Have they no decency?

To paraphrase Alexander Hamilton, “Only the people can decide, by their conduct and example, whether societies of men and women are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”

After almost two centuries of tyranny and failed governmental structures, our ancestors, desperate for liberty and self-determination, designed a system of constitutional government that has endured for 237 years. Each state thereafter replicated that accomplishment, including Montana, first in 1889, and then again in 1972, thereby affirmatively answering Hamilton’s question. 

Critical to the endurance of a constitution, however, was the resolute conclusion of the Founders that without civic virtue the Constitution could not and would not survive. It was civic virtue, placing the public good ahead of one’s own selfserving desires, that would hold the union together, and only from that unselfish union would “liberty and justice for all” arise and endure.