This Independence Day, Let's Recommit to Embracing Virtue

July 2, 2021

As we approach Independence Day, it is worth reflecting on our Founding Fathers—George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, and many other fearless patriots. These brave men boldly set out to form a great nation—one committed to the truth that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Miraculously, these men succeeded. Though not a perfect nation by any stretch, historically, America has been a source of source of strength for nations under attack—as the troops were on the beaches of Normandy; a beacon of hope for the those who wish to be free—as President Reagan was as he demanded the dismantling of the Berlin Wall; and a land of limitless opportunity—as Clarence Thomas discovered on his journey from extreme poverty to the highest court in the land. 

Yet, today in America, the unalienable rights of life and liberty are under attack in the name of what some consider “the pursuit of happiness.”

America is led by a president who continuously attacks the unborn child’s right to life and has promised to codify Roe, which would enshrine abortion on demand through 40 weeks as the law of the land. In the name of public health, this past year, religious freedom was trampled, and churches were forced to limit attendance even at Christmas. Free speech has been limited in schools and on university campuses. Biological realities have been denied and males are playing women’s sports and using women’s bathrooms. Teachers who are morally opposed to doing so are being forced to call students by biologically incorrect pronouns. And the federal government is considering completely abandoning any regard for human life by removing the limitations on human-animal chimeras

America’s transformation into a nation our Founding Fathers would barely recognize has been accompanied by a decline in the religiosity of Americans. As the number of Americans identifying as Protestant and Catholic have sharply declined, the number identifying as religiously unaffiliated, as “nones,” has grown by about 20 percent from 1990 to 2019

Our nation, a nation for which the Founding Fathers sacrificed and died, a nation that was meant to be the land of the free and home of the brave, has become the land of the “woke” and the home of the godless.  

The resulting loss of freedom and constant attacks on the rights Americans have always held so dear would not shock John Adams, who so wisely commented, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  Or Samuel Adams, who concluded, “It is not possible that any State should long remain free, where Virtue is not supremely honored.” Or George Washington, who in his farewell address warned, “It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”

Though our Founding Fathers were not all Christians, all had a profound understanding of the essential nature of a moral code, of virtue, and of belief in a Supreme Being whose natural laws must be followed. Over the last several years, our country has lost this understanding, but if our nation truly wishes to be great—to be the land our Founding Fathers dreamed of—we as Americans must once again embrace virtue.