Ed Feulner: “The Constitution builds on the idea that ‘we the people’ are sovereign. Who were the ‘people’ in whom the Founders had such confidence? ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people,’ John Adams said. ‘It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’ Our form of republican government, he was saying, requires not merely the consent of the governed but their ability to govern themselves. The first duty of the people, then, is to ensure that they remain a moral people. The Founders knew that no piece of paper could ensure liberty. Only a people steeped in the principles that animated the declaration could do that.”