When I Have Nothing to Say, My Lips are Sealed

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To be sure, there is no doubt that the founders-and indeed many liberal theorists-viewed personal and civic virtue as an important component of a flourishing constitutional republic. Without trust in one's fellows, without honesty in public office, without public-spiritedness or personal sacrifice for the greater good, free societies could succumb to factionalism, corruption, social decay.

But the founders were just as adamant that the inculcation of virtue was primarily the task of the private sphere, of individuals figuring out their own moral systems or religious faiths, of schools and parents teaching children the virtues they wanted to pass on, of churches free of any government meddling, inspiring and helping people to lead good lives.

But they were insistent that the government should not prefer one church to another, or one faith to another. They knew where that ultimately led: to the religious warfare that had destroyed Europe in the seventeenth century. They were content to let Americans in their private capacity discover their own truth, forge their own path, pursue their own happiness. And that included not just every variety of Christian, but also atheists and those who disdained belief as a whole.

--Andrew Sullivan on pg. 130 of The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back