Dear Editor:
An August 13 letter is an excellent example as to why it is not wise to gullibly believe everything printed in letters to the editor. For example, the "Ten Commandments" quote, declared to be from the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison, is false.
In a letter to me, dated November 23, 1993, Dr. David Mattern, of the University of Virginia and editor of The Papers of James Madison, wrote the following about the bogus "Ten Commandments" quotation:
"We did not find anything in our files remotely like the sentiment expressed in the extract you sent us. In addition, the idea is inconsistent with everything we know about Madison's views on religion and government, views which he expressed time and time again in public and in private."
Of course, no alert reader or history professor accepts quotations which do not provide citations from primary sources. Anyone who has read Madison knows his Writings and Papers, as compiled by history scholars, are available in most university libraries. The phony quote used by the August 13 letter writer is not Madison's and is not found in any of his writings.
To the contrary, the following properly cited quotation from Madison's essay "Monopolies," can be found in most university libraries:
"Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history" (William and Mary Quarterly, 3:555). Go to a nearby university library and read for yourself what Madison really said.
Gene Garman
Pittsburg, KS
Addendum--for readers of this website, following is the bogus, false, phony quote submitted by the misguided August 13 letter writer:
"We have staked the whole future of our new nation not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."
Copyright 2003 Gene Garman