Chris Christian

After much thought on this topic, namely the express deliberative and instilled idea that virtue, as a concept, or better, a truth, is real and was believed by our nation’s august framers and founders as the basis for the provision of good governance, and subsequently good civics, we must make certain specific ideas are understood, as far as the founders understood them, concerning the following: western civilization’s acceptance of virtue, the truth about human nature, and the dissemination of what is virtuous through a classics-oriented education as well as a pursuit of virtuous-minded civic participation in our Republic.

On what the founders believed about virtue and whether we have it.

The framers’ and founders’ ideas about what virtue was had been framed in the experiences already endured by their forebears, whether they had been Puritans and Separatists in New England, Anglican gentleman planters in Virginia, gentleman adventurers in Maryland, or Quaker fundamentalists in Pennsylvania. They all came forward through the unifying experience of the Great Awakening, where each background had sought Biblical truths beyond dogmatic theology involving the assurance of salvation and their unique identity as something distinct from their European counterparts currently experimenting with the Enlightenment. In Europe, the idea people were inherently good, or at least neutral perceivers and deciders of judgments on the basis of stimulus, was emerging and taking some hold, whereas in America, virtue was understood as something unique in God’s nature, and we were fashioned to pursue it … or reject it.¹

Of course, one might be tempted to accuse diverse members of our framer/founder friends on the basis of what each member’s conclusions concerning the assurance of salvation was. Does this criticism merely come from a criticism we ourselves ought bear? Decidedly. The framers and founders, as very young men, had experienced, in one way or another, the central purpose and spirit of the Great Awakening as a unifying historical experience after all, an experience in which a form of liberty was sought in order to undertake a special spiritual journey of pursuing assurance of salvation through a personal experience-oriented relationship with God.² Certain ideas about what ought be believed about God, Mankind, and a relationship between the two were also reinforced within this experience, and whether they knew it or not, our founder friends accepted them to the degree they formulated the framework of our Republic upon these same ideas.³

On what the founders understood about human nature.

The framers rejected the Enlightenment ideas about man being neutral or fundamentally “good” as in “just” and upon this basis fashioned a governance in keeping with the ideas and notions of John Locke: that governance ought have a role; that the role was clear, succinct, and specific; and that this role was limited to protecting the governed from one another and from the governance. Locke stipulated the derivation of property arose through the State of Nature, and the recognition of man’s flawed nature made the rise of the governance an “evil” necessity, born forth in the State of Man, where governance exists to protect “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.”⁴ Jefferson would reiterate this last portion of the role of governance to the “pursuit of happiness.” Ultimately, the framers understood that people were flawed, that truth was true always, and that there was no relativity with absolute understandings. Rather they endure, and so there will always be right and wrong, and subsequently there will always be right and wrong actions whether they be on the part of the governed or the government.⁵

Further evidence of the founders’ acceptance, and to some degree the American colonists’ acceptance, of this elemental condition of human nature is born out in the popular sermons of the Great Awakening, made much of while the framers and founders were mere boys. The message of mankind’s frail imperfection and sinful nature is made manifest quite clearly in Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,”⁶ and the further acceptance of mankind’s need and ability to pursue virtue is seen perhaps most clearly in the popular reception of Whitefield’s “Marks of a True Conversion,”⁷ wherein Whitefield testifies to how man can repent and establish a relationship with God and what the signs of such a relationship ought to be.

On what the founders meant by classics.

The framers and founders understood classics as being traditional classical learning and works, which reinforced the ideas concerning a flawed man created by an infallible and perfect Creator. The classics were thought to motivate learners to pursue excellence because they reflected the best of flawed man created by a perfect Creator.⁸ The stories and myths of the ancients, for example, gave examples of the best of man, the beauty of pursing good, and triumph over evil. The founders included the Bible as a key part of this as well. The Bible shows the best of God and the best of obedience to God, as it were.

On how the founders understood training and education.

At first, education was focused on providing as much apologetics training for good little Puritans, Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Separatists, Quakers, etc., as one could, and in many parts of America, the Bible was used as the sole textbook along with a hornbook and primer.⁹ After the Great Awakening, a new focus emerged, where Enlightenment thinking was turned on its head, and the classics were pursued to fashion the best young Christian with an assurance of salvation as one could using the classics AND the Bible AND Logic and Rhetoric, AND  church, AND civic participation in governance.¹⁰

In Summation

It should be consequently observed therefore, that virtue was indeed a vital component behind the framers’ and founders’ vision for America. Our forebears, going back even to their first arrival on these shores, had a thorough grounding on what they accepted as true virtue, and on the truth concerning the spiritual and physical state of mankind from Adam. Knowing as they did true human nature, they established our State in such a manner that the good of the governed under our republican governance is best guaranteed through the pursuit of virtue once it has been learned of in a classical manner.

Endnotes