immaculate conception not required

It is of crass things that true virtue is often born.  In the public arena, false virtue can give birth to true virtue when fertilized by little more than ambition and honor-seeking. John Adams believed that, and so do I.

To put it a touch more fully, history teaches me that the birth of civic virtue is a rare thing, but can result when, all together, merchants seek opportunity, political leaders seek approbation, and there is some form of national discourse about right and wrong. The latter is and must be objectively weakest, but even a little will suffice.