Human Passions Unbridled by Morality

American Minute from William J. Federer

On OCTOBER 11, 1798, President John Adams wrote to the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Division of the Militia of Massachusetts: "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."

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

British Statesman Edmund Burke told the National Assembly, 1791: "What is liberty without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils...madness without restraint. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites."

Edmund Burke continued: "Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."

U.S. Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop stated on May 28, 1849: "Men, in a word, must be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet."

William J. Federer is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and president of Amerisearch, Inc, which is dedicated to researching our American heritage. The American Minute radio feature looks back at events in American history on the dates they occurred, is broadcast daily across the country and read by thousand on the internet.