Greetings and salutations. This is Life and Books and Everything. I'm Kevin DeYoung. Today I'm reading my latest article from world opinions entitled Liberty, Pandora, and the Serpent.

What undergirds the American Experiment?

When James Madison died in 1836, his last testament, written six years earlier, was finally published.

The document, only two paragraphs long, was entitled, Advice to My Country.

After recounting a lifelong commitment to his country and the cause of its liberty,

Madison expressed his deepest conviction, quote, that the union of the states be cherished

and perpetuated. Then he offered one final

admonition for the country he did so much to create. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a

Pandora with her box opened, and the disguised one as the serpent creeping his deadly wiles

into paradise. Madison's advice is a fitting testament

for the architect of the Constitution and the entire generation of founders because it pulls together

seamlessly and subconsciously the three strands of political thought that shaped America's founding.

Locky and liberalism, with a reference to

the cause of liberty, classic republicanism, with a reference to Pandora and ancient mythology,

and Protestant Christianity, with a reference to the devil's deception in the Garden of Eden.

Although the statesmen and thinkers of the revolutionary era disagreed on much,

almost all of the founders took these three principles for granted, which explains why men as

diverse an outlook as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and

John Witherspoon could work together in crafting, or at least signing the documents that established American independence

and the American form of government. Although the three strands can sometimes pull in different

directions, each played a crucial role in shaping the American experiment. Lockhean liberalism

provided Americans with a basic understanding of the social contract and with a shared sense that government existed to preserve God-given rights.

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