Letter to the Editor: the Ten Commandments – Mission Statement for Mankind

By RON WEXLER Boca Raton
Fla.

Editor,
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of the government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity�of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”—-James Madison, 1778.
I like many other Americans have become alarmed by recent Supreme Court rulings and a host of civil liberties lawsuits that have placed the Ten Commandments at the center of an ongoing volatile legal debate.
As a nation we have seen prayer disappear from our schools and public expressions of faith come under an aggressive assault by “civil libertarians.” Soon we could see the Ten Commandments, the very foundation of America’s Judeo-Christian moral and faith tradition, disappear from our culture altogether if we stand by and do nothing.
One wonders how far America must drift from its faith moorings before people stand up to declare that “Enough is enough!”
It is worth considering why we as “One Nation Under God” have always identified our national morality with the standards of the Ten Commandments.
I believe our Founding Fathers understood why.
That is why they declared that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” – including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
In 1778, James Madison stated that America’s success was dependent upon the determination of “each and every one of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments.”
What gave this venerable Founding Father the boldness to make such a declaration? To discover this we must examine the very essence of the Ten Commandments. Without a doubt they form the single greatest source of morality that the world has ever known. Furthermore, they are the moral foundation of many societies throughout history.
It is alarming, then, that the Ten Commandments-should now face such merciless attack from our nations highest court. Let us be clear: To rip the Ten Commandments from our nations fabric would be a major step in destroying the very foundation upon which this great nation was founded, a foundation seeded in faith and morality.
May God bless America, One Nation Under God.