Remarkably, none of these quotations go much distance in supporting the accomodationist account of history and law. None, for example, suggest that the Constitution delegated any power over religion to the federal government. None suggest that the First Amendment was itself a grant of power. None suggest that the federal government could provide aid to religion, even non-preferentially. Rather, these quotes for the most part simply suggest that the framers thought that religion is a positive good, or that religion is important for the success of the state. This doesn't surprise us in the least, but such positions aren't relevant to the separation debate; one can believe in the importance of religion without embracing accomodationist philosophy, or granting power to the state over religion.
We append a list of flaws to each quotation we reproduce below. Flaws can be of six types. We'll list them by number; use the chart below to keep them straight:
Some of these flaws are explained in greater detail elsewhere in this website.
Statesmen...may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. -- John Adams (Flaws: 1, 3)
The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion. --Abraham Lincoln (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [mid-1800s])
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. --John Witherspoon (Flaws: 1, 3, probably 5, but we need to check this out)
The state must rest upon the basis of religion, and it must preserve this basis, or itself must fall. But the support which religion gives to the state will obviously cease the moment religion loses its hold upon the popular mind. --B. F. Morris (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1864])
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. --Thomas Jefferson (Flaws: 1, 3, 6 [yes, Jefferson said this, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of separation. This quotation is taken from a famous letter in which he argues against slavery; Jefferson believed that slavery violated a person's God-given freedom. This does not imply that Jefferson thought that the state had the power to aid religion, as we demonstrate here].)
Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man towards God. --Gouverneur Morris (Flaws: 2, 3)
[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. --Samuel Adams (Flaws: 1, 3)
The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom. --Alexis de Tocqueville (Flaws: 1, 3)
Where there is no religion, there is no morality.... With the loss of Religion...the ultimate foundation of confidence is blown up; and the security of life, liberty, and property buried in the ruins. --Timothy Dwight Flaws: 1, 3)
Republican government loses half of its value, where the moral and social duties are...negligently practiced. To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens, than any other improvements in our system of education. --Noah Webster (Flaws: 1, 3)
True religion affords to government its surest support. --George Washington (Flaws: 3)
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. --Samuel Adams (Flaws: 1, 3)
[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. --Benjamin Franklin (Flaws: 3)
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide. --Abraham Lincoln (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [mid-1800s]. Additionally, we note that this quote has nothing whatever to do with religion or separation of church and state, despite it's inclusion in some accomodationist books.)
This Form of Government...is productive of every Thing which is great and excellent among Men. But its Principles are as easily destroyed, as human nature is corrupted.... A Government is only to be supported by pure Religion or Austere Morals. Private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics. --John Adams (Flaws: 1, 3)
The cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness...inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric. --Daniel Webster (Flaws: 1, 3)
What follows from this? That he is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not [would not hesitate] to call him an enemy to his country. --John Witherspoon (Flaws: 1, 3)
The happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality. --United States Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1892])
Religion and morality...are the foundations of all governments. Without these restraints no free government could long exist. --Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 4, 5 [1824])
Religion, morality, and knowledge [are] necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty, and the happiness of mankind. --United States Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1892])
The destruction of morality renders the power of the government invalid. --Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 5, [1815])
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad. --William Penn (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [late 1600s]. Additionally, we note that Penn was a strong proponent of religious liberty and opposed any sort of state aid to churches--it's preposterous to think that this quote proves that Penn was an accomodationist.)
In vain are Schools, Academies, and Universities instituted, if loose Principles and licentious habits are impressed upon Children in their earliest years.... The Vices and Examples of the Parents cannot be concealed from the Children. How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn that their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers? --John Adams (Flaws: 1, 3. Additionally, we note that this quote has absolutely nothing to do with separation of church and state.)
It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs whether any free government can be permanent where the public worship of God, and the support of religion, constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape. --Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (Flaws: 3, 6 [Story did believe in support of religion on the state level, but he rejected federal power over religion; this quote leaves the opposite impression.])
[T]he moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.... All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. --Noah Webster (Flaws: 1, 5 & 6 [these words were written in 1832 in Webster's History of the United States, and do not represent Webster's views during the time he was agitating in favor of the Constitution. Check here for details.]
Suppos [sic] a nation in some distant. region, should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited.... What a Eutopa, What a Paradise would this region be! --John Adams (Flaws: 1, 3)
A patriot without religion...is as great a paradox, as an honest Man without the fear of God.... The Scriptures tell us righteousness exalteth a Nation. --Abigail Adams (Flaws: 1, 3)
Without an humble imitation of the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion...we can never hope to be a happy nation. --George Washington (Flaws: 3)
Moral habits...cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits.... Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens. --Daniel Webster (Flaws: 1, 3)
To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation...in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom.... Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them. --Jedediah Morse (Flaws: 1, 3)
Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament... be read and taught as a divine revelation in the [school]?... Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament? --United States Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 4, 5 [1844])
The morality of the country is deeply engrafted on Christianity. --Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1824])
The morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of [other religions).... [In] people whose manners are refined, and whose morals have been elevated and inspired with a more enlarged benevolence, [it is] by means of the Christian religion. (42) Supreme Court of New York (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1811]
The morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of [other religions]. --United Stares Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 5)
Christianity has reference to the principles of right and wrong; ...it is the foundation of those morals and manners upon which our society is formed; it is their basis. Remove this and they would fall.... [Morality] has grown upon the basis of Christianity. --Supreme Court of South Carolina (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1846]
What constitutes the standard of good morals? Is it not Christianity? There certainly is none other. Say that cannot be appealed to, and...what would be good morals? The day of moral virtue in which we live would, in an instant, if that standard were abolished, lapse into the dark and murky night of pagan immorality. --Supreme Court of South Carolina (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1846]
A malicious intention...to vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures...would prove a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows, and young women for the brothel, and there is not a skeptic of decent manners and good morals, who would not consider such...a common nuisance and disgrace. (46) Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1824])
Whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government...because it tends to corrupt the morals of the people, and to destroy good order. (47) Supreme Court of New York (Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1811])
Religion...must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests.... In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity; ...the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. --House Judiciary Committee (Flaws: 1. 3. 5 [1854])
The Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed.... No truth is more evident...than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. --Noah Webster (Flaws: 1, 5, 6 [these words were written in 1828 in Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, and do not represent Webster's views during the time he was agitating in favor of the Constitution. Check here for details.])
The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. --House Judiciary Committee Flaws: 1, 3, 5 [1854])