1870. About 80 years after the constitution was adopted. So...my point still stands.
And I know they could and did err, and pointing out the flaw in Adam's quote was an example of that.
Adam's quote isn't the flaw. The flaw is "most of our founders were deist". The "flaw" is teaching the following generations that "deism" means godless or pagan. The issue isn't to keep making mistakes, but to
fix them. It's silly to chuck the idea America needs morality because we hadn't yet shed ourselves of slavery. It's
morality that fought the battle. It was
a "morality" that fought back.
We both agree that those things are immoral. It doesn't matter how I came to that conclusion. Not in this thread anyway.
Sure it does. Your moral ground is just as important here as it is defending prostitution. What? Is your moral stand like a suit you change? Or is it more like your blood, something that is part of you?
You make it sound as if I asked the question and then just stopped thinking as if that would be the end of it. To be honest though, I don't know how I'd even go about solving this one. The only thing I can think of would be personal documents by these men that they kept secret, or at least kept within a small group of people they trusted. Those would be REALLY hard to find. But that's no reason to not look.
Nope, no secrets. I have books sitting on my shelf right now that expose the ideas of the founders both before and after the Constitution. American history only seem to be hidden from the generation that follows mine. Although, most of my American history has been learned through my own endeavor. Right here at TOL through debate I discovered quite a bit when forced to research the truthfulness of flippant comments.
But, something else I've learned...
I can't just hand out the answers because those who make historically ignorant comments are generally uninterested in the truth. So, instead of me giving answer (or time and effort) to such comments, I rather just point folks in the right direction to discover the info on their own, should they be genuinely interested.
To you, I would say, read the Federalist Papers, The Mayflower Compact, The Debates on the Constitution... When you are done with those, I'll offer more
As goes the morality of America, so goes the nation.
And at least the other 60 believed in a god.
How do
you know?
Look at Thomas Paine though. He was abandoned by his friends and the public because of his writings about the inconsistencies of the Bible. There's no way he could've became president.
You aught to catch my blog. I posted a letter from Franklin to Paine (3rd post). After you read it, let me know what you got out of it.