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of property as advocated by the proponents of communism. Samuel Adams said they had done everything possible to make the ideas of socialism and communism unconstitutional . Said he:
       "The Utopian schemes of leveling [re-distribution of the wealth and a community of goods [central ownership of the means of production and distribution], are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional." 17

    The Need for an "Enlightened Electorate"
       To prevent the American eagle from tipping toward anarchy on the right, or tyranny on the left, and to see that the American system remained in a firm, fixed position in the balanced center of the political spectrum, the Founders campaigned for a strong program of widespread education. Channels were needed through which the Founders and other leaders could develop and maintain an intelligent, informed electorate.
       Jefferson hammered home the necessity for an educated electorate on numerous occasions. Here are some samples:
       "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." 18
       "No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness.... Preach ... a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [of misgovernment]." 19
       What the Founders really wanted was a system of educational communication through which they could transfer their great body of fundamental beliefs based on self evident truths. They knew they had made a great discovery, and they wanted their posterity to maintain it. As Madison said, it is something which "it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate." 20

    The Founders' Common Denominator of Basic Beliefs
       One of the most amazing aspects of the American story is that while the nation's founders came from widely divergent backgrounds, their fundamental beliefs were virtually identical. They quarreled bitterly over the most practical plan of implementing those beliefs, but rarely, if ever, disputed about their final objectives or basic convictions.
       These men came from several different churches, and some from no churches at all. They ranged in occupation from farmers to presidents of universities. Their social background included everything from wilderness pioneering to the aristocracy of landed estates. Their dialects included everything from the loquacious drawl of South Carolina to the clipped staccato of Yankee New England. Their economic origins included everything from frontier poverty to opulent wealth.
       Then how do we explain their remarkable unanimity in fundamental beliefs?
       Perhaps the explanation will be found in the fact that they were all remarkably well read, and mostly from the same books. Although the level of their formal training varied from spasmodic doses of home tutoring to the rigorous regimen of Harvard's classical studies, the debates in the Constitutional Convention and the writings of the Founders reflect a far broader knowledge of religious, political, historical, economic, and philosophical studies than would be found in any cross-section of American leaders today.
       The thinking of Polybius, Cicero, Thomas Hooker, Coke, Montesquieu, Blackstone, John Locke, and Adam Smith salt-and-peppered their writings and their conversations. They were also careful students of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, and even though some did not belong to any Christian denomination, the teachings of Jesus were held in universal respect and admiration.
       Their historical readings included a broad perspective of Greek, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, European, and English history. To this writer, nothing is more remarkable about the early American leaders than their