As we begin the countdown to the 250th anniversary of the formation of this nation, we should be thinking about the circumstances that made the foundation of the United States of America possible, what has undergirded the prosperity and relative peace we have enjoyed for almost two and a half centuries, and how best to ensure that the “blessings of liberty” the Founders wrote in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution will in fact be handed down to future generations.

In a nutshell, the future of the United States as we know it depends upon a resurgence of and commitment to individual virtue.

In his 1798 letter to the Massachusetts Militia, second President of the United States John Adams warned of what would happen if the American government adopted policies that had produced “desolation in so many Parts of the World.” He also drove home the critical relationship between the promise of limited government and responsible individual behavior:

“We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

If Adams would be dismayed to see the worship of greed in contemporary America, he’d be shocked speechless to the promotion of every vice he could imagine — and some beyond his worst nightmares.

It hasn’t been fashionable for people in government to espouse virtue for at least 60 years.

All of this is relevant to the survival of the American form of government because the societal dissolution that follows the abandonment of individual virtue inevitably results in calls for bigger government: more programs, more agencies, more staff, more taxes, more expenditures.

Not only are these programs bottomless pits of profligate spending, but they are woefully, demonstrably ineffective. No amount of government money can take the place of a stable family with two married parents who are not addicted to drugs or alcohol and at least one of whom is gainfully employed.

In fact, it is the failure of government programs that produces the call for more money, more money, always more money.

If money solved the problem of poverty (and its many related ills), it would have been solved by now. This country has spent more than $25 trillion in the 61 years since President Lyndon Johnson announced his “Great Society” initiative to end poverty. And yet it has barely moved the needle.

For that matter, it isn’t even limited to the poor; if money solved society’s problems, Hollywood celebrities would be the happiest people in the country; their marriages the most stable and longest-lasting; their children the most psychologically stable.

If we want the United States to survive, continue to prosper and be a beacon of hope, then we must admit that the social experiments of the past 60 years have been a disastrous failure, and change course.

Promoting virtue may not sound “sexy” or glamorous, but it is meaningful, and a civilized society depends upon it. Virtue is what inspires people to work on their marriages and other relationships; it is what makes friends reliable and what keeps entrepreneurs and employees coming in to work. It is what keeps city parks and streets clean and schools safe. It is what prompts someone to return a lost wallet or rescue a stranded animal. It is what helps people have faith in the justice system. It is why people honor contracts and pay their debts promptly (or at least eventually).

Virtue is essential to the long-term health of people and of their nations. America is perhaps the first nation founded on the express premise of limited government dependent on individual virtue.

We will not survive without it.