The following was written by COS intern Jonathan Stuckey.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Those words, written by John Adams, express a foundational principle behind the founding of the United States of America: that for people to be free, they must govern themselves, and for people to govern themselves, they must possess certain beliefs that guide and restrain their behavior. Without this self-governance, a powerful and intrusive government becomes necessary to control the people. Interwoven into this principle is a foundational concept of Western Civilization, which is the relationship between justice, duty, and self-governance. The great Roman statesman Cicero discussed these concepts in his work On Duties, describing how justice, properly understood, includes duty. By understanding Cicero’s ideas on justice and duty, we can better understand the true nature of self-governance and thus return to the path of liberty.
First of all, what is justice? Most fundamentally, it means giving to everyone what they deserve, or in other words, giving to each what is owed. This is commonly understood when referring to situations where a person has been harmed by another, or when someone’s rights have been violated. In those cases, the victim is owed restitution, and the wrongdoer deserves punishment. However, justice extends beyond that. To understand this, it is helpful to contrast justice with injustice. For example, Cicero doesn't limit injustice to harming others– he argues that failing to protect someone from violence when it was in your power to do so is also unjust. Thus, justice is more than punishing wrongdoers; it is giving to each what is owed. This includes certain duties that each person owes to another.
Duty, as the Founding Fathers understood it, referred to “that which a person owes to another; that which a person is bound, by any natural, moral or legal obligation, to pay, do or perform” (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary). These are obligations or responsibilities that, if not fulfilled, will lead to harm against others. A truly good, moral, and just society must include people fulfilling their duties. Some of those civic duties are displayed in the Bill of Responsibilities, and include the duty to help those in need, the duty to participate in civic life, and the duty to provide for oneself and one’s family. Most duties are difficult, if not impossible, for a government to enforce without a severe violation of individual liberty. Thus, it is vital for each of us to voluntarily fulfill our duties, which is the essence of self-governance.
That is one reason why John Adams said our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. Our Constitution was designed for freedom, something that can only be maintained by self-governance, which includes each person fulfilling their duties without government force. When people do not fulfill their duties to themselves and their fellow citizens, a powerful and intrusive government becomes necessary to restrain and control the people, which diminishes liberty. We the people, in order to restore our republic, must begin with ourselves. We must return to a true sense of justice and duty towards ourselves, our families, and our countrymen. We must be self-governed. Only then can we return to the path of liberty.
