November 4, 1800.)
Oliver Ellsworth, Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court
"The primary objects of government are the peace, order, and prosperity of society. . . . To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are therefore objects of legislative provision and support: and among these . . . religious institutions are eminently useful and important. . . . the legislature, charged with the great interests of the community, may, and ought to countenance, aid and protect religious institutions—institutions wisely calculated to direct men to the performance of all the duties arising from their connection with each other, and to prevent or repress those evils which flow from unrestrained passion."
(Source: Connecticut Courant, June 7, 1802, p. 3, Oliver Ellsworth, to the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut)
Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
(Source: Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore and Mason, 1840), Vol. X, p. 297, April 17, 1787. )
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that "except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.
(Source: James Madison, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Max Farrand, editor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), Vol. I, pp. 450-452, June 28, 1787.)
The writings of the Enlightenment were the most philosophical guide of the Constitution, not the Bible. I even have little question each} of the Framers paid dissembling to it, as a result of even today, not paying lip service to God is taken into account taboo (e.g. every televised presidential speech ends in some version of "God bless"). however to assert that faith could be a guideline of any Free state is just wrong. we regularly hear conservatives say however the ten commandments are the premise of our legal system. Anyone who asserts this has either ne'er browse the 10 commandments or is unfamiliar with the laws of the US. the sole laws that seem in each regard killing and stealing, and are we tend to to assume that while not the Sacred Tablets that we might all be cutthroat larcenists? No, in fact not. Those are rules that any functioning society should live by to keep up civil order. I was found some articles themes on meowessay.com
I think you can interpret that many ways. But regardless, does it really matter what fraction of these men were deists? What do we take from it? I'm a non-religious person, and I much appreciate that I am not discriminated against for it in the US. As a student of history, I've found countless examples of Christians killing people. I have encountered plenty of nice Christians, but I've also encountered some very unfriendly ones: racist ones, ones that sabatoge others at work, etc. I haven't found that being a Christian means you are a good person. Yes, Christianity mostly teaches you to be one, but I've found that I act more Christ-like than some people that go to church on Sunday. Morality doesn't require faith, and it surely doesn't require a specific type of faith. We have a system that recognizes this, and I for one am glad for that. Of course everyone of faith is going to think they are coming from the right direction, but that is fundamental property of faith itself. I have no problems with people practicing their faith, or constructing a world-view based on it that's different from my own. But, I become very uncomfortable when a specific faith wants to guide the interactions of those that don't practice it, especially through government. Deists or not, the founders were wise to the dangers that religion can pose upon a pluralistic democracy and tried to keep church and state seperate for it.
Another hint might be from the following statement" Benjamin Franklin signed Pennsylvania's 1776 Constitution, which stated in Frame of Government, Chapter 2, Section 10: "Each member of the legislature, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration: 'I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governour of the Universe, the Rewarder of the good and Punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.'"
A good case could be made for Jefferson being a Deist but I think that the opposite case holds at least as much merit. The man wrote expansively on many things, including religion, and probably had as many doctrinal conflicts as the bible. Jefferson knew his Greek philosophy, not merely in the Catholic way. I know that Jefferson read Aristotle with an open mind, and feel pretty sure that he didn't look at the bible was the literal truth, but I'm just as sure that Jefferson believed in something, maybe not in Jesus, but something. In that the founders were decidedly protestant, pursuing their own personal understanding of god, not blindly accepting the dogma pushed on them by the Catholic church, or any church which didn't suit their understanding and temperament, I believe the door was open for some to swerve over to the not accepting the bible as literal truth camp. For some this is enough to make a person a Deists. You don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the sins for our salvation? Well then you aren't a Christian, even if you hold essentially the same values, a belief in a higher power, and go to church every Sunday, you are just a dammed Deists. If a founder held Deist mind frame, he was probably smart enough to keep it to himself. I feel pretty sure that there were a tiny handful of doubters among the founder just like there are in pews every Sunday. Not so much different today. The congress is mostly Christian, Jews are present in greater proportion then the population at large as are Mormons, there are even a few Buddhists. The one group that is way under represented is people unaffiliated with a faith. 16% of Americans don't have a religious affiliation and 0% of congress has no religious affiliation. You want to get elected? Then find a god and hug em tight. Not that you really need to believe or maybe if you do, you don't have to act like you do beyond the photo op. If you think that George Bush or Barack Obama are Christians then I hope you think it's in that I have sinned and am going to continue to sin and hope you will let me in when I repent later on kinda way. You can't throw gigantic wars killing piles of innocents, or even non-innocents and call yourself a Christian, at least that is what I think. There is a great deal of evidence on both sides as to whether you can be a Christian and a soldier, but as someone who approaches the whole thing from a protestant point of view, I have made up my own mind that it's not ok from the teachings of Jesus standpoint. I think that the founders aversion of foreign entanglements was motivated in part by their belief in the Gospels ( the way of peace), and that there was no reason for a bunch of hard working protestants, protected by a giant ocean, to do much more than tend their farms and defend their right to work hard and worship in peace. I have always found the treaty singed at the end of the 1st Tripoli war a pretty curious document. It was unanimously passed by the 5th congress and singed by John Adams. Pretty straight forward document except for Article 11 "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." This is proof positive in some peoples eyes that the founders didn't found America as a Christian nation, I don't really think that is the case. There is more then enough other Cristian sentiment bandied about in the early years of the Republic to counter this one document. I do think that it shows that the founder wanted to relate to the rest of the world in a legal, honest manner, fortified by goodwill for all people and not guided by a particular religious strain (as in one particular Christianity but instead in a reverence and love for all men and their creations to be pursued by each man in his own way, of which cultural protestantism was the only meal on the menu). Well unless you were a Woman, a Black, a Catholic, an Indianor Poor, but hey that is another day and another argument about the "Cristian" roots of America I have to say that I don't accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, nor do I pretend to know the mind of god or if there is a god. I think I live my life with a Protestant ethic, work hard, try to love my neighbor, be known by my good works, have compassion for the poor and unfortunate and judge not in the moral ethical sense (intellectual judgement I don't mind) while securing the safety of my community, home and workplace but I know I also fail to live up to those ethics all the time. It is a peculiar type of arrogance to pretend to understand the will of god. Any time that type of dogmatism is presented to me I just shake my head, and wonder who people think they are to understand that which we have no way to understand. It is important to try and understand what would make a person hold the beliefs they do, it adds context to ones understanding of others, of history and of possible futures, and in that I think that examining the founders for Deism is a probably a worthwhile endeavor that if honestly done can only add to our understanding of where we as a nation came from, who we are and possibly where we are going.
Jefferson wasn't a fan of "faith", he was a pragmatic and practical fellow. I've never read anything that supports that he believed in a higher power. He did certainly believe that a man needed a code of ethics and morals by which to steer their life. He was a BIG fan of Jesus' teachings and philosophy but not a fan of the rest of the bible. He describes the words of Christ and the context in which they are found as being, "as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill" -high praise for Jesus, not so high of praise for the "scribes" that wrote the bible (which he calls ignorant and unlettered). He then proceeded to cut out only the parts of the new testament that were accounts of Christ and had no "mysticism" and "paste" them in to his own abridged version of the bible. That said, Jefferson was the exception not the rule. The vast majority of our "founders" were devout Christians. Jefferson was unequivocally Deist though.
One thing I often hear from those on the "religious right" is that the founders would "not recognize the republic they created" because it is so far removed now from their original intent. I wonder if the same can be said of Christianity? What would the founders think of our mega-churches with their christian rock, elaborate lighting, talking in tongues etc? Would John Adams think that the mega churches and TV evangelists should hold so much persuasion in our political arena? Do they embody the "principles upon which freedom can securely stand" I think Jefferson was right, "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living, that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it". -This question is ours to answer. If I get a vote, I say do as you will in your private life but keep religion out of public institutions.
I think one thing that Christians and non-Christians can agree on (albeit for vastly different reasons) is that the Bible isn't rational. The Constitution, on the other hand, is hyper rational and was created through trial-and-error and a series of negotiated compromises. To suggest otherwise, based on a few select quotes about the nature of morality, several of which don't even contain reference to any sort of divinity, is incorrect revisionist history. We could each also post disparaging things that were said by the Founders in regard to Christianity, but that would be fighting fire with fire, so I will not do that. The fact that we can debate what morality even is is sufficient evidence that it is derived solely from critically thinking people.
I'm admittedly not a man of faith, so I don't have a deep understanding of it, but it seems to me (again, as an outsider) that part of the point of faith is to shed one's connection to the world of logic and rationality and try to gain some other type of experience (spiritual peace or enlightenment, for example, I suppose). On a related note, when I said the Bible was irrational, it was not meant as a pejorative. I'm not naive enough to think that hyper rationality is in any way a desirable way to live. There are many things that can't in principle be rationalized. To return to the Constitution, I think this can actually be a problem in our legal system. A courtroom is a forum where rationality is given great weight, and it can lead to strange outcomes, where, say, one man goes to prison for light shoplifting, while another goes free on a technicality after committing murder. I won't pretend to know a better alternative, but I think it is clear that rationality isn't always good or desirable.
I give two shits as to who or what "the framers" were. I recognize that it's really important to some people, but they're the same people who talk about "the framers" the same way they talk about "the apostles". The Constitution was written as a living document. They plastered ten addenda on that thing within two years of ratifying it - so it's not like they expected it to be writ in stone. Even they knew that they couldn't write something that would handle everything in the future so they built in a system by which it could be adapted. And here we are, 220 years later, still using what a bunch of dead white guys "intended" to solve arguments, rather than what they wrote. Hell, even if they were dyed-in-the-wool Protestants they wouldn't recognize their denominations today so who cares what flavor of god they did or didn't believe in?