AmusedOne, it is sad to see that you're one of those types who just repeats any drivel he sees to support his argument without worrying about who it came from, the reasoning behind it, or the context in which it is said.
I should have known you'd go to one of the sites maintained by Jim Allison, Susan Batte, and Tom Peters. They're always the ones referred to about that quote because they're the only people with the gall to say Adams didn't utter it based on such flimsy reasoning. Here is what Jim Allison said about it on the link
you provided:
"John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution 1860 (reprinted NY: Burt Franklin, 1860; 1970), p. XXIX.
We recently located this source and now
suspect that John Quincy Adams never uttered these words. Here's what we found..."
..."Throughout this introduction, Thornton quotes various early Americans on the subject of religion. At least some of the quotations are footnoted, and all of them appear to be enclosed in quotation marks.
Sometimes portions of the quotations are italicized for emphasis
The words attributed to John Quincy Adams appear on page XXIX. None of these words are placed in quotation marks. Rather, the sentence
reads as if Thornton is making his own conclusion about what John Quincy Adams believed. Thornton's sentence reads as follows:
The highest glory of the American Revolution, said John Quincy Adams, was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principle of Christianity (italics in the original)...."
...
"It is, of course, possible, that the printer made a mistake and forgot the quotation marks but, until somebody can locate the original source of the quote, there is no ground whatsoever to treat these words and Adams' own. The quote should be regarded as bogus."
Then AmusedOne, based on that, you come on here and say this:
Nice, but he never said that. Religious Right activist and "One Sided Wall" BSer David Barton made that up for his "America's Godly Heritage" video. It has no basis in fact, and the cite used turned out to be an author's own words, not those of Adams
You may be so easily swayed, but I prefer to think for myself and not take as gospel (no pun intended) the baseless suspicions of "an independent researcher from Virginia Beach".
It's also good to know for future discussions that the context in which something is said is not important to you.
As for the Treaty with Tripoli, the context is not important here.
Hmmmmmm I wonder, do you think that if this does get to the US Supreme Court that the guy from California's lawyer will refuse to stand when the call to order is read? Or perhaps he'll just wait in another room? Or maybe he'll sue the Supreme Court for making him stand and listen to it?