Samuel Adams penned the following in a letter to Joseph Warren on November 4, 1775. The notion of separation between one’s public and private life, especially for leaders, was completely foreign to Adams. Doubtless, it would have been just as curious an idea for other founding fathers. Samuel Adams helped found our country, and he was one of many who discerned the importance of the government assisting in the promotion and protection of Virtue for both the improvement of our private and public spheres of life. [I have left the original spelling.]
“The Eyes of Mankind will be upon you to see whether the Government, which is now more popular than it has been for many years past, will be productive of more Virtue moral and political. We may look up to Armies for our Defence, but Virtue is our best Security. It is not possible that any State shd [should] remain free, where Virture is not supremely honord.
…Since private and publick Vices, are in Reality, thought not always apparently, so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost Pains be taken by the Publick, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the Minds even of children, and the moral Sense kept alive, and that the wise institutions of our Ancestors for these great Purposes be encouraged by the Government. For no people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”
Taken from ed. William J. Bennett, The Spirit of America (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 261.
For more on the importance of virtue (across the board) to our founding fathers, see Gordon Wood’s Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founding Fathers Different.
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