John Adams knew this basic truth as well.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
For a brief moment in human history, the concept of self-mastery was manifest in a government created by Godly men. The challenges of a new nation, and the devastation of civil war, kept us on a self-governing trajectory.
It seems as if any remnant of the concept is now almost wholly driven by inertia, compelled by stubborn folks like us.