It is the moral underpinning that is the foundation...and that morality is based on Christian principle. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," "Love thy neighbor as thyself," "If anyone asks you to go a mile, go with them twain," "Love God with all of your heart, might, mind and strength,".
Those principles have made our freedom mean something. Have allowed us to be open, inclusive, non-judgemental and fair in our practices as a society so that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights meant something.
The further our society departs from them, the less liberty we will have. We will be forced to inact innumerable laws and send forth innumerable officers of government to govern every aspect of life in order to control a less and less self-displined, morally founded people.
Hmmm, sounds just like the conditions we are living in.
John Adams said it best, IMHO...
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798Jeff