Thomas Paine had a great influence in the hearts of early Americans, especially the soldiers serving under General George Washington. George expected obedience and loyalty from his troops. He wanted them to quit the use of foul language, to show respect to others, and to do their duty. The soldiers grew to love their leader.
Thomas Paine wrote a couple of highly touted booklets that raised the spirits of the colonists, especially Washington’s troops, who would soon fight the battle of Trenton.
Carefulness, caution, and good sense. That’s what they meant by prudence. That’s kind of like what Benjamin Franklin defined as “Moderation” in his Project for Moral Perfection. He defined moderation as “Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.” Moderation should be used in all your decisions and actions. Use reason and common sense to solve most problems.
Most of the Founding Fathers seemed to think along these same lines. Use common sense, which is not so common any longer.
Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence should be given great attention in the United States today. As a lawyer, I consider the Declaration of Independence to be analogous to a new companies “Articles of Incorporation” or “Articles of Association” for an LLC.
Those are the documents that create a new company to be guided by the purposes described in such a document. The U.S. Constitution is analogous to the By-laws or Operating Agreement of the new company. They describe how is will be managed.
Yes, back to that author of the famous books, including “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.” I’ve said some things about his book “Mere Christianity” before. I hope you found that interesting.
In his book titled “Mere Christianity” he said some profound messages. One that caught my eye was about government. Sort of.
“What is the good of telling ships how to steer so as to avoid collision if, in fact, they are such crazy old subs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behavior, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all thinking will be mere moonshine [not the drinking kind] unless we realize that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. . . . You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have good society. That is why we must go on to think of the second thing: of morality inside the individual.” (“Mere Christianity”, C. S. Lewis, page 73).