A World Worth Saving

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Ziva Goldstein - The Frisch School (Paramus, NJ)

Founding Father John Adams once wrote to the American people that “Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net" (1). Well over a thousand years before Adams’ birth, this sentiment was echoed by the Roman historian Sallust when he reflected on the fall of the first republic. “Rome changed,” he lamented; “a government second to none in equity and excellence became cruel and intolerable" (2). The Roman Republic, in its prime, was a historic paragon of civic thought and modernity. But when its virtues of classic republicanism fell prey to moral and political corruption, Roman society rapidly deteriorated. To avoid the same fate as the Republic, the founders understood that America required a reliable moral foundation and the strength to survive social change rather than crumble underneath it. Such a feat was made possible by unifying the country under a shared culture of virtue, a concept that eclipsed hierarchy as the strongest way to unite a nation.

America’s first great undertaking in creating a virtuous nation was to establish the bedrock of values on which the national culture could be built. In doing so, the founders did not shun tradition nor worship the secular; they retraced their roots, understanding history in its role as the future’s greatest mentor. Alongside the republican ideals of ancient Rome, America was constructed using principles from the most ancient of philosophies– those of the Bible. Scripture had always served as the ideological foundation of the colonies; it was Puritan leader John Winthrop who famously declared that their new community would become “a city upon a hill”–a quote from the Gospels of Matthew (3). Winthrop believed that the pillars of Divine law could provide the New World with a uniquely powerful moral firmament. His vision was affirmed by
President Ronald Reagan in his proclamation declaring 1983 the “Year of the Bible.” Reagan
maintained that biblical principles of faith had inspired our ancestors to develop the land,
enlightened our citizens towards understanding the rights of the individual, and–above all–distributed the doctrine of “love thy neighbor”, shaping American systems of public service and charity (4). By infusing the young nation with religious values, the founders created a culture of
compassion and devotion among the people. Or, as G.K. Chesterton put it, “America is a nation with the soul of a church" (5).

Imbued with this enduring ideology, early Americans were faced with the more difficult task of embodying an unprecedented national culture. John Adams wrote in his 1798 letter to the
Massachusetts militia, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People” (6). The American masses were no longer subjects of a European monarchy, where class systems and autocratic power could coerce them into service. As citizens of a republic, it was crucial for Americans to choose virtue of their own volition– which, astoundingly, they did. In the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, a French philosopher who visited America in the early 19th century, he lauded its innovative practice of goodwill. Tocqueville remarked of the American populace: “They endeavour to prove that it is the interest of every man to be virtuous... suffice it to say that they have convinced their fellow-countrymen" (7). To Tocqueville, these New World citizens exemplified loyalty, not to a family or archaic class structure but to an ideology of public virtue. Though the Old World emphasized “private virtues”– such as temperance or piety– these were primarily self-serving; America believed in civic virtues that fostered devotion to the commonwealth.

Such a notion fascinated the founders’ contemporaries far beyond America. The Dutch revolutionary Francois van der Kemp famously proclaimed that “only America can teach us how to counter the degeneration of the national character, to curb the corruption of morals" (8). The concept of a life built on principle was tantalizing to the undertrodden across the world. Historian Gordon S. Wood confronts this moral phenomenon in his essay collection, The Idea of America. Wood describes American ideology as almost inherently messianic; the goal was not merely to administer principle within their own society, but to recreate the foundations on which empires stood (9). Still, before the world would answer the call of freedom, America had one last crucible: it needed to survive.

America had succeeded through the first stage of creation, but now had to stand the greatest test of every experiment: adaptation. Could the American ideology prevail when its very parameters were redefined? Rome had crumbled into empire; perhaps America would succumb to its same fate. At its founding, American liberty still suffered, most severely from its institution of slavery. The beauty of America, however, is that it is not set in stone; where European kingdoms needed centuries of hierarchies and servitude to maintain their power, America possessed a new strength. Here, the government stood for the people rather than against them. By working in tandem for a greater moral good, the country was able to survive the Civil War and emancipate the slaves. The abolishment of slavery only set further precedent for social justice in the country; over the next two hundred and fifty years, human rights were defined and re-defined by the expanding American conscience. Women were given the right to vote, segregation was outlawed, and amendments were added to the Constitution. American ideology flourished because it valued principle over power.

Nowadays, many forget that equal rights were once a sensitively cradled notion proposed by the first Americans, fought for by every Patriot soldier brandishing his rifle. The truth is that American virtue transformed the world. A religiously driven culture of morality nurtured its citizens to become a light among the nations, laboring for the greater good. It is this foundation that upholds the world’s second great republic thousands of years after the collapse of its first. The most exceptional thing about America is that it is a nation founded on that belief: that the world is worth saving, and that it is within our power to save it.

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(1) John Adams, “From John Adams to Massachusetts Militia,” October 11, 1798, Founders Online, National Archives. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-3102

(2) Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline, trans. John C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921).

(3) John Winthrop, “City Upon a Hill” (speech, Southampton, March 21, 1630), Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/Winthrop.pdf

(4) U.S. President, Proclamation, “Year of the Bible, 1983, Proclamation 5018 of February 3, 1983,” Federal Register 48, no. 26 (February 7, 1983): 5527. https:/gov/service/ll/fedreg/fr048/fr048026/fr048026.pdf

(5) G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1922).

(6) John Adams, “From John Adams to Massachusetts Militia,” October 11, 1798, Founders Online, National Archives. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-3102

(7) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve (London: Saunders and Otley, 1840).

(8) Allen Guelzo. 2026. “A Revolution for All Humankind.” Commentary Magazine, June 22.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/allen-guelzo/american-revolution-global-influence

(9) Gordon S. Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (New York: The Penguin Press, 2011).