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The Weight of Testimony
The first andalmost the only book desetving
the universal distinction is the Bible. I speak as
a man ofthe worldandI say to you/ ''Search the
Scriptures."
-- John Quincy Adams
More than all, a government and a country
were to commence/ with the very first
foundations laid under the divine light of the
Christian religion
...
who would wish that his
country's existence had otherwise begun?
-- Daniel Webster, in
Plymouth, Mass., 1820
Our fathers were brought hither by their
high veneration for the Christian religion. They
journeyed by its
ligh~
and labored in its hope.
They sought to incorporate its influence through
all their institutions/ civil, political, or literary. Let
us cherish these sentiments/ and .extend this
influence still more widely,· in the full conviction
that that is the happiest society which partakes
in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful
spirit ofChristianity.
-- Daniel Webster, 1820
From the day of the Declaration
...
the
A(71erican people were bound by the laws of
Go~
which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel,
which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules
of their conduct
--John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821
The religion which has introduced civil liberty
is the religion of Christ and his apostles/ which
enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence/ which
acknowledges in every person a brother, or a
sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is
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