The Making of the American Mind Quotes

“Only a truly benevolent King, one who is divine and not subject to the passions of man, could be an absolute sovereign. And since governments are instituted among men and not angels, and no individual on this earth has the divine wisdom and authority to rule absolutely, the powers of government must be limited, divided, and checked to ensure the rule of law rather than the arbitrary reign of worldly men.”
― Matthew Spalding, The Making of the American Mind: The Story of our Declaration of Independence

“The old distinctions of tribe, race, or ethnicity—of Athenian or Spartan, pagan or Jew, Anglo-Saxon or Gallic, Catholic or Protestant—are no longer the determining factor of political legitimacy or nationhood. Ethnic heritage and ties of common kindred or of religious faith and culture are still very important, but they are not the basis of civic identity. That is only possible if there is a common political principle that allows laws and constitutions based on something other than race, creed, or ethnic heritage. Only then can there be fellow citizens separate from common kindred—or separate from being common subjects. And that is only possible if there is a ground of civic friendship that recognizes our equal humanity under the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
― Matthew Spalding, The Making of the American Mind: The Story of our Declaration of Independence

“The Declaration’s theology is not a ceiling meant to confine man’s search for transcendence but a solid foundation upon which man can pursue the greatest of goods and highest truths of faith as well as reason. By appealing to the precepts common to both faith and reason, the Declaration, whether intentionally or not, defines the preconditions of and even invites a more complete understanding of and faith in a Creator God who makes laws, endows rights, gives judgment, and oversees human events.”
― Matthew Spalding, The Making of the American Mind: The Story of our Declaration of Independence

“It is because of this rational nature, with its powers of reason and conscience, that each man is his own natural ruler, imbued with the capacity to govern himself. It is by his reason—not by allowing the passions to rule or blindly following conventional mores—that man distinguishes between reality and myth, good and evil, the just and the unjust. Nature, as a structure of reality that is unchanging and permanent, and that can be accessed by reason, is the standard of right in making these distinctions. And as man seeks relationships with others to fulfill that nature—man is a political animal, as Aristotle famously observes—men come to live in communities based on agreed purposes and a common understanding of justice. This argument is the basis of Western thought about man and politics.”
― Matthew Spalding, The Making of the American Mind: The Story of our Declaration of Independence

“Patriotism, rightly understood, has always been the civic antidote to what C. S. Lewis called "the poison of subjectivism.”
― Matthew Spalding, The Making of the American Mind: The Story of our Declaration of Independence