Fixed Bounds

John Witherspoon

"When the branches of a tree grow very large and weighty, they fall off from the trunk. The sharpest sword will not pierce when it cannot reach. And there is a certain distance from the seat of government, where an attempt to rule will either produce tyranny and helpless subjection, or provoke resistance and effect a separation."

Quote for the Day

John Witherspoon

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."

Liberty is God's Gift

Witherspoon's underlying argument is that liberty is God's gift and all of creation has been contrived so that it will sweetly, freely, even out of darkness and despair, come to fruition. He believes that God and civil liberties go together:

John Witherspoon

"So in times of difficulty and trial, it is in the man of piety and inward principle, that we may expect to find the uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen, and the invincible soldier. God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable, and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one, may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both."

                — Michael Novak, On Two Wings, page 16

Quote for the Day

Seeking for Something Better?

"Both nations in general, and private persons, are apt to grow remiss and lax in a time of prosperity and seeming security; but when their earthly comforts are endangered or withdrawn, it lays them under a kind of necessity to seek for something better in their place. Men must have comfort from one quarter or another. When earthly things are in a pleasing and promising condition, too many are apt to find their rest, and be satisfied with them as their only portion. But when the vanity and passing nature of all created comfort is discovered, they are compelled to look for something more durable as well as valuable. What therefore, can be more to the praise of God, than that when a whole people have forgotten their resting place, when they have abused their privileges, and despised their mercies, they should by distress and suffering be made to hearken to the rod, and return to their duty?"

Sermon 17: John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, as found in the book by Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, Vol. 1 (1730-1788) [1991] and available electronically at www.oll.libertyfund.org