While many work tirelessly for effective public policy and institutions that cultivate an environment of lawfulness and public virtue, the truth is growing more and more obvious: It is not possible to legislate morality.
President John Adams observed this in 1798 about America’s “supreme law of the land”: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
In plain terms, those who operate individually with a set of core values need fewer laws and are less a burden upon society.
The simplicity of the enumerated powers of the founding document crafted and approved in 1787 was intended to create a small, limited government that only intervened in the affairs and activities in which the citizenry could not serve themselves.
Adams’ sentiment was based on the premise that those who are moral and religious are taught that personal conduct and behavior must be rooted in goodness and honor; that truth is the currency of a noble and durable society; that obeying civil law is a testimony to one’s character; and that deviancy is shameful, punished and not tolerated.