1993 Freedom Festival Patriotic Service
Neal A. Maxwell
4 July 1993
[Unfortunately audio only]
More than we realize, our whole society really rests on the capacity of its citizens to give what is called “obedience to the unenforceable.” We do this by complying willingly with the law and behaving voluntarily according to time tested standards. Such citizenship expresses a high form of volunteerism. In contrast, widespread and sustained lack of self-control will bring either severe external controls or anarchy. America’s Founders were determined to avoid both of those awful alternatives . . .
The quality of self-control is best grown in healthy family gardens, yet so many familes are failing. Healthy families are the first places in which we learn how to balance rights and responsibilities and to take turns . . .
Surely it is one of the first duties of government to protect its citizens. Nevertheless, however beefed up law enforcement cannot realistically be expected to compensate fully for a widespread lack of individual self-control . . .
America with all of its problems, is still a beacon. This beacon needs to shine more brightly today for the sake of all mankind in order to continue to gibe in Lincoln’s words, “hope to all the world.” Whatever the dimension of patriotism therefore, it requires that America have and maintain a spiritual core in order that our hopes are not in vain. Without this spiritual core our liberties, our cities, our fiscal policies, and our brotherhood will finally fail and falter. Virtue must therefore reside in the people as well as in the leaders. John Adams so cautioned, saying, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Unexciting as a prescription, nevertheless the best single way to improve the quality of life in America is to improve the quality of our own individual lives and our own neighborhoods. Otherwise, citizen failures to respect property or to practice chastity and fidelity, with all of those consequences and all of those failures cannot be corrected by mere legislation. Similarly, our neglect of the poor or of our civic duties cannot be corrected by executive orders.
Our inspired Consitution is wisely designed to protect us from excesses of political power. But it can do little to protect us from the excesses of appetitie or from individual indifference to great principles or institutions. Any signifiicant unravelling of the moral fiber of the American people therefore, finally imperils the Constitution. The moral fabric of this society can become dangerously and relentlessly frayed as too few strands strain to hold us together. Hence, having a shared patriotic, spiritual, and moral commitment within this nation’s borders is as vital as defending those borders.
