The guarantee of keeping this country alive and free is dependent on virtue and morality. The key to keeping America Virtuous and Moral is to elect virtuous and moral leasers. Up until the late 1800’s, Americans were well educated on the principles of freedom, independence, the constitution and the working of the government as well as history and politics. Because of this, any American can strive to serve for public office, the keyword being serve. It was deemed by our founding fathers as being a privilege to serve, as well as a duty. They may not have always agreed on the issues, but they always acted in a manner consistent with virtue, morality and the constitution. They even said publicly and on record that those lacking in experience, training, proven virtue and demonstrated wisdom should NOT serve as elected officials. They took to heart proverb 29:2 “When righteous people are in authority, the people rejoice; but when wicked people rule, the people mourn”.
They knew that humans have a nature of both good and evil. Many have tried to legislate virtue or morality, and it doesn’t work. No matter how many laws we have on the books, or how we try to reach out to evil, there are criminals. The nature of people encourages others to run for office, but not get involved themselves. We see this today when a very small portion of Americans actually go to the voting booths. The founding fathers stated it was our duty to study the politics of government; therefore we can be an informed electorate. This government was also setup so that the whim of the people could not override the justice of all. Most of our early elected served free, and if paid, were paid very little. They knew that ambition and avarice are the two greatest influences of men, who among us can deny this tendency of the human nature? They also saw this nature and forewarned that if to hold office became profitable then we would be headed back to a monarchy. They stress the principles that brought them to this junction, many had served and left the well paying businesses and jobs behind, fought the revolution without being paid not deterred from the path of righteousness. Even in the beginning salaries were discussed, and many objected to this. Pennsylvania actually had it in their constitution that a man should have other means of support or trade, so that the office does not become profitable and all manner of people seek it for wrong reasons. It is of little consequence that their belied in a Creator, launched this noble experiment and this formula produced virtuous and moral people of character who held that all these “truths are self-evident”. Though from many different denominations, they all believed in these common truths that made this noble experiment the greatest country on earth.