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Did Madison ever say that our future is staked on the 10 commandments?
Research and Writing by Jim Allision.
On page 120 of David Barton's book The Myth of Separation, David Barton quotes James Madison as saying:
-
We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon
the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future
of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind
for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to
govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves
according to the Ten Commandments.
Barton gives the following footnote for the quotation:
-
Harold K. Lane, Liberty! Cry Liberty! (Boston: Lamb and
Lamb Tractarian Society, 1939), p. 32-33. See also Fedrick
Nyneyer, First Principles in Morality and Economics:
Neighborly Love and Ricardo's Law of Association (South
Holland" Libertarian Press, 1958), p. 31.
The only problem with the above is, no such quote has ever been found among any of James Madison's writings. None of the biographers of Madison, past or present have ever run across such a quote, and most if not all would love to know where this false quote originated. Apparently, David Barton did not check the work of the secondary sources he quotes.
Robert Alley, an distinguished historian at the University of Richmond, has recently made an attempt to track down the origin of this quote. You can read about his effort in "Public Education and the Public Good," William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal,, Summer 1995, p. 316-318.
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