An enlightened people, who have once attained the blessings of a free government, can never be enslaved until they abandon virtue and relinquish science [the science of government and of laws]. These are the nurses of infant liberty and its fostering genii when matured. To seek their favour is to secure its; to neglect it, is infallibly to lose it. … the ignorance of the people is the footstool of despotism … when ignorance is united with [moral inactiviity], liberty becomes lethargic, and despotism erects her standard without opposition.

- St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, p. 14.

Liberty Letters Comment: Tucker's work is a much respected founding era source of study on the Constitution. George Tucker is the man who edited Blackstone's works to apply to the American situation. His point is vital to the entire constitutional and educational debate about the value of morality, and the freedom to inject the religious perspective in the public debate. Lose our moral foundation, lose a nation full of men and women who are willing to lay down their lives, whether figuratively or in reality, for moral principle, and how easy to defeat this people - and that's the point.

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