Universal Badness

America’s Founders and the Nature of Man 

     80% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. That belief may be proof of another current poll in which a majority opined that government cannot be trusted. 

     “Some worry the government is doing too much, others say too little, and others mention the government doing the wrong things or nothing at all. Respondents also cite concerns about how money has corrupted it and how corporations control the political process.” 

     The founders of America understood why government is untrustworthy and devised a government based on that certainty. 

     Our second president, John Adams, famously said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

     John Witherspoon wrote, “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.” 

     And even John Adams recognized, "Every man hates to have a superior, but no man is willing to have an equal; every man desires to be superior to all others... We may look as wise and moralize as gravely as we will; we may call this desire of distinction childish and silly; but we cannot alter the nature of men..." 

     ‘We cannot alter the nature of man.’ What did Adams and his 18th-century peers think about the nature of man? 

     George Washington. “No compact among men...can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.” 

     Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president. "Free government is founded on jealousy, not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power. In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution." 

     James Madison, 4th president. "It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices (government) should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." 

     Madison likely derived his thoughts from Genevan Pastor and Reformer John Calvin’s commentary on Galatians. "If we were all like angels, blameless and freely able to exercise perfect control, we would not need rules or regulations. Why, then, do we have so many laws and statutes? Because of man's wickedness, for he is constantly overflowing with evil; this is why a remedy is required."                 Calvin’s “constantly overflowing with evil” describes a biblical doctrine that many call Total Depravity- Man is not as bad as he can be but is in every area sinful. 

    Other founders testify to their belief in that doctrine. 

    Alexander Hamilton said, “Because of human depravity, there is “little reason to expect that the persons entrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular members of a confederacy will at all times be ready with perfect good humor and an unbiased regard to the public weal to execute the resolutions or decrees of the general authority.” “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.[T]he infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than... to fall singly upon one." 

    Samuel Adams, the cousin of John Adams. "The depravity of mankind that ambition and lust of power above the law are... predominant passions in the breasts of most men." “[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” 

     John Witherspoon, president of Princeton Seminary. “The cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature." 

     Benjamin Franklin. “In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself.” 

    This persistent belief in the depravity of mankind was foundational in the framing of the Constitution. 

    Constitutional lawyer John Eidsmoe lists five corresponding tenets of the framers’ belief. Because of man’s sinful nature: 

1. Government has limited delegated powers. (No official will be absolute in power.) 

2. Powers are separated: the powers we delegate are divided vertically, some to the federal, some to the state, some to the local government. At the federal level, it is divided horizontally among the three branches.

3. There must be checks and balances. (Each part having a say in the other parts.) 

4. A concept of reserved individual rights will be considered. 

5. Responsibility will be manifested through religion. People need control. Either self-control and self -government, or human government is going to have to enforce control through force. 

    The founder’s solution to this dilemma is religion. The Bible says that all men are born in sin. Sin is man’s natural state. The Founders knew that, and the Constitution reflects their understanding. 

    Every government of man will fail. 

    We will achieve the greatest benefit of this knowledge when we understand the inherent weakness caused by sin, thank God that He is completely trustworthy and apply 1 Timothy 2:1-2. “I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” 

    Tranquility, quietness, godliness, and dignity can be ours, not through our government but through our faith in God. 

    Pray to that end.