President John Adams

President John Adams,Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Second President of the United States
"[I]t 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. "
(Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 401, to Zabdiel Adams on June 21, 1776.)

"[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis
Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. VI, p. 9.)