“The freedom of censure is a matter of great consequence under our government.”
Founders Quote of the Week
In this quote I am looking at one portion of the moral structure inherent in the minds of the Founders then relating it to John Locke’s moral structure that ends up in the structure of our documents.
Here is the full quote for some context:
“The freedom of censure is a matter of great consequence under our government. There are certain vices and follies, certain indecencies of behavior, beneath the inspection and censure of law and magistracy, which must be restrained and corrected by satire.”
My favorite part of this quote is the part on satire. Adams is fully aware of the benefit and necessity of satire in making fun of the ridiculous wherever it may appear. I can’t help but think of social media groups like The Babylon Bee constantly satirizing popular culture.
What Adams was referring to here is the tendency of citizens to accept and reject morality as a sense of taste.
It fits directly in John Locke’s four steps analysis of moral law in his Essay concerning Human Understanding:
divine revelation
the law of nature
civil law
“the law of fashion or private censure”
We can see the basic structure of this hierarchical concept of morality in the writings of other Founders. Here, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Thomas Law, uses the same structure:
“When [the moral sense] is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defeat by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as (4) the love, or the hatred, or the refection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence; (2) demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run [reason proves that private interest is served by obedience to natural law]; (3) the rewards and penalties established by the laws [political laws]; (1) and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those whose depravity is not too profound to be eradicated.” (I’ve adjusted Thomas Jefferson’s original numbering here to coincide with John Locke’s system and help the reader identify each concept in Jefferson’s assessment.)
To expand on Adams’ quote, which is very specific to number four of Locke’s moral structure, he speaks to the other three layers of morality in his Discourses on Davila that he wrote while being vice-president.
Section one on divine revelation: “…the joys of heaven are prepared, and the horrors of hell in a future state, to render the moral government of the universe perfect and complete.” This is similar to what Jefferson had said when he asked, “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 the gift of God?”
Section two on reason and natural law: “The rewards of selfish activity are life and health; the punishments of negligence and indolence are want, disease, and death.” Also interesting here is Adams’ use of “selfish” as nothing more than a way to describe paying attention to the natural needs of the self. Not as a pejorative. It’s similar to Ayn Rand’s use of the word but likely a reason why modern people have a distaste for the concept simply by its naming conventions.
Section three on civil law: “government is intended to set bounds to passions which nature has not limited; and to assist reason, conscience, justice, and truth, in controlling interests, which, without it, would be as unjust as uncontrollable.”
This structure of morality in the Founders’ minds also made it into civil documents like The Northwest Ordinance of 1787:
Section three on civil law: “For the prevention of crimes, and injuries,…laws [are] to be adopted…[both] criminal and civil.
Sections one, two and four: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary…,schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Religion is divine revelation, morality is what is popularly accepted and enforced through taste, and knowledge comes from human reason.
All of this coalesces into government being formed in a way to promote the moral structure of its citizens.
The means of doing so when it comes to the first two, religion and natural law or reason, are today debated, but at the time of the founding were generally expected to be part of common education. Civil law promotes morality in that it creates real punishments for breaking laws based on moral principles, which then shapes the general moral tastes of the people.