Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
George Washington
If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great Security.
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779
Illustrious examples are displayed to our view, that we may imitate as well as admire. Before we can be distinguished by the same honors, we must be distinguished by the same virtues. What are those virtues? They are chiefly the same virtues, which we have already seen to be descriptive of the American character — the love of liberty, and the love of law.
James Wilson, Of the Study of the Law in the United States, Circa 1790
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.
Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America
It is certainly true that a popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people.
Richard Henry Lee, letter to Colonel Martin Pickett, March 5, 1786
It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government.
Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805
Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, November 4, 1775
Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
The Northwest Ordinance, July 23, 1787
Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
You totally missed the point, including the fact that posters are running about 50 to 1 against you.
All of you are making the same mistake and passing judgement that shows you are not up to speed. No one here is arguing against virtue in government. What we are saying, and with almost 100% agreement among the posters, is that Matalin’s droning on about how voters should try and search out only virtuous people to vote for is incredibly naive, it is incredibly boring and cumbersome and very preachy and almost elitist. What we need to do first is to limit government which does not require us being able to divine who is and who is not virtuous and who will and who will not stay virtuous.
I recommend you understand what is actually being discussed before jumping in next time. Just sayin....