FREE ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT AND MORALITY IN

GOVERNMENT AND MORALITY IN

Jared Gaynor 
English 101 
Colleen Harmon 
20 July, 1998 
Government and Morality in 20th Century America 
On July 4, 1776, a general congress of the English colonies of the
Americas 
assembled in Philadelphia and combined their experience, education, and 
frustration to compose the Declaration of Independence. This document,
which 
even today tells the story of how our country was started, speaks of the
religious 
and moral persecution that our forefathers were forced to bear for years
upon 
years. They wanted to dissolve their political bands with England to
make a free 
country where no persecution was possible. I, for one, do not believe that
a society 
in which every life is free is possible without some restrictions. Our
country was founded 
upon the principle of freedom to think and live as its citizens please. Is
that dream really 
a reality in our 20th century society, or does it seem as if the dreams of
our founding 
fathers dreams have been obscured? 
The Declaration of Independence is how we separated ourselves from 
England, and the Constitution is the document on which we run our
everyday 
lives. Nevertheless, the Constitution did not contain any rights for 
individuals in the original signed document. The original only has rights and
powers for national and state level governments. This was written by 
people 
who, supposedly, wanted to promote individual freedom and rights. I
think that 
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our forefathers came over from England with the intent to come through
with their 
promises to the new citizens of the United States, but as we see in our 
Constitution, they began to inflict the same restrictions on these new
Americans as 
the English inflicted on their citizens. Later generations of politicians
appear to 
have focused in on the idea of individual freedom, and this is shown in the 
amendments to the Constitution. These twenty-seven amendments 
suggest that 
later lawmakers started to address the topic of individual freedom,
including the 
freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. Perhaps the most
influential 
Article in the Constitution is that of judicial review. This, simply put,
means that 
the supreme court is able to interpret the Constitution at their discretion.
The 
problem with this is that it legislates morality in our government by
allowing judges 
to use their opinions to make law. Those opinions result from personal
morals. 
In other words, our laws are based at least partly on morality. This was
the simple 
beginning of a tangled political web created by a legislature's
inappropriate use of morals 
to create guidelines for the American people in the guise of a free
government to help all 
of the people all of the time. Unfortunately this practice did not take into
account all of 
the people's values, only that of the lawmakers. Today, the scales of
government seem to 
weighing heavily towards the appropriate morals of our government
officials, and not 
where it should rest, in the tray of individual freedom. 
An excellent example of this abuse of government power in place of
individual freedom is that of prayer in schools. The government has, for
years, been 
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attempting to introduce Christian prayer in public schools. I am a
Christian. 
As well as most Christian's in the United States, I feel that a belief in 
Jesus Christ could help our youth and stop some of societies problems.
My 
point is as an American, I cannot subject others to my Christian views as
it 
would infringe on their freedom of religion. That is why this country is
wonderful. 
I can say whatever I please and I cannot get in trouble for it. It would be 
wrong to push those morals onto others because they also have their own
opinions, and who is to say that mine are correct. The only Constitutional
way to 
inject religion into schools would be to include ALL religions. Since most 
politicians are Christians, many of them would not agree to teach anything
else. 
Besides, we already have the freedom to pray without obligation. Those
who wish to, 
can, and those who do not, do not have to. 
Why was our country started? Was it to free the oppression of all,
or was it 
to put more power in the hands of the few? As the government is
functioning 
today, there is no resemblance of a true free country as was spoken of in
the 
Declaration of Independence. There is too much power given to our
leaders and 
not enough faith invested where it should be, in the Constitution. If we
simply looked at 
what our forefathers wanted this country to be, and followed that plan,
this country 
could be a lot different than it is. Maybe in these times of inconsistency,
this 
could possibly be the path to disassociate us from our current problems
and plagues 
of social destruction.