In 1748, the French philosopher Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, anonymously published his opus The Spirit of Laws. Two years later, Thomas Nugent 
published the initial English translation. This work, from where the term “separation of powers” first appeared, greatly influenced our Founding Fathers.
Montesquieu outlined three essential forms of government – Despotism, Monarchy and Republic – each dependent on one vital and defining character trait among its citizens. Under despotism, it’s fear. In a monarchy, it’s honor. But in a republic, Montesquieu maintains, those governed must be disposed to nothing less than virtue. Our Founding Fathers understood this. They possessed high expectations of both their new country as well as its citizens.
Oddly enough, the nation’s forebears did not see it as the role of government to imbue virtue upon its citizens. Rather, they expected the people to embrace virtue of their own volition. Nothing said this more than Benjamin Franklin’s answer to a woman who Continue Reading “In Search of Virtue: How Boy Scouts Helped Me Do the Impossible”
The Cornucopia Tree
Now, as we all know, the word “cornucopia” comes from the Latin word meaning “horn of plenty.” In ancient mythology, it was said to produce an endless supply of food and drink. Even today, Americans display a cornucopia at their Thanksgiving table as a symbol of gratitude for all the Lord has given us.
Well, this cornucopia tree produced everything the man’s family needed to survive. From its branches grew food and drink, wood to build and heat their house, and even the clothes they wore.
(Yes, clothes. Don’t ask how the tree managed that. It just did.)
One day the cornucopia tree produced something it had never produced before—two identical eggs.
The man, now very old, saw them and understood their meaning. So he called his two sons.
“Boys,” he said, “this tree has given our family everything we have ever needed. Now it has Continue Reading “The Cornucopia Tree”