1780s-1850s: Early Republic Archives - Page 19 of 40

Church in the U.S. Capitol

Many people are surprised to learn that the United States Capitol regularly served as a church building; a practice that began even before Congress officially moved into the building and lasted until well after the Civil War. Below is a brief history of the Capitol’s use as a church, and some of the prominent individuals who attended services there.

The cornerstone of the Capitol was laid by President George Washington in 1793., but it was not until the end of 1800 that Congress actually moved into the building. According to the congressional records for late November of 1800, Congress spent the first few weeks organizing the Capitol rooms, committees, locations, etc. Then, on December 4, 1800, Congress approved the use of the Capitol building as a church building. ¹

The approval of the Capitol for church was given by both the House and the Senate, with House approval being given by Speaker of the House, Theodore Sedgwick, and Senate approval being given by the President of the Senate, Thomas Jefferson. Interestingly, Jefferson’s approval came while he was still officially the Vice- President but after he had just been elected President.

Significantly, the Capitol building had been used as a church even for years before it was occupied by Congress. The cornerstone for the Capitol had been laid on September 18, 1793; two years later while still under construction, the July 2, 1795, Federal Orrery newspaper of Boston reported:

City of Washington, June 19. It is with much pleasure that we discover the rising consequence of our infant city. Public worship is now regularly administered at the Capitol, every Sunday morning, at 11 o’clock by the Reverend Mr. Ralph. ²

The reason for the original use of the Capitol as a church might initially be explained by the fact that there were no churches in the city at that time. Even a decade later in 1803, U. S. Senator John Quincy Adams confirmed: “There is no church of any denomination in this city.” ³ The absence of churches in Washington eventually changed, however. As one Washington citizen reported: “For several years after the seat of government was fixed at Washington, there were but two small [wooden] churches. . . . Now, in 1837 there are 22 churches of brick or stone.” ⁴ Yet, even after churches began proliferating across the city, religious services still continued at the Capitol until well after the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Jefferson attended church at the Capitol while he was Vice President ⁵ and also throughout his presidency. The first Capitol church service that Jefferson attended as President was a service preached by Jefferson’s friend, the Rev. John Leland, on January 3, 1802. ⁶ Significantly, Jefferson attended that Capitol church service just two days after he penned his famous letter containing the “wall of separation between church and state” metaphor.

U. S. Rep. Manasseh Cutler, who also attended church at the Capitol, recorded in his own diary that “He [Jefferson] and his family have constantly attended public worship in the Hall.” ⁷ Mary Bayard Smith, another attendee at the Capitol services, confirmed: “Mr. Jefferson, during his whole administration, was a most regular attendant.” ⁸ She noted that Jefferson even had a designated seat at the Capitol church: “The seat he chose the first Sabbath, and the adjoining one (which his private secretary occupied), were ever afterwards by the courtesy of the congregation, left for him and his secretary.” ⁹ Jefferson was so committed to those services that he would not even allow inclement weather to dissuade him; as Rep. Cutler noted: “It was very rainy, but his [Jefferson’s] ardent zeal brought him through the rain and on horseback to the Hall.” ¹⁰ Other diary entries confirm Jefferson’s attendance in spite of bad weather. ¹¹

In addition to Mary Bayard Smith and Congressman Manasseh Cutler, others kept diaries of the weekly Capitol church services including Congressman Abijah Bigelow and statesman John Quincy Adams. (Adams served in Washington first as a Senator, then a President, and then as a Representative; and his extensive diaries describe the numerous church services he attended at the Capitol across a span of decades.) Typical of Adams’ diary entries while a U. S. Senator under President Jefferson were these :

Attended public service at the Capitol where Mr. Rattoon, an Episcopalian clergyman from Baltimore, preached a sermon. ¹²
[R]eligious service is usually performed on Sundays at the Treasury office and at the Capitol. I went both forenoon and afternoon to the Treasury. ¹³

Jefferson was not the only President to attend church at the Capitol. His successor, James Madison, also attended church at the Capitol. ¹⁴ However, there was a difference in the way the two arrived for services. Observers noted that Jefferson arrived at church on horseback ¹⁵ (it was 1.6 miles from the White House to the Capitol). However, Madison arrived for church in a coach and four. In fact, British diplomat Augustus Foster, who attended services at the Capitol, gave an eloquent description of President Madison arriving at the Capitol for church in a carriage drawn by four white horses.

From Jefferson through Abraham Lincoln, many presidents attended church at the Capitol; and it was common practice for Members of Congress to attend those services. For example, in his diary entry of January 9, 1803, Congressman Cutler noted: “Attended in the morning at the Capitol. . . . Very full assembly. Many of the Members present.” ¹⁶ The church was often full “so crowded, in fact, one attendee reported that since “the floor of the House offered insufficient space, the platform behind the Speaker’s chair, and every spot where a chair could be wedged in” was filled. ¹⁷ U. S. Representative John Quincy Adams (although noting that occasionally the “House was full, but not crowded” ¹⁸) also commented numerous times on the overly-crowded conditions at the Capitol church. In his diary entry for February 28, 1841, he noted: “I rode with my wife, Elizabeth C. Adams, and Mary, to the Capitol, where the Hall of the House of Representatives was so excessively crowded that it was with extreme difficulty that we were enabled to obtain seats.” ¹⁹ Why did so many Members attend Divine service in the Hall of the House? Adams explained why he attended: “I consider it as one of my public duties- as a representative of the people- to give my attendance every Sunday morning when Divine service is performed in the Hall.” ²⁰

Interestingly, the Marine Band participated in the early Capitol church services. According to Margaret Bayard Smith, who regularly attended services at the Capitol, the band, clad in their scarlet uniforms, made a “dazzling appearance” as they played from the gallery, providing instrumental accompaniment for the singing. ²¹ The band, however, seemed too ostentatious for the services and “the attendance of the marine-band was soon discontinued.” ²²

From 1800 to 1801, the services were held in the north wing; from 1801 to 1804, they were held in the “oven” in the south wing, and then from 1804 to 1807, they were again held in the north wing. From 1807 to 1857, services were held in what is now Statuary Hall. By 1857 when the House moved into its new home in the extension, some 2,000 persons a week were attending services in the Hall of the House. ²³ Significantly, even though the U. S. Congress began meeting in the extension on Wednesday, December 16, 1857, the first official use of the House Chamber had occurred three days earlier, when “on December 13, 1857, the Rev. Dr. George Cummins preached before a crowd of 2,000 worshipers in the first public use of the chamber. Soon thereafter, the committee recommended that the House convene in the new Hall on Wednesday, December 16, 1857.” ²⁴ However, regardless of the part of the building in which the church met, the rostrum of the Speaker of the House was used as the preacher’s pulpit; and Congress purchased the hymnals used in the service.

The church services in the Hall of the House were interdenominational, overseen by the chaplains appointed by the House and Senate; sermons were preached by the chaplains on a rotating basis, or by visiting ministers approved by the Speaker of the House. As Margaret Bayard Smith, confirmed: “Not only the chaplains, but the most distinguished clergymen who visited the city, preached in the Capitol” ²⁵ and “clergymen, who during the session of Congress visited the city, were invited by the chaplains to preach.” ²⁶

In addition to the non-denominational service held in the Hall of the House, several individual churches (such as Capitol Hill Presbyterian, the Unitarian Church of Washington, First Congregational Church, First Presbyterian Church, etc.) met in the Capitol each week for their own services; there could be up to four different church services at the Capitol each Sunday.

The Library of Congress provides an account of one of those churches that met weekly at the Capitol: “Charles Boynton (1806-1883) was in 1867 Chaplain of the House of Representatives and organizing pastor of the First Congregational Church in Washington, which was trying at that time to build its own sanctuary. In the meantime, the church, as Boynton informed potential donors, was holding services- ˜at the Hall of Representatives’ where- ˜the audience is the largest in town. . . . nearly 2000 assembled every Sabbath’ for services, making the congregation in the House the ˜largest Protestant Sabbath audience then in the United States.’ The First Congregational Church met in the House from 1865 to 1868.” ²⁷

With so many services occurring, the Hall of the House was not the only location in the Capitol where church services were conducted. John Quincy Adams, in his February 2, 1806, diary entry, describes an overflow service held in the Supreme Court Chamber, ²⁸ and Congressman Manasseh Cutler describes a similar service in 1804. ²⁹ (At that time, the Supreme Court Chamber was located on the first floor of the Capitol.) Services were also held in the Senate Chamber as well as on the first floor of the south wing.

Church In The Capitol Milestones

* 1806. On January 12, 1806, Dorothy Ripley (1767-1832) became the first woman to preach before the House. One female attendee had noted: “Preachers of every sect and denomination of Christians were there admitted- Catholics, Unitarians, Quakers, with every intervening diversity of sect. Even women were allowed to display their pulpit eloquence in this national Hall.” ³⁰ In attendance at that service were President Thomas Jefferson and Vice President Aaron Burr. Ripley conducted the lengthy service in a fervent, evangelical, camp-meeting style.

* 1826. On January 8, 1826, Bishop John England (1786-1842) of Charleston, South Carolina (Bishop over North and South Carolina and Georgia) became the first Catholic to preach in the House of Representatives. Of that service, President John Quincy Adams (a regular attendee of church services in the Capitol) noted: Walked to the Capitol and heard the Bishop of Charleston, [John] England -” an Irishman. He read a few prayers and then delivered an extemporaneous discourse of nearly two hours’ duration. . . . He closed by reading an admirable prayer. He came and spoke to me after the service and said he would call and take leave of me tomorrow. The house was overflowing, and it was with great difficulty that I obtained a seat. ³¹

* 1827. In January 1827, Harriet Livermore (1788-1868) became the second woman to preach in the House of Representatives. (Three of her immediate family members: ” her father, grandfather, and uncle” had been Members of Congress. Her grandfather, Samuel Livermore, was a Member of the first federal Congress and a framer of the Bill of Rights; her uncle was a Member under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; her father was a Member under President James Monroe.) The service in which she preached was not only attended by President John Quincy Adams but was also filled with Members of Congress as well as the inquisitive from the city. As Margaret Bayard Smith noted, “curiosity rather than piety attracted throngs on such occasions.” ³² Livermore spoke for an hour and a half, resulting in mixed reactions; some praised her and were even moved to tears by her preaching, some dismissed her. Harriet Livermore preached in the Capitol on four different occasions, each attended by a different President.

* 1865. On February 12, 1865, Henry Highland Garnet (1815- 1882) became the first African American to speak in Congress. Two weeks earlier, on January 31, 1865, Congress had passed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and Garnet was invited to preach a sermon in Congress to commemorate that event. In his sermon, Garnet described his beginnings: ‘I was born among the cherished institutions of slavery. My earliest recollections of parents, friends, and the home of my childhood are clouded with its wrongs. The first sight that met my eyes was my Christian mother enslaved.” ³³ His family escaped to the North; he became a minister, abolitionist, temperance leader, and political activist. He recruited black regiments during the Civil War and served as chaplain to the black troops of New York. In 1864, he became the pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C. (where he served at the time of this sermon). He later became president of Avery College and was made Minister to Liberia by President Ulysses S. Grant.

(For more information on this topic please see “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic: Religion and the Federal Government (Part 2)” on the Library of Congress website.)

Endnotes

¹ Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1853), 797, Sixth Congress, December 4, 1800.

² Federal Orrery, Boston, July 2, 1795, 2.

³ John Quincy Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1874), I:268, October 30, 1803.

⁴ Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith (Margaret Bayard), The First Forty Years of Washington Society, Galliard Hunt, editor (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), 16.

⁵ Bishop Claggett’s (Episcopal Bishop of Maryland) letter of February 18, 1801, reveals that, as vice- President, Jefferson went to church services in the House. Available in the Maryland Diocesan Archives.

⁶ William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, Life, Journal, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler (Cincinnati: Colin Robert Clarke & Co., 1888), II:66, letter to Joseph Torrey, January 4, 1802. Cutler meant that Jefferson attended church on January 3, 1802, for the first time as President. Bishop Claggett’s letter of February 18, 1801, already revealed that as Vice-President, Jefferson went to church services in the House.

⁷ Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journal, and Correspondence, II:119, in a letter to Dr. Joseph Torrey on January 3, 1803; see also his entry of December 12, 1802 (II:113).

⁸ Smith, The First Forty Years, 13.

⁹ Smith, The First Forty Years, 13.

¹⁰ Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journal, and Correspondence, II:119, in a letter to Dr. Joseph Torrey on January 3, 1803; see also his entry of December 26, 1802 (II:114).

¹¹ Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journal, and Correspondence, II:114, December 26, 1802.

¹² John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, I:268, October 30, 1803.

¹³ John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, I:265, October 23, 1803.

¹⁴ Abijah Bigelow to Hannah Bigleow, December 28, 1812. “Letters of Abijah Bigleow, Member of Congress, to his Wife,” Proceedings, 1810-1815, American Antiquarian Society (1930), 168.

¹⁵ See, for example, Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journal, and Correspondence, II:119, from a letter to Dr. Joseph Torrey on January 3, 1803.

¹⁶ Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journal, and Correspondence, II:116, January 9, 1803.

¹⁷ Smith, The First Forty Years, 14.

¹⁸ See, for example, John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, VII:437-438, February 17, 1828; XI:160-161, May 22, 1842; and others.

¹⁹ John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, X:434, February 28, 1841.

²⁰ John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, XI:169, June 5, 1842.

²¹ Smith, The First Forty Years, 14.

²² Smith, The First Forty Years, 16.

²³ James Hutson (Chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress), Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1998), 91.

²⁴ William C. Allen (Architectural Historian of the Capitol), A History of the United States Capitol, A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 2001), 271.

²⁵ Smith, The First Forty Years, 14.

²⁶ Smith, The First Forty Years, 15.

²⁷ Fundraising brochure, Charles B. Boynton. Washington, D.C.: November 1, 1867, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress; available at Library of Congress at https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html.

²⁸ Hutson, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, 90.

²⁹ From the Library of Congress, at https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html.

³⁰ Smith, The First Forty Years, 15.

³¹ John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, VII:102, January 8, 1826.

³² Smith, The First Forty Years, 15.

³³ Henry Highland Garnet, Memorial Discourse (Philadelphia: Joseph M. Wilson, 1865), 73.

The Bible, Slavery, and America’s Founders

America’s Founding Fathers are seen by some people today as unjust and hypocrites, for while they talked of liberty and equality, they at the same time were enslaving hundreds of thousands of Africans. Some allege that the Founders bear most of the blame for the evils of slavery. Consequently, many today have little respect for the Founders and turn their ear from listening to anything they may have to say. And, in their view, to speak of America as founded as a Christian nation is unthinkable (for how could a Christian nation tolerate slavery?).

It is certainly true that during most of America’s history most blacks have not had the same opportunities and protections as whites. From the time of colonization until the Civil War most Africans in America (especially those living in the South) were enslaved, and the 100 years following emancipation were marked with segregation and racism. Only in the last 30 years has there been closer to equal opportunities, though we still need continued advancement in equality among the races and race relations. But is the charge against the Founders justified? Are they to bear most of the blame for the evils of slavery? Can we speak of America as founded as a Christian nation, while at it’s founding it allowed slavery?

Understanding the answer to these questions is important for the future of liberty in America and advancement of racial equality. The secular view of history taught in government schools today does not provide an adequate answer. We must view these important concerns from a Biblical and providential perspective.

America’s Founders were predominantly Christians and had a Biblical worldview. If that was so, some say, how could they allow slavery, for isn’t slavery sin? As the Bible reveals to man what is sin, we need to examine what it has to say about slavery.

The Bible and Slavery The Bible teaches that slavery, in one form or another (including spiritual, mental, and physical), is always the fruit of disobedience to God and His law/word. (This is not to say that the enslavement of any one person, or group of people, is due to their sin, for many have been enslaved unjustly, like Joseph and numerous Christians throughout history.) Personal and civil liberty is the result of applying the truth of the Scriptures. As a person or nation more fully applies the principles of Christianity, there will be increasing freedom in every realm of life. Sanctification for a person, or nation, is a gradual process. The fruit of changed thinking and action, which comes from rooting sin out of our lives, may take time to see. This certainly applies historically in removing slavery from the Christian world.

Slavery is a product of the fall of man and has existed in the world since that time. Slavery was not a part of God’s original created order, and as God’s created order has gradually been re-established since the time of Christ, slavery has gradually been eliminated. Christian nations (those based upon Biblical principles) have led the way in the abolition of slavery. America was at the forefront of this fight. After independence, great steps were taken down the path of ending slavery – probably more than had been done by any other nation up until that time in history (though certainly more could have been done). Many who had settled in America had already been moving toward these ends. Unfortunately, the generations following the Founders did not continue to move forward in a united fashion. A great conflict was the outcome of this failure.

When God gave the law to Moses, slavery was a part of the world, and so the law of God recognized slavery. But this does not mean that slavery was God’s original intention. The law of Moses was given to fallen man. Some of the ordinances deal with things not intended for the original creation order, such as slavery and divorce. These will be eliminated completely only when sin is eliminated from the earth. God’s laws concerning slavery provided parameters for treatment of slaves, which were for the benefit of all involved. God desires all men and nations to be liberated. This begins internally and will be manifested externally to the extent internal change occurs. The Biblical slave laws reflect God’s redemptive desire, for men and nations.

Types of Slavery Permitted by the Bible

The Mosaic law permitted some types of slavery. These include:

Voluntary servitude by the sons of Israel (indentured servants) Those who needed assistance, could not pay their debts, or needed protection from another were allowed under Biblical law to become indentured servants (see Ex. 21:2-6; Deut. 15:12-18). They were dependent on their master instead of the state. This was a way to aid the poor and give them an opportunity to get back on their feet. It was not to be a permanent subsidy. Many early settlers to America came as indentured servants. These servants were well treated and when released, given generous pay.
Voluntary permanent slaves If indentured servants so chose, they could remain a slave (Ex. 21:2-6; Deut.. 15:16-17). Their ear was pierced to indicate this permanent subjection. The law recognized that some people want the security of enslavement. Today, there are some people who would rather be dependent upon government to provide their needs (and with that provision accepting their commands) than do what is necessary to live free from its provision and direction. Some even act in a manner that puts them in jail, desiring the care and provision they get more than personal freedom.
Thief or criminal making restitution A thief who could not, or did not, make restitution was sold as a slave: “If a man steals . . . he shall surely make restitution; if he owns nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft” (Ex. 22:1,3). The servitude ceased when enough work was done to pay for the amount due in restitution.
Pagans could be permanent slaves Leviticus 25:44-46 states: As for your male and female slaves whom you may have – you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen [brother], the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another. In the Sabbath year all Hebrew debtors/slaves were released from their debts.. This was not so for foreigners (Deut. 15:3). Theologian R.J. Rushdoony writes, “since unbelievers are by nature slaves, they could be held as life-long slaves” ¹ without piercing the ear to indicate their voluntary servitude (Lev. 25:44-46). This passage in Leviticus says that pagans could be permanent slaves and could be bequeathed to the children of the Hebrews. However, there are Biblical laws concerning slaves that are given for their protection and eventual redemption. Slaves could become part of the covenant and part of the family, even receiving an inheritance. Under the new covenant, a way was made to set slaves free internally, which should then be following by external preparation enabling those who were slaves to live at liberty, being self-governed under God.

Involuntary Servitude is Not Biblical

Exodus 21:16 says: “He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.” Deuteronomy 24:7 states: “If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently, or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you.”

Kidnapping and enforced slavery are forbidden and punishable by death. This was true for any man (Ex. 21:16), as well as for the Israelites (Deut. 24:7). This was stealing a man’s freedom. While aspects of slavery are Biblical (for punishment and restitution for theft, or for those who prefer the security of becoming a permanent bondservant), the Bible strictly forbids involuntary servitude.

Any slave that ran away from his master (thus expressing his desire for freedom) was to be welcomed by the Israelites, not mistreated, and not returned. Deuteronomy 23:15-16 states:

You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose in one of your towns where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat him. This implied slaves must be treated justly, plus they had a degree of liberty. Other slave laws confirm this. In addition, such action was a fulfillment of the law of love in both the Old and New Testaments. The law of God declares: “. . . you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:17-18). Leviticus 19:33-34 clearly reveals that this applies to strangers and aliens as well: “The stranger, . . . you shall not do him wrong.. . . . you shall love him as yourself.”

It was forbidden to take the life or liberty of any other man. Rushdoony writes:

Thus, the only kind of slavery permitted is voluntary slavery, as Deuteronomy 23:15,16 makes very clear. Biblical law permits voluntary slavery because it recognizes that some people are not able to maintain a position of independence. To attach themselves voluntarily to a capable man and to serve him, protected by law, is thus a legitimate way of life, although a lesser one. The master then assumes the role of the benefactor, the bestower of welfare, rather that the state, and the slave is protected by the law of the state. A runaway slave thus cannot be restored to his master: he is free to go. The exception is the thief or criminal who is working out his restitution. The Code of Hammurabi decreed death for men who harbored a runaway slave; the Biblical law provided for the freedom of the slave. ² Rushdoony also says that the selling of slaves was forbidden. Since Israelites were voluntary slaves, and since not even a foreign slave could be compelled to return to his master (Deut. 23:15, 16), slavery was on a different basis under the law than in non-Biblical cultures. The slave was a member of the household, with rights therein. A slave-market could not exist in Israel. The slave who was working out a restitution for theft had no incentive to escape, for to do so would make him an incorrigible criminal and liable to death. ³

When slaves (indentured servants) were acquired under the law, it was their labor that was purchased, not their person, and the price took into account the year of freedom (Lev. 25:44-55; Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:12-13).

Laws related to slaves There are a number of laws in the Bible related to slavery. They include:

Hebrew slaves (indentured servants) were freed after 6 years. If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment (Ex. 21:2). If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free. And when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed (Deut. 15:12-13). Hebrew slaves were to be set free after six years. If the man was married when he came, his wife was to go with him (Ex. 21:3). This law did not apply to non-Hebrew slaves (see point 4 under “Types of slavery permitted by the Bible” above), though, as mentioned, any slave showing a desire for freedom was to be safely harbored if they ran away. In violation of this law, many Christian slaves in America were not given the option of freedom after six years (and many escaped slaves were forcefully returned). To comply with the spirit and law of the Old and New Testament, non-Christian slaves should have been introduced by their master to Christianity, equipped to live in liberty, and then given the opportunity to choose to live free. Christianity would have prepared them to live in freedom.
Freed slaves were released with liberal pay. When these slaves were set free they were not to be sent away empty handed. They were to be furnished liberally from the flocks, threshing floor, and wine vat (Deut. 15:12-15).
Slaves were to be responsible. We have mentioned that some people prefer the security of enslavement to the uncertainty of living free. People who live free have certain responsibilities they must maintain. They cannot have the fruit of freedom without the responsibilities of freedom. It is within this context that the following law can be understood: “If he [a Hebrew slave] comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone.” (Ex. 21:3-4)
Rushdoony comments: “The bondservant, however, could not have the best of both worlds, the world of freedom and the world of servitude. A wife meant responsibility: to marry, a man had to have a dowry as evidence of his ability to head a household. A man could not gain the benefit of freedom, a wife, and at the same time gain the benefit of security under a master.” ⁴ Marrying as a slave required no responsibility of provision or need of a dowry. He gained the benefits of marriage without the responsibilities associated with it. Rushdoony continues: “If he married while a bondservant, or a slave, he knew that in so doing he was abandoning either freedom or his family. He either remained permanently a slave with his family and had his ear pierced as a sign of subordination (like a woman), or he left his family. If he walked out and left his family, he could, if he earned enough, redeem his family from bondage. The law here is humane and also unsentimental. It recognizes that some people are by nature slaves and will always be so. It both requires that they be dealt with in a godly manner and also that the slave recognize his position and accept it with grace. Socialism, on the contrary, tries to give the slave all the advantages of his security together with the benefits of freedom, and, in the process, destroys both the free and the enslaved.” ⁵
Runaway slaves were to go free. As mentioned earlier, Deuteronomy 23:15-16 says that a runaway slave was to go free. He was to be welcomed to live in any of the towns of Israel he chose. The Israelites were not to mistreat him. Rushdoony says that, “Since the slave was, except where debt and theft were concerned, a slave by nature and by choice, a fugitive slave went free, and the return of such fugitives was forbidden (Deut. 23:15,16).” This aspect of Biblical law was violated by American slavery and the United States Constitution (see Art. IV, Sec. 2, Par. 3). “Christians cannot become slaves voluntarily; they are not to become the slaves of men (1 Cor. 7:23), nor ‘entangled again with the yoke of bondage’ (Gal. 5:1).”⁶ Those who became Christians while slaves were to become free if they could (1 Cor. 7:21). If they could not, they were to exemplify the character of Christ (Eph. 6:5-9; Col. 4:1; 1 Tim. 6:1-2). Eventually, Christianity would overthrow slavery, not so much by denouncing it, but by promoting the equality of man under God, and teaching the principles of liberty and the brotherhood of mankind under Christ. It would be the responsibility of Christians, especially those who found themselves in a place of owning slaves (for example, many Christian Americans in the past inherited slaves) to teach such ideas, and then act accordingly. Many Christians in early America did just this. Phyllis Wheatley was introduced to Christianity by her masters, educated, and given her freedom. Many American Christians, in both North and South, at the time of the Civil War did much to educate slaves Biblically. Stonewall Jackson, who never owned slaves himself and was against slavery, conducted many classes in his church to educate slaves.
Excessive punishment of slaves was forbidden. A slave could be punished by striking with a rod (Ex. 21:20-21), but if the punishment was excessive, the slave was to be given his freedom (Ex. 21:26-27; Lev. 24:17). This included knocking out the tooth or damaging the eye. This applied to indentured servants as well as other slaves. Since the owner would lose his investment in such a situation, there was a financial incentive for just treatment. Just treatment of slaves was required of the masters. Paul writes: “Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.” (Col. 4:1)
Slaves could be brought into the covenant. Slaves could be circumcised (brought into the covenant) and then eat of the Passover meal (Ex. 12:43-44; Gen. 17:12-13). Slaves could also eat of holy things (Lev. 22:10-11).
Slaves had some rights and position in the home and could share in the inheritance. (See Gen. 24:2 and Prov. 17:2.)
Slaves were to rest on the Sabbath like everyone else. The Fourth Commandment applied to all (Ex. 20:8-11).

Female slave laws were for their protection. Exodus 21:4-11 gives some laws about female slaves, which served for their protection. These Hebrew female slaves were without family to assist them in their need or to help to provide security for them. These slaves laws were a way to protect them from abuse not faced by males and to keep them from being turned out into the street, where much harm could come to them.

Examination of the Biblical view of slavery enables us to more effectively address the assertion that slavery was America’s original sin. In light of the Scriptures we cannot say that slavery, in a broad and general sense, is sin. But this brief look at the Biblical slave laws does reveal how fallen man’s example of slavery has violated God’s laws, and America’s form of slavery in particular violated various aspects of the law, as well as the general spirit of liberty instituted by Christ.

The Christian foundation and environment of America caused most people to seek to view life from a Biblical perspective. Concerning slavery, they would ask “Is it Biblical?” While most of the Founders saw it was God’s desire to eliminate the institution, others attempted to justify it. At the time of the Civil War some people justified Southern slavery by appealing to the Bible. However, through this brief review of the Old Testament slave laws we have seen that American slavery violated some of these laws, not to mention the spirit of liberty instituted by the coming of Christ.

Slavery and the New Testament When Paul wrote how slaves and masters were to act (Eph. 6:5-9; Col. 4:1; 1 Tim. 6:1-2; Col. 3:22-25; Titus 2:9-10), he was not endorsing involuntary slavery or the Roman slave system. He was addressing the attitudes, actions, and matters of the heart of those Christians who found themselves in slavery or as slave owners. This encompassed many people, for half the population of Rome and a large proportion of the Roman Empire were slaves. Many people were converted to Christianity while slaves or slave owners, and many Christians were enslaved.

It is in this context that we can better understand the example of Paul, Onesimus, and Philemon. Onesimus, a slave of Philemon who apparently stole some money from his master and ran away, encountered Paul in Rome and became a Christian. Paul sent him back to his master carrying the letter to Philemon. Author of the famous Bible Handbook, Henry Halley writes:

The Bible gives no hint as to how the master received his returning slave. But there is a tradition that says his master did receive him, and took Paul’s veiled hint and gave the slave his liberty. That is the way the Gospel works. Christ in the heart of the slave made the slave recognize the social usages of his day, and go back to his master determined to be a good slave and live out his natural life as a slave. Christ in the heart of the master made the master recognize the slave as a Christian brother and give him his liberty. There is a tradition that Onesimus afterward became a bishop of Berea. ⁷

The Mosaic slave laws and the writings of Paul benefited and protected the slaves as best as possible in their situation. God’s desire for any who are enslaved is freedom (Luke 4:18; Gal. 5:1). Those who are set free in Christ then need to be prepared to walk in liberty. Pagan nations had a much different outlook toward slaves, believing slaves had no rights or privileges. Because of the restrictions and humane aspect of the Mosaic laws on slavery, it never existed on a large scale in Israel, and did not exhibit the cruelties seen in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Assyria and other nations.

Sinful man will always live in some form of bondage and slavery, as a slave to the state, to a lord or noble, or to other men. As a step in man’s freedom, God’s laws of slavery provided the best situation for those who find themselves in bondage. God’s ultimate desire is that all walk in the liberty of the gospel both internally and externally.

As the gospel principles of liberty have spread throughout history in all the nations, man has put aside the institution of overt slavery. However, since sinful man tends to live in bondage, different forms of slavery have replaced the more obvious system of past centuries. The state has assumed the role of master for many, providing aid and assistance, and with it more and more control, to those unable to provide for themselves. The only solution to slavery is the liberty of the gospel.

Brief History of Slavery Slavery has existed throughout the world since after the fall of man. Egypt and other ancient empires enslaved multitudes. Greece and Rome had many slaves, taken from nations they conquered. Slavery was a part of almost every culture. While some Christian nations had taken steps to end slavery, it was still an established part of most of the world when America began to be settled.

Many of the early settlers came to America as indentured servants, indebted to others for a brief period of time to pay for their passage. England at this time recognized the forced labor of the apprentice, the hired servant, convicts, and indentured servants. Some of these laborers were subject to whippings and other forms of punishment. These forms of servitude were limited in duration and “transmitted no claim to the servant’s children.” ⁸

According to Hugh Thomas in The Slave Trade, about 11,328,000 Africans were transported to the new world between 1440 and 1870. Of these about 4 million went to Brazil, 2.5 million to Spanish colonies, 2 million to the British West Indies, 1.6 million to the French West Indies, and 500,000 went to what became the United States of America. ⁹

A Dutch ship, seeking to unload its human cargo, brought the first slaves to Virginia in 1619. Over the next century a small number of slaves were brought to America. In 1700 there were not more than 20 to 30 thousand black slaves in all the colonies. There were some people who spoke against slavery (e.g. the Quakers and Mennonites) ¹⁰ and some political efforts to check slavery (as in laws of Massachusetts and Rhode Island), but these had little large scale effect. The colonies’ laws recognized and protected slave property. Efforts were made to restrict the slave trade in several colonies, but the British government overruled such efforts and the trade went on down to the Revolution.

When independence was declared from England, the legal status of slavery was firmly established in the colonies, though there were plenty of voices speaking out against it, and with independence those voices would increase.

America’s Founders and Slavery

Some people suggest today that all early Americans must have been despicable to allow such an evil as slavery. They say early America should be judged as evil and sinful, and anything they have to say should be discounted. But if we were to judge modern America by this same standard, it would be far more wicked – we are not merely enslaving people, but we are murdering tens of millions of innocent unborn children through abortion. These people claim that they would not have allowed slavery if they were alive then. They would speak out and take any measures necessary. But where is their outcry and action to end slavery in the Sudan today? (And slavery there is much worse than that in early America.)

Some say we should not listen to the Founders of America because they owned slaves, or at least allowed slavery to exist in the society. However, if we were to cut ourselves off from the history of nations that had slavery in the past we would have to have nothing to do with any people because almost every society has had slavery, including African Americans, for many African societies sold slaves to the Europeans; and up to ten percent of blacks in America owned slaves.

The Founders Believed Slavery Was Fundamentally Wrong

The overwhelming majority of early Americans and most of America’s leaders did not own slaves. Some did own slaves, which were often inherited (like George Washington at age eleven), but many of these people set them free after independence. Most Founders believed that slavery was wrong and that it should be abolished. William Livingston, signer of the Constitution and Governor of New Jersey, wrote to an anti-slavery society in New York (John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and President of the Continental Congress, was President of this society):

I would most ardently wish to become a member of it [the anti-slavery society] and . . . I can safely promise them that neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity. . . . May the great and the equal Father of the human race, who has expressly declared His abhorrence of oppression, and that He is no respecter of persons, succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. ¹¹

John Quincy Adams, who worked tirelessly for years to end slavery, spoke of the anti-slavery views of the southern Founders, including Jefferson who owned slaves:

The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself. No charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the Memoir of His Life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves. “Nothing is more certainly written,” said he, “in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free.” ¹²

The Founding Fathers believed that blacks had the same God-given inalienable rights as any other peoples. James Otis of Massachusetts said in 1764 that “The colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black.” ¹³

There had always been free blacks in America who owned property, voted, and had the same rights as other citizens. ¹⁴ Most of the men who gave us the Declaration and the Constitution wanted to see slavery abolished. For example, George Washington wrote in a letter to Robert Morris:

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]. ¹⁵

Charles Carroll, Signer of Declaration from Maryland, wrote:

Why keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil. ¹⁶

Benjamin Rush, Signer from Pennsylvania, stated:

Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. . . . It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men. ¹⁷

Father of American education, and contributor to the ideas in the Constitution, Noah Webster wrote:

Justice and humanity require it [the end of slavery] – Christianity commands it. Let every benevolent . . . pray for the glorious period when the last slave who fights for freedom shall be restored to the possession of that inestimable right. ¹⁸

Quotes from John Adams reveal his strong anti-slavery views:

Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States. . . . I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in . . . abhorrence. ¹⁹ My opinion against it [slavery] has always been known. . . . [N]ever in my life did I own a slave. ²⁰

When Benjamin Franklin served as President of the Pennsylvania Society of Promoting the Abolition of Slavery he declared:

“Slavery is . . . an atrocious debasement of human nature.” ²¹

Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration included a strong denunciation of slavery, declaring the king’s perpetuation of the slave trade and his vetoing of colonial anti-slavery measures as one reason the colonists were declaring their independence:

He [King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere. . . . Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. ²²

Prior to independence, anti-slavery measures by the colonists were thwarted by the British government. Franklin wrote in 1773:

A disposition to abolish slavery prevails in North America, that many of Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, and that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more into that colony. This request, however, will probably not be granted as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed. ²³

The Founders took action against slavery

The founders did not just believe slavery was an evil that needed to be abolished, and they did not just speak against it, but they acted on their beliefs. During the Revolutionary War black slaves who fought won their freedom in every state except South Carolina and Georgia. ²⁴

Many of the founders started and served in anti-slavery societies. Franklin and Rush founded the first such society in America in 1774. John Jay was president of a similar society in New York. Other Founding Fathers serving in anti-slavery societies included: William Livingston (Constitution signer), James Madison, Richard Bassett, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll, William Few, John Marshall, Richard Stockton, Zephaniah Swift, and many more. ²⁵

As the Founders worked to free themselves from enslavement to Britain, based upon laws of God and nature, they also spoke against slavery and took steps to stop it. Abolition grew as principled resistance to the tyranny of England grew, since both were based upon the same ideas. This worked itself out on a personal as well as policy level, as seen in the following incident in the life of William Whipple, signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Hampshire. Dwight writes:

When General Whipple set out to join the army, he took with him for his waiting servant, a colored man named Prince, one whom he had imported from Africa many years before. He was a slave whom his master highly valued. As he advanced on his journey, he said to Prince, “If we should be called into an engagement with the enemy, I expect you will behave like a man of courage, and fight like a brave soldier for your country.” Prince feelingly replied, “Sir, I have no inducement to fight, I have no country while I am a slave. If I had my freedom, I would endeavor to defend it to the last drop of my blood.” This reply of Prince produced the effect on his master’s heart which Prince desired. The general declared him free on the spot. ²⁶

The Founders opposed slavery based upon the principle of the equality of all men. Throughout history many slaves have revolted but it was believed (even by those enslaved) that some people had the right to enslave others. The American slave protests were the first in history based on principles of God-endowed liberty for all. It was not the secularists who spoke out against slavery but the ministers and Christian statesmen.

Before independence, some states had tried to restrict slavery in different ways (e.g. Virginia had voted to end the slave trade in 1773), but the English government had not allowed it. Following independence and victory in the war, the rule of the mother country was removed, leaving freedom for each state to deal with the slavery problem. Within about 20 years of the 1783 Treaty of Peace with Britain, the northern states abolished slavery: Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in 1780; Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784; New Hampshire in 1792; Vermont in 1793; New York in 1799; and New Jersey in 1804.

The Northwest Ordinance (1787, 1789), which governed the admission of new states into the union from the then northwest territories, forbid slavery. Thus, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa all prohibited slavery. This first federal act dealing with slavery was authored by Rufus King (signer of the Constitution) and signed into law by President George Washington.

Although no Southern state abolished slavery, there was much anti-slavery sentiment. Many anti-slavery societies were started, especially in the upper South. Many Southern states considered proposals abolishing slavery, for example, the Virginia legislature in 1778 and 1796. When none passed, many, like Washington, set their slaves free, making provision for their well being. Following independence, “Virginia changed her laws to make it easier for individuals to emancipate slaves,” ²⁷ though over time the laws became more restrictive in Virginia.

While most states were moving toward freedom for slaves, the deep South (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina) was largely pro-slavery. Yet, even so, the Southern courts before around 1840 generally took the position that slavery violated the natural rights of blacks. For example, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in 1818:

Slavery is condemned by reason and the laws of nature. It exists and can only exist, through municipal regulations, and in matters of doubt,…courts must lean in favorem vitae et libertatis [in favor of life and liberty]. ²⁸

The same court ruled in 1820 that the slave “is still a human being, and possesses all those rights, of which he is not deprived by the positive provisions of the law.” ²⁹

Free blacks were citizens and voted in most Northern states and Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In Baltimore prior to 1800, more blacks voted than whites; but in 1801 and 1809, Maryland began to restrict black voting and in 1835 North Carolina prohibited it. Other states made similar restrictions, but a number of Northern states allowed blacks to vote and hold office. In Massachusetts this right was given nearly a decade before the American Revolution and was never taken away, either before or after the Civil War.

Slavery and the Constitution

The issue of slavery was considered at the Constitutional Convention. Though most delegates were opposed to slavery, they compromised on the issue when the representatives from Georgia and South Carolina threatened to walk out. The delegates realized slavery would continue in these states with or without the union. They saw a strong union of all the colonies was the best means of securing their liberty (which was by no means guaranteed to survive). They did not agree to abolish slavery as some wanted to do, but they did take the forward step of giving the Congress the power to end the slave trade after 20 years. ³⁰No nation in Europe or elsewhere had agreed to such political action.

Even so, many warned of the dangers of allowing this evil to continue. George Mason of Virginia told the delegates:

Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgement of heaven upon a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities. ³¹

Jefferson had written some time before this:

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. . . . And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever. ³²

Constitutional Convention Delegate, Luther Martin, stated:

[I]t ought to be considered that national crimes can only be and frequently are punished in this world by national punishments; and that the continuance of the slave-trade, and thus giving it a national sanction and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of Him who is equally Lord of all and who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master. ³³

Some today misinterpret the Constitutional provision of counting the slaves as three-fifths for purposes of representation as pro-slavery or black dehumanization. But it was a political compromise between the north and the south.. The three-fifths provision applied only to slaves and not free blacks, who voted and had the same rights as whites (and in some southern states this meant being able to own slaves). While the Southern states wanted to count the slaves in their population to determine the number of congressmen from their states, slavery opponents pushed to keep the Southern states from having more representatives, and hence more power in congress.

The Constitution did provide that runaway slaves would be returned to their owners (We saw previously that returning runaway slaves is contrary to Biblical slave laws, unless these slaves were making restitution for a crime.) but the words slave and slavery were carefully avoided. “Many of the framers did not want to blemish the Constitution with that shameful term.” The initial language of this clause was “legally held to service or labor,” but this was deleted when it was objected that legally seemed to favor “the idea that slavery was legal in a moral view.” ³⁴

While the Constitution did provide some protection for slavery, this document is not pro-slavery. It embraced the situation of all 13 states at that time, the Founders leaving most of the power to deal with this social evil in the hands of each state. Most saw that the principles of liberty contained in the Declaration could not support slavery and would eventually overthrow it.

As delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Luther Martin put it:

Slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates us to tyranny and oppression.³⁵

We have seen that after independence the American Founders actually took steps to end slavery. Some could have done more, but as a whole they probably did more than any group of national leaders up until that time in history to deal with the evil of slavery. They took steps toward liberty for the enslaved and believed that the gradual march of liberty would continue, ultimately resulting in the complete death of slavery. The ideas they infused in the foundational civil documents upon which America was founded – such as Creator endowed rights and the equality of all men before the law – eventually prevailed and slavery was abolished. But not without great difficulty because the generations that followed failed to carry out the gradual abolition of slavery in America.

The View of Slavery Changes

Most of America’s Founders thought slavery would gradually be abolished. Roger Sherman said that “the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the U.S. and that the good sense of the several states would probably by degrees complete it.” ³⁶ But it was not. Why?

Succeeding generations did not have the character and worldview necessary to complete the task started by the Founders. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Each generation must take up the cause of liberty, which is the cause of God, and fight the battle. While the majority view of the Founders was that American slavery was a social evil that needed to be abolished, many in later generations attempted to justify slavery, often appealing to the Scriptures (though, I believe, in error at many points, as mentioned earlier).
American slavery was not in alignment with Biblical slave laws and God’s desire for liberty for all mankind. This inconsistency produced an institution that proved too difficult to gradually and peacefully abolish. Some Founders (like Henry and Jefferson) could not see how a peaceful resolution was possible and gave the “necessary evil” argument. Henry said: “As much as I deplore slavery, I see that prudence forbids its abolition.” ³⁷ Jefferson was opposed to slavery yet he thought that once the slaves gained freedom, a peaceful coexistence of whites and blacks would be very difficult to maintain. Jefferson predicted that if the slaves were freed and lived in America, “Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites’ ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.” ³⁸ This is why many worked (especially many from Virginia, like James Monroe and James Madison) to set up a country in Africa (Liberia) where the freed slaves could live. Some at this time did not see integration as possible, and apart from the power of God, history has shown it is not possible, as there have been and are many ethnic wars. The church must lead the way in race relations, showing all believers are brothers in Christ, and all men have a common Creator.
The invention of the cotton gin, which revived the economic benefit of slavery, also contributed to a shift in the thinking of many Americans. At the time of independence and the constitutional period most people viewed slavery as an evil that should and would be abolished. But by the 1830s, many people, including some Southern ministers, began to justify it. Some, like Calhoun, even said it was a positive thing. Others justified it by promoting the inequality of the races. Stephen Douglas argued that the Declaration only applied to whites, but Lincoln rejected that argument and sought to bring the nation back to the principles of the Declaration. In the end these principles prevailed.

The Civil War

It is not the intent of this article to examine the War between the States. 39 The causes behind the war were many. Certainly slavery was a part of the cause (and for a small number of wealthy and influential Southern slave owners, it was probably primary), but slavery was not the central issue for all people in the South. Most Southerners did not own slaves and most of those who did had only a small number. ⁴⁰

States rights and perceived unconstitutional taxes were also motivations for secession. There were many abolitionists in the North, both Christian and non-Christian, who pushed for the war, seeing it as a means to end slavery. Though slavery was not initially the reason Lincoln sent troops into the South, he did come to believe that God wanted him to emancipate the slaves.

In all the complexities and tragedy of the war, God was at work fulfilling His providential purposes. Due to the sin of man, to his inability to deal with slavery in a Christian manner, and to other factors, a war erupted. Both good and bad in the root causes, produced good and bad fruit in the outcome of the war. ⁴¹

Though America’s Founders failed to accomplish all of their desires and wishes in dealing with the issue of slavery, the principles of equality and God-given rights they established in the American constitutional republic set into motion events leading to the end of slavery in the United States and throughout the world. That America was founded upon such Biblical principles is what made her a Christian nation, not that there was no sin in the Founders. It is because of the Christian foundations that America has become the most free, just, and prosperous nation in history. The Godly principles infused in her laws, institutions, and families have had immense impact in overthrowing tyranny, oppression, and slavery throughout the world.

Stephen McDowell, Author

Stephen McDowell is president of the Providence Foundation, a Christian educational organization whose mission is to spread liberty, justice, and prosperity among the nations by instructing individuals in a Biblical worldview.

Endnotes

¹ R.J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, vol.1, p. 137.
² Rushdoony, p. 286.
³ Rushdoony, pp. 485-486.
⁴ Rushdoony, p. 251.
⁵ Rushdoony, p. 251.
⁶ Rushdoony, p. 137.
⁷ Henry H. Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965), p. 645.
⁸ Albert Bushnell Hart, The American Nation: A History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1906), vol. 16, Slavery and Abolition, 1831-1841, p. 50.
⁹ “History of slavery is wide-ranging saga”, book review by Gregory Kane of The Slave Trade by Hugh Thomas (Simon and Schuster), in The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Va., December 7, 1997.
¹⁰ The earliest known official protest against slavery in America was the Resolutions of Germantown, Pennsylvania Mennonites, February 18, 1688. See Documents of American History, Henry Steele Commager, editor (New York: F.S. Crofts & Co., 1944), 37-38.
¹¹ William Livingston, The Papers of William Livingston, Carl E. Prince, editor (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), Vol. V, p. 255, to the New York Manumission Society on June 26, 1786. In “The Founding Fathers and Slavery” by David Barton, unpublished paper, p. 5.
¹² John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport, at Their Request, on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1837 (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), p. 50.
¹³ Rights of the Colonies, in Bernard Bailyn, ed., Pamphlets of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 439. In “Was the American Founding Unjust? The Case of Slavery,” by Thomas G. West, Principles, a quarterly review of The Claremont Institute, Spring/Summer 1992, p. 1.
¹⁴ Hart, p. 53.
¹⁵ Letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786, in George Washington: A Collection, ed. W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988), p. 319.
¹⁶ Kate Mason Rowland, Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (New York & London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898), Vol. II, p. 321, to Robert Goodloe Harper, April 23, 1820. In Barton, p. 3.
¹⁷ Benjamin Rush, Minutes of the Proceedings of a Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States Assembled at Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Zachariah Poulson, 1794), p. 24.. In Barton, p. 4.
¹⁸ Noah Webster, Effect of Slavery on Morals and Industry (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1793), p. 48. In Barton, p. 4.
¹⁹ Adams to Robert J. Evans, June 8, 1819, in Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds., Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams (New York: Knopf, 1946), p. 209. In West, p. 2.
²⁰ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1854), Vol. IX, pp. 92-93, to George Churchman and Jacob Lindley on January 24, 1801. In Barton, p. 3.
²¹ “An Address to the Public from the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery” (1789), in Franklin, Writings (New York: Library of America, 1987), p. 1154. In West, p. 2.
²² The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds. (New York: Random House, 1944), p. 25.
²³ Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, ed. (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1839), Vol. VIII, p. 42, to the Rev. Dean Woodward on April 10, 1773.
²⁴ Benjamin Quarles, The Negro and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), chaps. 4-6. In West, p. 2.
²⁵ Barton, p. 5.
²⁶ N. Dwight, The Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (New York: A.S. Barnes & Burr, 1860), p. 11.
²⁷ West, p. 4.
²⁸ Harry v. Decker & Hopkins (1818), in West, p. 4.
²⁹ Mississippi v. Jones (1820), in West, p. 4.
³⁰ Congress banned the exportation of slaves from any state in 1794, and in 1808 banned the importation of slaves. The individual states had passed similar legislation prior to 1808 as well. However, several Southern states continued to actively import and export slaves after their state ban went into effect.
³¹ Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell, America’s Providential History (Charlottesville, Va.: Providence Foundation, 1991), p. 227.
³² Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Trenton: Wilson & Blackwell, 1803), Query XVIII, pp. 221-222.
³³ Luther Martin, The Genuine Information Delivered to the Legislature of the State of Maryland Relative to the Proceedings of the General Convention Lately Held at Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Eleazor Oswald, 1788), p. 57. In Barton, p. 4.
³⁴ West, p. 5. See Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937), vol. 2, p. 417 (remarks on August 25), and pp. 601 (report of Committee of Style), 628 (Sept. 15). See also Madison’s Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, August 25.
³⁵ Luther Martin, Genuine Information (1788), in Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Complete Anti-Federalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), vol. 2, p. 62. In West, p. 6..
³⁶ Remarks at the Constitutional Convention, August 22, Farrand, vol. 2, pp.. 369-72. In West, pp. 7-8.
³⁷ Henry to Robert Pleasants, Jan. 18, 1773, in Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, eds. The Founders’ Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), vol. 1, p. 517; Elliot, Debates, vol. 3, p. 590. In West, p. 6. Henry also pointed out that convenience contributed to the continuation of slavery. He said: “Is it not surprising that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined with precision in a country above all others fond of liberty ‹ that, in such an age, and in such a country, we find men, professing a religion the most humane and gentle, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to liberty? Believe me, I honor the Quakers for their noble efforts to abolish slavery. Every thinking, honest man regrets it in speculation, yet how few in practice from conscientious motives. Would any man believe that I am master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. For however culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue as to won the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and to lament my own non-conformity to them.” In John Hancock, Essays on the Elective Franchise; or, Who Has the Right to Vote (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Son, 1865), pp. 31-32.
³⁸ Jefferson’s Notes, Query XIV, p. 188.
³⁹ See America’s Providential History, chapter 16 for more on a providential view of the war.
⁴⁰ See Hart, pp. 67 ff. Hart records that in 1860 only about 5% of the white population made a substantial profit of slave-keeping (a direct profit; many others benefited from the commerce associated with slavery). About 2% of this number (0.1% of the total white population) were large plantation owners who exerted much political influence. Some people have pointed out that only 3% of Southerners owned slaves. While this is technically true in some measure, it is misleading. The 3% reflects ownership by the head of the household and does not include all its inhabitants. Taking this into account, at the time of the Civil War about 19% of the population lived in households with slaves; and this was 19% of total population which included a large number of slaves. When you consider that in 6 Southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina), there were almost as many or more slaves than whites, this 19% figure actually represents 35%-45% of the white population (in those states) having a direct relation to a home that had slaves.
⁴¹ See America’s Providential History, chapter 16 for some positive and negative effects of the war.

Five Judicial Myths

Talking Points About the Judiciary

Despite what we hear today . . .

1. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT A CO-EQUAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

A. Federalist #51: “the legislative authority necessarily predominates.¹
B. Federalist #78: “The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will. . . . The judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution. . . . [T]he judiciary is, beyond comparison, the weakest of the three departments of power. . . . [and] the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter.²
C. Congress determines the operation of the Judiciary, not vice versa (Congress sets the number of judges and courts; what issues may come before the courts; judges’ salary and compensation; how often the courts meet and the length of their sessions; and just as Congress can establish and set the number of lowers courts, so, too, can Congress also abolish them; etc.)
D. Robert Wright, officer in the Revolution, Maryland judge, early U. S. Senator: “[C]ongress can establish legislatively a court, and thereby create a judge; so they can legislatively abolish the court and eventually annihilate the officer…the inferior courts are creatures of the legislature, and that the creature must always be in the power of the creator – that he who createth can destroy.³
E. William Giles, member of the first federal Congress under the Constitution: “Is that [the Judiciary department] formed by the Constitution? It is not…It is only declared that there shall be such a department, and it is directed to be formed by the two other departments, who owe a responsibility to the people….The number of judges, the assignation of duties, the fixing of compensations, the fixing the times when, and the places where, the courts shall exercise the functions, &c., are left to the entire discretion of Congress. The spirit as well as the words of the Constitution are completely satisfied, provided one Supreme Court be established….Congress may postpone the sessions of the courts for eight or ten years, and establish others to whom they could transfer all the powers of the existing courts.⁴
F. As Rep. Steve King correctly explains, “Constitutionally, Congress can reduce the Supreme Court to nothing more than Chief Justice Roberts sitting at a card table with a candle” – a power that the Judiciary cannot reciprocally exercise over Congress.

2. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT TO BE AN INDEPENDENT BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

A. John Dickinson, signer of the Constitution: “[W]hat innumerable acts of injustice may be committed – and how fatally may the principles of liberty be sapped – by a succession of judges utterly independent of the people?⁵
B. Thomas Jefferson: “It should be remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics that whatever power in any government is independent is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass.⁶
C. Nathaniel Chipman, office in the Revolution, early Member of Congress, U. S. federal judge, Chief Justice of Vermont Supreme Court: “If the judges are made thus independent . . . they will become a dangerous body.⁷
D. Jonathan Mason, law student trained by John Adams and an early Member of Congress: “The independence of the judiciary so much desired will – if tolerated – soon become something like supremacy. They will, indeed, form the main pillar of this goodly fabric; they will soon become the only remaining pillar, and they will presently be so strong as to crush and absorb the others into their solid mass.⁸
E. Thomas Jefferson: “We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government. . . Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the legislative or judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the legislative. The execution of the laws is more important than the making them.⁹
F. Joseph Nicholson, early Member of Congress, successfully managed the impeachment of multiple early federal judges: “Give [judges] the powers and the independence now contended for and . . . your government becomes a despotism and they become your rulers. They are to decide upon the lives, the liberties, and the property of your citizens; they have an absolute veto upon your laws by declaring them null and void at pleasure; they are to introduce at will the laws of a foreign country…after being clothed with this arbitrary power, they are beyond the control of the nation. . . . If all this be true – if this doctrine be established in the extent which is now contended for – the Constitution is not worth the time we are now spending on it. It is – as it has been called by its enemies – mere parchment. For these judges, thus rendered omnipotent, may overleap the Constitution and trample on your laws.¹⁰

3. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT THE SOLE BRANCH CAPABLE OF DETERMINING CONSTITUTIONALITY

A. James Madison: “But the great objection . . . is that the Legislature itself has no right to expound the Constitution – that wherever its meaning is doubtful, you must leave it to take its course until the Judiciary is called upon the declare its meaning. . . . I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another in marking out the limits.¹¹
B. Elbridge Gerry, signer of the Declaration and a framer of the Bill of Rights: “It was quite foreign from the nature of [the judiciary’s] office to make them judges of the policy of public measures.¹²
C. Luther Martin, framer of the Constitution and Attorney General of Maryland: “A knowledge of mankind and of legislative affairs cannot be presumed to belong in a higher degree to the Judges than to the Legislature.¹³
D. John Randolph of Roanoke: “[I]f you pass the law, the judges are to put their veto upon it by declaring it unconstitutional. Here is a new power of a dangerous and uncontrollable nature contended for…The power which has the right of passing – without appeal – on the validity of laws is your sovereign.¹⁴
E. Thomas Jefferson: “O]ur Constitution. . . . has given – according to this opinion – to one of [the three Branches] alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others – and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. . . . The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.¹⁵
F. Rufus King, signer of the Constitution, framer of the Bill of Rights: “The judges must interpret the laws; they ought not to be legislators.¹⁶
G. John Randolph of Roanoke: “The decision of a constitutional question must rest somewhere. Shall it be confided to men immediately responsible to the people – the Congress, or to those who are irresponsible…the judges?….[a]re we [Congress] not as deeply interested in the true exposition of the Constitution as the judges can be? With all the deference to their talents, is not Congress as capable of forming a correct opinion as they are? Are not its members acting under a responsibility to public opinion which can, and will, check their aberrations from duty?¹⁷
H. Thomas Jefferson: “[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.¹⁸
I. James Madison: “[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.¹⁹
J. Federalist #81: “[T]here is not a syllable in the plan [the Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution.²⁰
K. Thomas Jefferson: “You seem . . . to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions – a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . [A]nd their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective.²¹
L. President Andrew Jackson: “Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. . . . The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive.²²
M. Abraham Lincoln: “I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court. . . . At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having . . . resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.²³

4. FEDERAL JUDGES DO NOT HOLD LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS

A. The Constitution says that judges hold their office only during “good behavior” (Art. III, Sec. 1).
B. Federal judges may be removed by Congress for misbehavior, which, historically, did not include only criminal behavior but also other misbehavior.
C. Historically, federal judges have been removed from the bench by Congress for contradicting an order of Congress, for profanity, for rude treatment of witness in a courtroom, for drunkenness, for judicial high-handedness and a variety of other reasons.²⁴
D. The Constitution provides six clauses on impeachment – the most often-mentioned subject in the Constitution.²⁵
E. The Founding Fathers and early legal authorities were clear about the ground for impeachment:
- 1. James Wilson, signer of the Constitution, original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court: “[I]mpeachments are confined to political characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to political punishments.²⁶
- 2. Justice Joseph Story, a “Father of American Jurisprudence” appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison: “The offenses to which the power of impeachment has been and is ordinarily applied as a remedy. . . . are aptly termed political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests.²⁷
- 3. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court: “[T]he present doctrine seems to be that a Judge giving a legal opinion contrary to the opinion of the legislature is liable to impeachment.²⁸
- 4. George Mason, the “Father of the Bill of Rights”: “attempts to subvert the Constitution.²⁹
- 5. Alexander Hamilton: “the abuse or violation of some public trust. . . . [or for] injuries done immediately to the society itself.³⁰
- 6. George Mason, “Father of the Bill of Rights,” and Elbridge, signer of the Declaration and Framer of the Bill of Rights: “mal-administration.³¹
- 7. William Rawle, legal authority and author of early constitutional commentary: “the inordinate extension of power, the influence of party and of prejudice³² as well as attempts to “infringe the rights of the people.³³
- 8. Justice Joseph Story, a “Father of American Jurisprudence” appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison: “unconstitutional opinions” and “attempts to subvert the fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power.³⁴
F. Federalist #65: “[T]he practice of impeachments [is] a bridle in the hands of the Legislative body.³⁵
G. Justice James Iredell, a ratifier of the Constitution, placed on the Supreme Court by President Washington: “Every government requires it [impeachment]. Every man ought to be amenable for his conduct. . . . It will be not only the means of punishing misconduct but it will prevent misconduct. A man in public office who knows that there is no tribunal to punish him may be ready to deviate from his duty; but if he knows there is a tribunal for that purpose although he may be a man of no principle, the very terror of punishment will perhaps deter him.³⁶

5. THE PURPOSE OF THE SUPREME COURT IS NOT TO PROTECT THE MINORITY FROM THE MAJORITY, AND CONGRESS IS A BETTER PROTECTOR OF MINORITY RIGHTS THAN IS THE JUDICIARY

A. George Washington: “[T]he fundamental principle of our Constitution… enjoins [requires] that the will of the majority shall prevail.³⁷
B. Thomas Jefferson: “[T]he will of the majority [is] the natural law of every society [and] is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err. But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived.³⁸
C. The Judiciary is now regularly anti-majoritarian.
D. The primary purpose of the Supreme Court is not to protect the minority from the majority.
E. The primary purpose of the Bill of Rights is not to protect the minority from the majority; the purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect every citizen, whether in the minority or the majority, from the intrusion upon their rights by government.
F. Congress is a better guardian of the people and the minority than are the courts.
G. Federalist #51: “The members of the Legislative department . . . are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. . . . they are more immediately the confidential guardians of their rights and liberties.³⁹>
H. In 1875, Congress banned all segregation,⁴⁰ but in 1882, the Supreme Court struck down that law.⁴¹ While the Court is often praised today for ending segregation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, what the Court actually did in that case was only to reverse its own position that had kept segregation alive 70 longer than Congress’ ban.
I. Thomas Jefferson: “When the Legislative or Executive functionaries act unconstitutionally, they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.⁴²

Endnotes

¹ James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 281.

² James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 419-420.

³ The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1851), 7th Cong., 1st Session, 114, January 15, 1802.

⁴ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 585-586, 593, February 18, 1802.

⁵ John Dickinsonn, Leters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (New York: The Outlook Company, 1903), 92, Letter IX.

⁶ The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:137, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.

⁷ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 131, January 19, 1802.

⁸ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 63, January 13, 1802.

⁹ The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 15:283, to the Abbe Arnoux, July 19, 1789.

¹⁰ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 823-824, February 27, 1802.

¹¹ Debates and Proceedings ( 1834), 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 520, June 17, 1789.

¹² The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry D. Gilpin (Washington: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840), II:783, “Debates in the Federal Convention,” June 4, 1787.

¹³ Papers of James Madison, ed. Gilpin (1840), II:1166, “Debates in the Federal Convention,” July 21, 1787.

¹⁴ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 661, February 20, 1802.

¹⁵ Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1904), XV:213, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.

¹⁶ The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), I:108, from Rufus King’s records of the Convention from Monday, June 4, 1787.

¹⁷ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 661, February 20, 1802.

¹⁸ Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1904), XI:51, to Mrs. John Adams, September 11, 1804.

¹⁹ James Madison, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (New York: R. Worthington, 1884), 1:194, “Remarks on Mr. Jefferson’s Draught of a Constitution for Virginia,” October 1788.

²⁰ James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 436.

²¹ Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:277, to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820.

²² James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), III:1145, “Veto Message,” July 10, 1832.

²³ The Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. John H. Clifford (New York: The University Society Inc., 1908), V:142-143, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1861.

²⁴ Congressional Record (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1933), 76:4914-4916, Impeachment articles against Harold Louderback, district judge for northern California, February 24, 1933; Congressional Record ( 1905), XXXIX:1281-1283, Impeachment articles against Charles Swayne, district judge for northern Florida, Junary 24, 1905; Congressional Record (1912), XLVIII:9051-9053, Impeachment articles against Robert W. Archbald, third circuit judge, July 15, 1912; Congressional Record (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1926), LXVII:6585-6589, Impeachment articles against George W. English, district judge for eastern Illinois, March 30, 1926; Floyd Riddick, Procedure and Guidelines for Impeachment Trials in the United States Senate (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1974), 10-13.

²⁵ See The Constitution of the United States of America, available online at https://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html; Impeachment is mentioned in the following clauses: Article I, Section 2 and Section 3, Article II, Section 2 and Section 4, Article III, Section 2.

²⁶ The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), II:166, “Of the Constitution of the United States and of Pennsylvania—of the Legislative Department.”

²⁷ Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co, 1833), II:233-234, Sec. 762.

²⁸ The Papers of John Marshall, ed. Charles F. Hobson (Chapel Hill, VA: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), VI:347, to Samuel Chase, January 23, 1805.

²⁹ The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry D. Gilpin (Washington: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840), III:1528, “Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787.”

³⁰ Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), 352.

³¹ Papers of James Madison, ed. Gilpin (1840), III:1528, “Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787.”

³² William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Philip H. Nicklin, 1829), 211.

³³ Rawle, A View of the Constitution (1829), 210.

³⁴ Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co, 1833), Vol. II, p. 268,

³⁵ Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), p. 353,

³⁶ The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, Jonathan Elliot, editor (Washington: Printed for the Editor, 1836), IV:32, July 24, 1788.

³⁷ Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents (1899), I:156, from the “Sixth Annual Address” of November 19, 1794.

³⁸ Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd (1961), XVI:179, “Response to the Citizens of Albermarle,” February 12, 1790.

³⁹ Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), p. 275.

⁴⁰ The Statutes at Large (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1875), XVIII:3:335-337, “An Act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights,” March 1, 1875.

⁴¹ The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).

⁴² Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed.. Lipscomb (1904), XV:278, to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820.

The Founding Fathers on Creation and Evolution

David Barton 2008

While uninformed laymen erroneously believe the theory of evolution to be a product of Charles Darwin in his first major work of 1859 (The Origin of Species), the historical records are exceedingly clear that the evolution-creation-intelligent design debate was largely formulated well before the birth of Christ. Numerous famous writings have appeared on the topic for almost two thousand years; in fact, our Founding Fathers were well-acquainted with these writings and therefore the principle theories and teachings of evolution – as well as the science and philosophy both for and against that thesis – well before Darwin synthesized those centuries-old teachings in his writings.

Nobel-Prize winner Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) explains: “The general idea of evolution is very old; it is already to be found in Anaximander (sixth century B.C.). . . . [and] Descartes [1596-1650], Kant [1724-1804], and Laplace [1749-1827] had advocated a gradual origin for the solar system in place of sudden creation.”¹ Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935), a zoologist and paleontologist, agrees, declaring that there are “ancient pedigrees for all that we are apt to consider modern. Evolution has reached its present fullness by slow additions in twenty-four centuries.”² He continues, “Evolution as a natural explanation of the origin of the higher forms of life . . . developed from the teaching of Thales [624-546 B.C.] and Anaximander [610-546 B.C.] into those of Aristotle [384-322 B.C.]. . . . and it is startling to find him, over two thousand years ago, clearly stating, and then rejecting, the theory of the survival of the fittest as an explanation of the evolution of adaptive structures.”³ And British anthropologist Edward Clodd (1840-1930) similarly affirms that, “The pioneers of evolution – the first on record to doubt the truth of the theory of special creation, whether as the work of departmental gods or of one Supreme Deity, matters not – lived in Greece about the time already mentioned: six centuries before Christ.”⁴

For example, Anaximander (610-546 B.C.) introduced the theory of spontaneous generation; Diogenes (412-323 B.C.) introduced the concept of the primordial slime; Empedocles (495-455 B.C.) introduced the theory of the survival of the fittest and of natural selection; Deomocritus (460-370 B.C.) advocated the mutability and adaptation of species; the writings of Lucretius (99-55 B.C.) announced that all life sprang from “mother earth” rather than from any specific deity; Bruno (1548-1600) published works arguing against creation and for evolution in 1584-85; Leibnitz (1646-1716) taught the theory of intermedial species; Buffon (1707-1788) taught that man was a quadruped ascended from the apes, about which Helvetius also wrote in 1758; Swedenborg (1688-1772) advocated and wrote on the nebular hypothesis (the early “big bang”) in 1734, as did Kant in 1755; etc. It is a simple fact that countless works for (and against) evolution had been written for over two millennia prior to the drafting of our governing documents and that much of today’s current phraseology surrounding the evolution debate was familiar rhetoric at the time our documents were framed.

In fact, Dr. Henry Osborn (1857-1935), curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, identifies four periods of evolution: I. Greek Evolution – 640 B.C. to 1600 A.D.; II. Modern Evolution – 1600-1800 A.D.; III. Modern Inductive Evolution – 1730-1850 A.D.; and IV. Modern Inductive Evolution – 1858 to the present.⁵ He describes the third period in the history of evolution – the period in which our Framers lived – as a period which produced the pro-evolution writings of “Linnaeus, Buffon, E[rasmus] Darwin, Lamarck, Goethe, Treviranus, Geof. St. Hilaire, St. Vincent, Is. St. Hilaire. Miscellaneous writers: Grant, Rafinesque, Virey, Dujardin, d’Halloy, Chevreul, Godron, Leidy, Unger, Carus, Lecoq, Schaafhausen, Wolff, Meckel, Von Baer, Serres, Herbert, Buch, Wells, Matthew, Naudin, Haldeman, Spencer, Chambers, Owen.”⁶

The debate over the origins of man has always been between a theistic and a non-theistic approach; and among those who embrace the theistic approach have been found (and still are found) three distinct sub-approaches: (1) intelligent-design (that which exists came into being by divine guidance, but the period of time required or the specifics of the process are unsettled, possibly unprovable, and therefore remain debatable); (2) theistic evolution (that which exists came into being over a long, slow passing of time through natural laws and processes but under divine guidance); and (3) special creation (that which exists came into being in six literal days). This, then, makes four separate historic approaches to the origins of man: three theistic, and one non-theistic.

In the non-theistic camp, Empedocles (495-435 B.C.) was the father and original proponent of the evolution theory, followed by advocates such as Democritus (460-370 B.C. ), Epicurus (342-270 B.C.), Lucretius (98-55 B.C.), Abubacer (1107-1185 A.D.), Bruno (1548-1600), Buffon (1707-1788), Helvetius (1715-1771), Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Lamarck (1744-1829), Goethe (1749-1832), Lyell (1797-1875), etc.

In the theistic camp, Anaxigoras (500-428 B.C.) was the father of intelligent design; that same belief was also expounded by such distinguished scientists and philosophers Descartes (1596-1650), Harvey (1578-1657), Newton (1642-1727), Kant (1729-1804), Mendel (1822-1884), Cuvier (1769-1827), Agassiz (1807-1873), etc. Significantly, even Charles Darwin (1809-1882), strongly influenced by the writings of Paley (1743- 1805),⁷ embraced the intelligent design position at the time that he wrote his celebrated word, explaining:

Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty, or rather impossibility, of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species.⁸

John Dewey, an ardent 20th century proponent of Darwinism, explained why the intelligent design position – scientifically speaking – was reasonable:

The marvelous adaptation of organisms to their environment, of organs to the organism, of unlike parts of a complex organ (like the eye) to the organ itself; the foreshadowing by lower forms of the higher; the preparation in earlier stages of growth for organs that only later had their functioning – these things are increasingly recognized with the progress of botany, zoology, paleontology, and embryology. Together, they added such prestige to the design argument that by the later eighteenth century it was, as approved by the sciences of organic life, the central point of theistic and idealistic philosophy.⁹

(This position of intelligent design, also called the anthropic or teleological view, is now embraced by an increasing number of contemporary distinguished scientists, non-religious though many of them claim to be.¹⁰)

The second camp within the theistic approach is theistic evolution, which was first propounded by Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Other prominent expositors of this view included Gregory of Nyssa (331-396 A.D.), Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.), St. Gregory the First (540-604 A.D.), St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Leibnitz (1646-1716), Swedenborg (1688-1772), Bonnet (1720-1793), and numerous contemporary scientists. In fact, many of Darwin’s contemporaries embraced this view, believing that “natural selection could be the means by which God has chosen to make man.”¹¹

As confirmed by Dr. James Rachels, professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham: Mivart [1827-1900, a professor in Belgium] became the leader of a group of dissident evolutionists who held that although man’s body might have evolved by natural selection, his rational and spiritual soul did not. At some point God had interrupted the course of human history to implant man’s soul in him, making him something more than merely a former ape. . . . Wallace [1823-1913, who advocated natural selection prior to Darwin] took a view very similar to that of Mivart: he held that the theory of natural selection applies to humans, but only up to a point. Our bodies can be explained in this way, but not our brains. Our brains, he said, have powers that far outstrip anything that could have been produced by natural selection. Thus he concluded that God had intervened in the course of human history to give man the “extra push” that would enable him to reach the pinnacle on which he now stands. . . . Natural selection, while it explained much, could not explain everything; in the end God must be brought in to complete the picture.¹²

In fact, Clarence Darrow himself (the lead attorney during the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925¹³), admitted during the trial that this was a prominent position of many in that day;¹⁴ and Dudley Malone, Darrow’s co-counsel, even declared:

We shall show by the testimony of men learned in science and theology that there are millions of people who believe in evolution and in the stories of creation as set forth in the Bible and who find no conflict between the two.¹⁵

Interestingly, writers who chronicle the centuries-long history of the evolution debate¹⁶ confirm that there have always been numerous evolutionists in both the theistic and the non-theistic camps, and much of the proceedings in the Scopes trial reaffirmed that a belief in evolution was not incompatible with teaching theistic origins and a belief in a divine creator.

The third camp, special (or literal) creation, was championed by Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) and later by Pasteur (1822-1895) as well as by subsequent contemporary scientists.

Significantly, then, the history of this controversy through recent years and even previous centuries makes clear that subsequent scientific discovery across the centuries has not yet significantly altered any of these four views. Therefore, it was not in the absence of knowledge about the debate over evolution but rather in its presence, that our Framers made the decision to incorporate in our governing documents the principle of a creator.

One example affirming the Framers’ view on this subject is provided by Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine

Although Paine was the most openly and aggressively anti-religious of the Founders, in his 1787 “Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists in Paris,” Paine nevertheless forcefully denounced the French educational system which taught students that man was the result of prehistoric cosmic accidents, or had developed from some other species:

It has been the error of schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the Author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well-executed statue, or a highly-finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talent of the artist.
When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How, then, is it that when we study the works of God in creation, we stop short and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the Author of them. . . .
The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator Himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.
And when we speak of looking through nature up to nature’s God, we speak philosophically the same rational language as when we speak of looking through human laws up to the power that ordained them.
God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon.
But infidelity, by ascribing every phenomenon to properties of matter, conceives a system for which it cannot account and yet it pretends to demonstrate.¹⁷

Paine certainly did not advocate this position as a result of religious beliefs or of any teaching in the Bible, for he believed that “the Bible is spurious” and “a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy.”¹⁸ Yet, this anti-Bible founder was nevertheless a strong supporter of teaching the theistic origins of man. Many other Founding Fathers also held clear positions on this issue.

John Quincy Adams

It is so obvious to every reasonable being, that he did not make himself; and the world which he inhabits could as little make itself that the moment we begin to exercise the power of reflection, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that there is a Creator. It is equally evident that the Creator must be a spiritual and not a material being; there is also a consciousness that the thinking part of our nature is not material but spiritual – that it is not subject to the laws of matter nor perishable with it. Hence arises the belief, that we have an immortal soul; and pursuing the train of thought which the visible creation and observation upon ourselves suggest, we must soon discover that the Creator must also he the Governor of the universe – that His wisdom and His goodness must be without bounds – that He is a righteous God and loves righteousness – that mankind are bound by the laws of righteousness and are accountable to Him for their obedience to them in this life, according to their good or evil deeds.¹⁹

But the first words of the Bible are, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The blessed and sublime idea of God as the creator of the universe – the Source of all human happiness for which all the sages and philosophers of Greece and Rome groped in darkness and never found – is recalled in the first verse of the book of Genesis. I call it the source of all human virtue and happiness because when we have attained the conception of a Being Who by the mere act of His will created the world, it would follow as an irresistible consequence (even if we were not told that the same Being must also be the governor of his own creation) that man, with all other things, was also created by Him, and must hold his felicity and virtue on the condition of obedience to His will.²⁰

Benjamin Franklin

It might be judged an affront to your understandings should I go about to prove this first principle: the existence of a Deity and that He is the Creator of the universe; for that would suppose you ignorant of what all mankind in all ages have agreed in. I shall therefore proceed to observe that He must be a being of infinite wisdom (as appears in His admirable order and disposition of things), whether we consider the heavenly bodies, the stars and planets and their wonderful regular motions; or this earth, compounded of such an excellent mixture of all the elements; or the admirable structure of animate bodies of such infinite variety and yet every one adapted to its nature and the way of life is to be placed in, whether on earth, in the air, or in the water, and so exactly that the highest and most exquisite human reason cannot find a fault; and say this would have been better so, or in such a manner which whoever considers attentively and thoroughly will be astonished and swallowed up in admiration.²¹

That the Deity is a being of great goodness appears in His giving life to so many creatures, each of which acknowledges it a benefit by its unwillingness to leave it; in His providing plentiful sustenance for them all and making those things that are most useful, most common and easy to be had, such as water (necessary for almost every creature to drink); air (without which few could subsist); the inexpressible benefits of light and sunshine to almost all animals in general; and to men, the most useful vegetables, such as corn, the most useful of metals, as iron, & c.; the most useful animals as horses, oxen, and sheep, He has made easiest to raise or procure in quantity or numbers; each of which particulars, if considered seriously and carefully, would fill us with the highest love and affection. That He is a being of infinite power appears in His being able to form and compound such vast masses of matter (as this earth, and the sun, and innumerable stars and planets), and give them such prodigious motion and yet so to govern them in their greatest velocity as that they shall not fly out of their appointed bounds not dash one against another for their mutual destruction. But it is easy to conceive His power, when we are convinced of His infinite knowledge and wisdom. For, if weak and foolish creatures as we are, but knowing the nature of a few things, can produce such wonderful effects, . . . what power must He possess, Who not only knows the nature of everything in the universe but can make things of new natures with the greatest ease and at His pleasure! Agreeing, then, that the world was a first made by a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, which Being we call God.²²

John Adams

When I was in England from 1785 to 1788, I may say I was intimate with Dr. Price [Richard Price was a theologian and a strong British supporter of American rights and independence, with Congress bestowing on him an American citizenship in 1778]. I had much conversation with him at his own house, at my houses, and at the house and tables of many friends. In some of our most unreserved conversations when we have been alone, he has repeatedly said to me, “I am inclined to believe that the Universe is eternal and infinite. It seems to me that an eternal and infinite effect must necessarily flow from an eternal and infinite Cause; and an infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power that could have been induced to produce a Universe in time must have produced it from eternity.” “It seems to me, the effect must flow from the Cause”… It has been long – very long – a settled opinion in my mind that there is now, never will be, and never was but one Being who can understand the universe, and that it is not only vain but wicked for insects [like us] to pretend to comprehend it.²³

James Wilson

When we view the inanimate and irrational creation around and above us, and contemplate the beautiful order observed in all its motions and appearances, is not the supposition unnatural and improbable that the rational and moral world should be abandoned to the frolics of chance or to the ravage of disorder? What would be the fate of man and of society was every one at full liberty to do as he listed without any fixed rule or principle of conduct – without a helm to steer him, a sport of the fierce gusts of passion and the fluctuating billows of caprice?²⁴

Daniel Webster

The belief that this globe existed from all eternity (or never had a beginning), never obtained a foothold in any part of the world or in any age. Even the infidel writer of modern times, however, in the pride of argument they may have asserted it but believed it not, for they could not help perceiving that if mankind, with their inherently intellectual powers and natural capacities for improvement, had inhabited this earth for millions of years, the present inhabitants would not only be vastly more intelligent than we now find them but there would be vestiges of the former races to be found in every inhabitable part of the globe, floods and earthquakes notwithstanding. Unless we adopt Lord Monboddo’s [1714-1799, a Scottish legal scholar and pioneer anthropologist who advocated evolution through natural selection and man’s ascent from chimps] supposition that mankind were originally monkeys, it is impossible to admit the idea that they could have existed millions of years without making more discoveries and improvements than the early histories of nations warrant us to believe they had done. The belief in an uncreated, self-existent intelligent First Cause takes possession of our minds whether we will or not, because if man could not create himself, nothing else could; and matter, if it were not external, could produce nothing but matter; it could never produce thought nor free will nor consciousness. There must have been, therefore, a time when this globe and its inhabitants did not exist. The question then arises, what gave it existence? We answer God, the great First Cause of all things. What is God? We know not. We know Him only through His creation and His revelation. What do these teach us? They teach us, first this; incomprehensible power, next His infinite mind, and lastly His universal benevolence or goodness. These terms express all that we can know or believe of Him.²⁵

Thomas Jefferson

[W]hen we take a view of the universe in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses – it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause, and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order.²⁶

(A longer and more extensive piece on the history of evolution and the Founding Fathers can be read in David Barton’s law review article published for Regent Lawschool on the 75th anniversary of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. That piece, entitled “Evolution and the Law: A Death Struggle Between Two Civilizations,” is accessible here.)

Endnotes

¹ Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948), 33-34.

² Henry Fairfield Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924), 1.

³ Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924), 6.

⁴ Edward Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution From Thales to Huxley (New York: Books for Libraries Press), 3.

⁵ Osborn, From the Greeks (1924), 10-11.

⁶ Osborn, From the Greeks (1924), 11.

⁷ James Rachels, Created From Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 10.

⁸ Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, ed. Nora Barlow (London: Collins, 1958), 92-93.

⁹ John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and Other Essays on Contemporary Thought (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1910), p. 11.

¹⁰ Some of the contemporary academics and researchers embracing this position include Dr. Mike Behe of Lehigh University, Dr. Walter Bradley of Texas A & M, Dr. Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer of Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Phillip Johnson and Dr. Jonathan Wells of the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Robert Kaita of Princeton, Dr. Steven Meyer of Whitworth, Dr. Heinz Oberhummer of Vienna University, Dr. Siegfried Scherer of the Technical University of Munich, Dr. Jeff Schloss of Westmont, etc. There are numerous others that, to varying degrees, embrace the anthropic position, including Dr. Brandon Carter of Cambridge, Dr. Frank Tipler of Tulane, Dr. Peter Berticci of Michigan State, Dr. George Gale of University of Missouri Kansas City, Dr. John Barrow of Sussux University, Dr. John Leslie of the University of Guelph, Dr. Heinz Pagels of Rockefeller University, Dr. John Earman of University of Pittsburgh, and many others.

¹¹ Rachels, Created From Animals (1990), 3.

¹² Rachels, Created From Animals (1990),57-58.

¹³ Scopes v. State, 289 S. W. 363 (1927).

¹⁴ The World’s Most Famous Court Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case; A Word for Word Report of the Famous Court Test of the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Act, at Dayton, July 10 to 21, 1925 . . . (Cincinnati: National Book Company, 1925), 83-84, Clarence Darrow, July 13, 1925.

¹⁵ The World’s Most Famous Court Trial (1925), 113, Dudley Malone, July 15, 1925.

¹⁶ See Osborn, From the Greek (1924); Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Edward Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution From Thales to Huxley (New York: Books for Libraries Press); Robert Clark, Darwin: Before and After, and Examination and Assessment (London: The Paternoster Press, 1958),

¹⁷ Thomas Paine, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Daniel Edwin Wheeler (New York: Printed by Vincent Parke and Company, 1908), 7:2-8, “The Existence of God,” A Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists, Paris.

¹⁸ Paine, Life and Writings, ed. Wheeler (1908), 6:132, from his “Age of Reason Part Second,” January 27, 1794.

¹⁹ John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), Letter II, 23-24.

²⁰ Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams (1850), Letter II, 27-28.

²¹ Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1836), II:526, “A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World.”

²² Franklin, Works, ed. Jared Sparks (1836), II:526-527, “A Lecture on the Providence of God in the Government of the World.”

²³ John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. Lester Cappon (North Carolina: University of North Carolina, 1959) 374-375, to Thomas Jefferson, September 14, 1813.

²⁴ James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), I:113-114.

²⁵ From Daniel Webster’s 1801 Senior Oration at Dartmouth, translated from the Latin by John Andrew Murray, received by the author from the translator on February 21, 2008. The oration is titled “On the Goodness of God as manifested in His work, 1801.”

²⁶ Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:426-427, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823.

Private Property Rights Resolution

Resolution Acknowledging the Inalienable Rights of Private Property

I. Whereas, an overriding respect for the sanctity of the ownership and personal use of private property, free from restrictive and invasive regulatory regulations, is firmly embedded in American colonial law, common law, and constitutional law:

A. The three most-influential political philosophers impacting the formation of American law were Charles Montesquieu, William Blackstone, and John Locke¹

B. Charles Montesquieu, whose writings were recommended by major Framers such as James Madison, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, declared: “Let us therefore lay down a certain maxim: that whenever the public good happens to be the matter in question, it is not for the advantage of the public to deprive an individual of his property – or even to retrench the least part of it by a law or a political regulation”²

C. William Blackstone, whose legal writings were considered as the final authority in American courts for a century-and-a-half after the adoption of the U. S. Constitution, declared: “So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property that it will not authorize the least violation of it – no, not even for the general good of the whole community”³

D. John Locke, whose writings had direct impact in the framing both of the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution, succinctly declared that “the preservation of property [is] the reason for which men enter into society” and that “government . . . can never have a power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the subject’s. property without their own consent, for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all”;⁴ and

II. Whereas, the right to hold, possess, and use one’s own private property was also recognized by our Framers and in our founding government documents as one of the foremost of our inalienable, inviolable, God-given rights:

A. Samuel Adams declared that our inalienable rights included “first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property – together with the right to support and defend them”⁵

B. John Adams declared that “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence”⁶ and that “Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty”⁷

C. John Jay, original Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and an author of the Federalist Papers declared that “It is the undoubted right and unalienable privilege of a [citizen] not to be divested or interrupted in the innocent use of . . . property. . . . This is the Cornerstone of every free Constitution”⁸

D. Adam Smith, famous economist of the Founding Era, foresaw the tendencies of governments to impinge the rights of private property, forewarning: “As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords [e.g., the governments], like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce”⁹

E. Noah Webster, a Founding Father who served as a judge and legislator, declared that property is “the exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing; ownership. In the beginning of the world, the Creator gave to man dominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air, and over every living thing. This is the foundation of man’s property in the earth and in all its productions. Prior occupancy of land and of wild animals gives to the possessor the property of them. The labor of inventing, making or producing anything constitutes one of the highest and most indefeasible titles to property”¹⁰

F. Both John Adams (signer of the Declaration and framer of the Bill of Rights) and William Paterson (signer of the Constitution and Justice placed on the U. S. Supreme Court by President George Washington) declared: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of . . . acquiring, possessing, and protecting property”¹¹

III. Whereas, our founding governing documents declare that it is the purpose of government to protect and not violate inalienable God-given rights, including the right of owning and using one’s own property;

A. James Madison declared that “Government is instituted to protect property. . . . This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own. . . . That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions [i.e., restrictive zoning requirements], exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their [own] faculties”¹²

B. Fisher Ames, a Framer of the Bill of Rights, forcefully declared that “The chief duty and care of all governments is to protect the rights of property”¹³

C. John Dickinson, a signer of the Constitution, declared: “Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds: (1) that we cannot be happy without being free; (2) that we cannot be free without being secure in our property; (3) that we cannot be secure in our property if without our consent others may as by right take it away”¹⁴

D. John Adams – one of only two signers of the Bill of Rights – declared: “Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist” and that “it is agreed that the end of all government is the good and ease of the people in a secure enjoyment of their rights without oppression”¹⁵

E. James Wilson – a signer of the Declaration, signer of the Constitution, original U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and founder of the first organized legal training in America – declared that American government was created “to acquire a new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights to . . . which we were previously entitled by the immediate gift or by the unerring law of our all-wise and all-beneficent Creator,” including the right of property, and that “every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind”¹⁶

F. Thomas Jefferson similarly declared that the purpose of government “is to declare and enforce only our natural [inalienable, God-given] rights and duties and to take none of them from us,”¹⁷ including the right to own, use, and enjoy one’s own private property

G. An early public school textbook on ethics, reprinted for generations, transmitted these original principles to young Americans, teaching them: “Property is something which one owns and has a right to own. . . . Everything which you see or touch belongs to you or to somebody else. If it belongs to you, you have the right to do what you please with it, provided you do not abuse it: if it belongs to somebody else, you have no right to it whatever”¹⁸ – a prohibition that applies equally to government entities as well as to individuals; and

IV. Whereas, the Common Law, directly incorporated into the U. S. Constitution by the Seventh Amendment, establishes that an “absolute right . . . is that of property. . . . So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property that. . . . [i]n vain may it be urged that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community; for it would be dangerous to allow any private man, or even any public tribunal [governmental body], to be the judge of this common good and to decide whether it be expedient or no [how to use that property]”;¹⁹ and

VI. Therefore, Be It Resolved, that all interpretations and applications of zoning ordinances shall be examined and applied so as to recognize and preserve the inalienable, inviolable principles of private property usage and that such individual rights may be infringed only if it is clearly proven that they directly injure or harm the same rights of another citizen.

Footnotes

¹ Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 143; Donald S. Lutz, “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review, 78:1:191, March 1984.

² Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1752), 210.

³ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), I:139; The Founders’ Constitution, “Property: William Blackstone, Commentaries” (at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html).

⁴ John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1698) 273-274, Second Treatise §§ 138-40.

⁵ Samuel Adams, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, William V. Wells, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1865), I:502, “The Natural Rights of the Colonists As Men.”

⁶ John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), III:217, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined.”

⁷ John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution (1797), III:216, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined.”

⁸ John Jay, John Jay The Making of a Revolutionary, Unpublished Papers, 1745-1780, ed. Richard B. Morris (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1980), I:462, “A Freeholder: A Hint to the Legislature of the State of New York,” Winter 1778.

⁹ Adam Smith, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Vol. I, Chapter 6.”

¹⁰ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. “property.”

¹¹ The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman and Bowen, 1785), 6; William Paterson, The Charge of Judge William Paterson to the Jury (Philadelphia, Smith, 1796), 15.

¹² James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), VI:102, “Property,” March 29, 1792.

¹³ Fisher Ames, The Works of Fisher Ames (Boston: T.B. Wait & Co., 1809), 125, “Eulogy on Washington”, Feb. 8, 1800.

¹⁴ John Dickinson, The Political Writings of John Dickinson (Wilmington, Bonsal and Niles, 1801), I:275, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the inhabitants of the British Colonies,” Letter XII.

¹⁵ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), VI:280, “Discourse on Davila; a Series of Papers on Political History.”

¹⁶ John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), III:293-294, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined”; The Founders’ Constitution, “Balanced Government: John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States” (at https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch11s10.html).

¹⁷ James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), II:454, 466, “Of The Natural Rights Of Individuals.”

¹⁸ Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), IV:278, to Francis Gilmer, June 7, 1816.

¹⁹ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), I:138-139; The Founders’ Constitution, “Property: William Blackstone, Commentaries” (at https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html).

John Adams: Was He Really an Enemy of Christians? Addressing Modern Academic Shallownes

At WallBuilders, we are truly blessed by God, owning tens of thousands of original documents from the American Founding – documents clearly demonstrating the Christian and Biblical foundations both of America and of so many of her Founding Fathers and early statesmen. We frequently post original documents on our website so that others may enjoy them and learn more about many important aspects of America’s rich moral, religious, and constitutional heritage that are widely unknown or misportrayed today.

Posted in the “Historical Documents” section of our website is a, letter from John Adams to Dr. Benjamin Rush (a close friend of Adams and a co-signer of the Declaration of Independence). That letter was Adams’ reply to a remarkable letter written him by Dr. Rush on October 17, 1809, describing a dream Rush believed God had given him about Adams. WallBuilders providentially obtained this original letter from an amazing presidential collection of a 100+ year old Floridian woman.

We often use quotes from that letter, including Adams’ bold declaration that:

The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this Earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost. . . . There is no authority, civil or religious – there can be no legitimate government – but that which is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words, damnation.¹

This letter certainly contains profound Christian content, but that is not particularly surprising, for Adams wrote dozens of letters with similarly powerful Christian declarations. Also not surprising is the fact that liberals and atheists have attacked this letter and its content; they dismiss it with the excuse that Adams didn’t really mean what he said in the letter, or that it was code for something different from what he actually said. But what was surprising and unexpected is that this letter and its remarkable content did not set well with some Christians, especially Chris Pinto. Pinto has produced videos claiming not only that America does not have a Biblical foundation but specifically asserting that the Founding Fathers were largely pagans who represented the spirit of the Anti-Christ. He believes that Christians should not be involved in the political arena or similar areas of culture.²

Pinto seems to have developed a fixation with WallBuilders, joining with liberals and atheists to demean it and the Founding Fathers. For example, in one video he prepared against me and the Founding Fathers, he specifically addressed the John Adams letter we posted, claiming:

Barton makes it appear as if John Adams was speaking favorably about the Holy Ghost in a letter he wrote to Benjamin Rush. In reality, Adams was mocking the idea of “Holy Ghost authority” and called Christians “dupes” for believing in it.³

Pinto concludes:

In truth, the letter Barton is presenting provides some of the most damning evidence found anywhere, and is consistent with many of the writings of the Revolutionaries, proving their contempt for Bible-based Christianity. In this letter, John Adams was not speaking in approval of the Holy Ghost, but was rather mocking the idea of it and of the faith of true Christians. . . . Adams did not believe the Holy Ghost was real, and he spoke about it in what can only be called insulting and irreverent terms.⁴

Normally, we simply ignore these types of absurd claims, for we believe that the truth speaks for itself and that it will always eventually prevail. In fact, this is why we post so many original and hand-written Founding documents and letters online – we want individuals to see and read them for themselves to be personally aware of what is and is not true. It is important to follow the model praised by the Apostle Paul in Acts 17:11: always check original sources to establish truth. This is why we heavily document quotes and facts back to original sources – such as our best-selling book Original Intent: it contains some 1,700 footnotes, the vast majority of which are dated to primary-source documents published while the Founders were still alive.

(By the way, a notable ACLU attorney decided he would disprove our thesis that the Founding Fathers were largely Christian. He therefore took Original Intent and undertook a project to expose what he considered to be its falsehoods; he went back and checked our quotes against the original sources cited in the book. At the end of his research, he concluded that we had understated the faith of the Founders – that there was actually much more evidence to support their Christian faith than even what we had cited. This ACLU attorney was completely converted and went on to become an eminent court of appeals judge – all because he followed Paul’s model of Acts 17:11 and checked the evidence for himself. We have numerous similar testimonials of the dramatic change that has occurred in individuals who investigated the original facts for themselves.)

So although we typically do not respond to critics such as Pinto, in this case, his videos have confused many Christians who have respectfully asked us to help them sort out the facts and discern the truth. Hence we have chosen to address Pinto’s patently false claims about John Adams.

Significantly, Pinto reached his conclusions that John Adams was mocking the Holy Spirit only by ignoring, omitting, or not understanding lengthy and important segments of Adams’ letter (which is why we posted the complete letter online: to make it much harder for individuals to twist and distort its true meaning). When the segments that Pinto ignored or did not understand are returned to the letter, it becomes obvious that his premises have been infected with three of the five historical malpractices that characterize the current study of history: Modernism, Minimalism, and Deconstructionism (the other two of the five are Poststructuralism and Academic Collectivism, which Pinto also uses in other areas of his videos).

Modernism is the practice of analyzing historical incidents and persons as if they lived now rather than in the past. Modernism separates history from its context and setting – a practice that regularly produces flawed conclusions.

An illustration of Modernism is the manner in which today’s textbooks uniformly portray the colonial Puritans as intolerant Christians because of the witch trials in which twenty-seven individuals died.⁵ But universally ignored is the fact that witch trials were occurring across the world at that time, not just in America; and in Europe alone, 500,000 were put to death,⁶ including 30,000 in England, 75,000 in France, and 100,000 in Germany.⁷ Additionally, the American witch trials lasted two months, but the European trials lasted for years.⁸ Furthermore, the Massachusetts witch trials were brought to a close when Christian leaders such as the Rev. John Wise, the Rev. Increase Mather, and Thomas Brattle challenged the trials because Biblical rules of evidence and Due Process were not being followed in the courts.⁹ Consequently:

The trials were stopped by Governor Phipps in October, 1692, and five years later the Massachusetts Court publicly repented and set apart a special day of fasting and prayer, that prayers might be offered, asking for forgiveness for “the late tragedy raised amongst us by Satan,” while the twelve jurors published a declaration of sorrow for accepting insufficient evidence against the accused, and Judge Sewall rose in his pew in the South Church and made public confession of his sense of guilt.¹⁰

This is no attempt to defend the inexcusable twenty-seven deaths, but it is undeniable that the so-called “intolerant” conduct of the Puritans was light-years ahead of their “enlightened” contemporaries throughout the rest of the “civilized” Old World of Europe. As early church historian Charles Galloway affirmed, when the Puritans “are compared to their brothers in England and all Europe, they stand out as reformers of the most advanced and majestic type.”¹¹ To accurately portray historic events and individuals (whether it is the Puritans or John Adams), their words and actions must be measured not by today’s thinking and customs but rather in light of what was occurring in their own times – which is what Pinto does not do.

Let’s begin by looking at the extended portion of the letter that Pinto claims contains Adams’ alleged blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:

The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this Earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, Who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the Bishop on the heads of candidates for the ministry. In the same manner, as the Holy Ghost is transmitted from monarch to monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a dove and by that other phial [vial] which I have seen in the Tower of London. There is no authority civil or religious, there can be no legitimate government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words, damnation. Although this is all artifice and cunning in the sacred original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lay down their lives under the ax or the fiery fagot [bundle of wood used for burning individuals at the stake] for it. Alas, the poor weak ignorant dupe, human nature. There is so much king craft, priest craft, gentlemens craft, peoples craft, doctors craft, lawyers craft, merchants craft, tradesmens craft, laborers craft, and Devils craft in the world that it seems a desperate [hopeless] and impractical project to undeceive it. Do you wonder that Voltaire and Paine have made proselytes [converts]? Yet there [is] near as much subtlety, craft, and hypocrisy in Voltaire and Paine, and more, too, than in Ignatius Loyola [a Spanish knight who was a founder of the Jesuits].¹²

Recall from above that in Pinto’s analysis of this section he claims that Adams . . .

was mocking the idea of “Holy Ghost authority” and called Christians “dupes” for believing in it. . . . Adams was not speaking in approval of the Holy Ghost, but was rather mocking the idea of it and of the faith of true Christians. . . . Adams did not believe the Holy Ghost was real, and he spoke about it in what can only be called insulting and irreverent terms.¹³

Is Pinto correct? Was Adams mocking Christians and the Holy Ghost? Absolutely not – which will be irrefutably proved below. But the fact that Pinto believes that Adams is insulting Christians and the Holy Spirit demonstrates not only that he employed Modernism but also the second device of historical malpractice: Minimalism.

Minimalism is an unreasonable insistence on over-simplicity – on using simplistic platitudes to reduce everything to monolithic causes and linear effects. As an example, citizens today are regularly taught that America separated from Great Britain because of “taxation without representation,” yet that issue was only one of twenty-seven grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence – and it was actually one of the lesser complaints. While only one grievance in the Declaration addressed taxation without representation, eleven addressed the abuse of representative powers; seven the abuse of military powers; four the abuse of judicial powers; and two the stirring up of domestic insurrection. Taxation without representation was only grievance number seventeen out of the twenty-seven, listed alongside Great Britain’s suppression of immigration and her interference with our foreign trade. While the taxation issue was given little emphasis in the Declaration, Minimalism causes it to virtually be the only issue covered today, thus giving citizens a skewed view of the American Revolution and what caused it.

Minimalism is what Pinto practices in his analysis of Adams’ letter. Rather than delving into the complex areas of church history that Adams directly references several times in the letter, Pinto just dismisses them out of hand, rashly claiming that Adams was being irreverent.

Six key phrases Adams used in the letter unequivocally prove that he was not mocking the Holy Spirit or Christianity:

“monarch to monarch”
“the holy oil in the vial at Rheims”
“brought down from Heaven by a dove”
“that other phial which I have seen in the Tower of London”
“king craft”
“priest craft”

Each of these phrases is a direct reference to a particular period and a definite incident in church history – a history early set forth and ably expounded by the Rev. John Wise (1652-1725) of Massachusetts, considered by prominent historians as one of the six greatest intellectual leaders responsible for shaping American thinking.¹⁴ Wise’s works and sermons were read and widely studied across early America, including by the leading patriots and Founding Fathers. Wise divided the general history of Christianity into three epochs, and all six of Adams’ phrases refer to specific occurrences in one of those periods.

Period I includes the three centuries of Christianity immediately following the life of Christ. According to Wise, this was “the most refined and purest time, both as to faith and manners, that the Christian church has been honored with.”¹⁵ Period I is the “Period of Purity,” and Jesus’ followers throughout that time largely did just what He had taught them to do.

Period II spans the next twelve centuries, and according to Wise, it was a period that “openly proclaimed itself to the scandal of the Christian religion.”¹⁶ The State took control of the Church, with the State decreeing Christianity to be the official religion of the State and all other religions illegal.¹⁷ This was a time of “the secularization of the Church and the depravation of Christianity”¹⁸– a time when the State seized and corrupted the Church and its doctrines, wrongly asserting “that one of the chief duties of an imperial ruler was to place his sword at the service of the Church and orthodoxy.”¹⁹ Christianity became coercive through brutal civil laws attempting to enforce theological orthodoxy.

This age was characterized by autocratic leaders in both State and Church, with monarchies and theocracies (usually oppressive ones) as the primary forms of governance. The Founders frequently described Period II as a time of “kingcraft” and “priestcraft” – a time when kings and priests joined together against the people, using selfish ambition to gain personal wealth and power.²⁰

Period II is called the “Period of Apostasy” or “Period of Corruption,” and during this time, the Church was no longer a collection of individuals joined together in a voluntary association; instead it became a civil hierarchy overseeing a massive organization and numerous facilities. The individual follower of Christ was no longer of consequence; the common man was forbidden access to the Scriptures and education; tyrannical leaders became the pinnacle of consideration. The emphasis shifted from the personal to the structural, from the individual to the institutional – an anti-Biblical paradigm that prevailed for the next twelve centuries. Nearly all the negative incidents in world history associated with Christianity (e.g., the Inquisition, wholesale murder of Jews, tortures, etc.) are almost exclusively from this period of Christian corruption.

Period III, according to Wise, is that which “began a glorious reformation.” Wise explains: “Many famous persons, memorable in ecclesiastical history, being moved by the Spirit of God and according to Holy Writ, led the way in the face of all danger . . . for the good of Christendom.”²¹ Early seeds of this change began with the efforts of numerous Christian leaders, including John Wycliffe (1320-1384), called the “Morning Star of the Reformation.” Nearly two dozen other Christian leaders also worked to spread Bible teachings across their respective countries, including Englishmen such as Thomas Cranmer, William Tyndale, John Rogers, and Miles Coverdale; Czechs such as John Huss and Jerome of Prague; Germans Martin Luther, Thomas Münzer, Andreas Carlstadt, and Kaspar von Schwenkfeld; Swiss Ulrich Zwingli; Frenchmen William Farel and John Calvin; Scotsmen John Knox and George Wishart; Dutchmen Jacobus Arminius, Desiderius Erasmus, and Menno Simons; and others.

This third era, called the “Period of Reformation,” emphasized a return to the Bible as the guidebook for all aspects of life and living. It therefore rekindled many of Christianity’s original teachings, including the Priesthood of the Believer (emphasizing that the individual had direct access to God without need of assistance from any official in Church or State) and Justification by Faith (emphasizing the importance of personal faith and an individual’s personal relationship with the Savior). The renewed Period III Biblical emphasis on the individual altered the way that both Church and State were viewed, thus resulting in new demands and expectations being placed upon each. Self-government and freedom of conscience were advocated for both institutions.

But such Bible teachings were not embraced by all, for they threatened the previously uncontested power of tyrants. Consequently, ruthless leaders in both State and Church initiated bloody purges, utilizing the most cruel tortures and barbaric persecutions to suppress the followers of the renewed Biblical teachings. For example, French leaders conducted the famous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of September 17, 1585, eventually killing 110,000 French Reformation followers (i.e., Huguenots). Some 400,000 others fled France to avoid death and persecution, with many coming to America, especially South Carolina and New York.

Similarly, English leaders such as King Henry VIII attempted to suppress the Reformation’s individualistic teachings by public executions and burnings at the stake; and Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth I, and subsequent monarchs continued those efforts. In fact, King James I even concocted two revolutionary new government-church “doctrines” to help him suppress the growing influence of Reformation teachings in England: the Divine Right of Kings, and Complete Submission and Non-Resistance to Authority.

Not surprisingly, Reformation followers (often known as “Dissenters” for opposing, or dissenting against, the autocratic and tyrannical practices of both State and Church) openly opposed James’ “irrational and unscriptural doctrines,”²² thus prompting him to level additional brutal persecutions against them, including mutilation, hanging, and disemboweling. The Pilgrims came to Massachusetts in 1620 to escape the hounding persecution of King James, and a decade later, 20,000 Puritans also fled England after many received life sentences (or had their noses slit, ears cut off, or a brand placed on their foreheads) for adhering to Reformation teachings.

Despite the brutal worldwide persecution, the Reformation eventually prevailed, resulting in massive changes in both State and Church, finally bringing to an end the corrupt practices of Period II Christianity. The impact of Reformation Christianity upon nations during this period was almost exclusively positive, especially in America, where Reformation teachings took root and grew more quickly than in the rest of the world, having been planted in virgin soil completely uncontaminated by the apostasy of the previous twelve centuries.

American Founding Fathers and leaders (including John Adams) made a clear distinction between America’s Period III Christianity and Europe’s Period II Christianity. For example, Noah Webster emphatically declared:

The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion, but abuses and corruptions of it.²³

Daniel Webster agreed, rejoicing that American Christianity was . . .

Christianity to which the sword and the fagot [bundles of wood for burning individuals at the stake] are unknown – general tolerant Christianity is the law of the land!²⁴

Other Founding Fathers made similar distinctions, including John Jay (the original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court and a co-author of the Federalist Papers), who declared that the Period III Christianity practiced in America was “wise and virtuous,”²⁵ and John Quincy Adams described it as “civilized”²⁶– terms certainly not associated with Period II Christianity.

Significantly, the six phrases identified above from Adams’ letter all refer to specific Period II perversions of orthodox Biblical teachings regarding the Holy Spirit; but Pinto, in his practice of Modernism and Minimalism, ignored all of Adams’ references to this. Consider what Pinto missed by disregarding Adams’ first three aforementioned phrases: “monarch to monarch,” “the holy oil in the vial at Rheims,” and “brought down from Heaven by a dove.”

In 496 AD in the city of Reims, Clovis was converted to Christianity and anointed King of France. Four centuries later, the Archbishop of Reims, attempting to convince the people that kings were the sovereign choice of God to rule the nation, claimed that when Clovis was about to be made king, the anointing oil could not be found. Perplexed as to what to do, the Archbishop claimed that God Himself miraculously sent from Heaven a dove (which church leaders believed to be the Holy Spirit) that carried down to earth a vial of special anointing oil.

This oil was kept in the Cathedral of Reims, and over the next millennia was used to anoint every French king (except one). Whenever the oil was moved or utilized in a coronation, it was accompanied by fifty guards, led by a high priest adorned in golden garb and jewels – reminiscent of the high priest in the Bible moving the Ark of the Covenant.

French tyrants in Church and State used this so-called “doctrine” that holy oil was carried from Heaven by the Holy Spirit to keep the people subjugated to the deplorable heresy of the Divine Right of Kings – a doctrine hated by every Reformation follower and student of the Bible. Thus Adams’ statement that “the Holy Ghost is transmitted from monarch to monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a dove” is a direct reference to very specific and corrupt church doctrines of Period II.

Given the power that the oil of Reims exercised over the minds of the people, it is not surprising that monarchs in other nations, including England, wanted something similar for their own use. English king Edward II (1284-1327 AD) therefore claimed that the anointing oil he used for his coronation was given by the Virgin Mary directly to St. Thomas of Canterbury, who performed the ceremony. This vial of oil was kept safely sequestered under lock and key, to be used only for anointing new kings. This is what Adams described as “that other phial [vial] which I have seen in the Tower of London.” Adams had been America’s diplomat to France and to England, and he had first-hand knowledge of how their “holy” oil and its accompanying doctrine was used in both countries to subjugate the people under the influence of “kingcraft” and “priestcraft” – two more key phrases that Pinto also disregarded.

Adams despised the claim that either the French and British vials of oil had been brought from Heaven by the Holy Spirit. He believed that this false doctrine had caused incomparable suffering in the world. The French people finally came to the same conclusion, for following the French Revolution, they entered the Cathedral at Reims and broke the vial of oil so that it could never again be used to anoint another French tyrant to rule their nation.

Now having a general grasp of this period of both church and world history to which Adams specifically refers in his letter, reexamine his words with this background in mind.

Adams begins by first establishing the accepted doctrine of the Holy Spirit according to Period III Reformation Christianity, telling Rush:

But my friend there is something very serious in this business. The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this Earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, Who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the bishop on the heads of candidates for the ministry.²⁷

This statement is sound, solid, orthodox Christian doctrine. But Adams then contrasts that positive statement about the Holy Spirit with the perverted doctrine from Period II:

In the same manner, as the Holy Ghost is transmitted from monarch to monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a dove and by that other phial [vial] which I have seen in the Tower of London.²⁸

Notice his use of the very important phrase: “In the same manner, as . . .” That is, having stated the right doctrine of the Holy Ghost, he now looks at the distortion of it – at how it was presented falsely “in the same manner,” but this time not in regards to “candidates for the ministry” (i.e., the Church, which is the proper use), but rather by wrongly teaching that the Holy Ghost is transferred from king to king (i.e., the State, which is not the proper use) by way of the oil brought from Heaven. Concerning this perverted view of the Holy Spirit from Period II, Adams laments:

Although this is all artifice and cunning in the sacred original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lay down their lives under the ax or the fiery fagot [bundle of wood used for burning individuals at the stake] for it. Alas, the poor weak ignorant dupe, human nature. There is so much king craft, priest craft, gentlemens craft, peoples craft, doctors craft, lawyers craft, merchants craft, tradesmens craft, laborers craft, and Devils craft in the world that it seems a desperate [hopeless] and impractical project to undeceive it.²⁹

Adams clearly is not condemning Christianity or Biblical doctrine regarding the Holy Ghost, but is rather reproaching its twisting during Period II, noting that those who follow the Divine Right of Kings maldoctrine are willing to die for their belief “under the ax or the fiery fagots,” and thus suffer from that “poor weak ignorant dupe, human nature” – that is, human depravity is on full display, and so thoroughly convinced of the truth of this maldoctrine were its followers that it even seemed a waste of time to Adams to try to convince them otherwise.

By the way, many today do not understand the historical use of the term “priestcraft”; it is not a derogatory term used against ministers of the Gospel. As explained by one of the most famous evangelical Christian preachers of the Founding Era, Baptist minister John Leland:

By Priest-Craft, no contempt is designed to be cast upon any of the Lord’s priest’s, from Melchizedeck to Zecharias, nor upon any of the ministers of Christ, either those who have been remarkably endowed with power from on high to work miracles, &c. or those of ordinary endowments, who have been governed by supreme love to the Savior and benevolence to mankind. These, to the world, have been like the stars of night. But by priest-craft is intended the rushing into the sacred work for the sake of ease, wealth, honor, and ecclesiastical dignity. Whether they plead lineal succession or Divine impulse, their course is directed for self-advantage. By good words and fair speeches, they deceive the simple; and [use] solemn threatening of fines, gibbets [the gallows], or the flames of hell to those who do not adhere to their institutes.³⁰

But to Americans such as John Leland and John Adams, the possibility of government officials placing church officials over America (i.e., “kingcraft” and “priestcraft”) was not something of the ancient past – it was still a potential imminent danger to be feared and fiercely repelled. In fact, John Adams repeatedly avowed that one of the principal causes behind the American Revolution had been the possibility of having the king appoint a bishop over America.³¹

Adams letter to Rush merely reinforces the contempt that he and most Americans had for the autocratic Divine Right of Kings doctrine – a doctrine still believed by many at that time to have been delivered directly from Heaven by the Holy Spirit Himself. Adams saw this as a complete perversion of true Bible teachings regarding the role of the Holy Spirit. He therefore queried of Rush:

Do you wonder that Voltaire and Paine have made proselytes [converts]? Yet there [is] near as much subtlety, craft, and hypocrisy in Voltaire and Paine, and more, too, than in Ignatious Loyola [a Spanish knight who was a founder of the Jesuits].³²

That is, given the bad “Christian” teachings that caused so much misery and suffering across Europe, it was not surprising that atheists and anti-religionists such as Voltaire and Paine had such a strong following. It remains an unfortunate fact to this day that non-Biblical Christianity and non-Biblical Christians still drive people away from the Christian faith rather than to it. As affirmed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 2:24, “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” – that is, it is God’s people who often give God a bad name among non-believers. (The prophet Nathan stated the same message in 2 Samuel 12:24 when he said to David, “By this deed, you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.”)

The final evidence that Adams was not being disrespectful to the Holy Ghost or Christians in his letter is seen in his closing statement to Rush that:
Your prophecy, my dear friend, has not become history as yet.³³

This is a very respectful reference to the dream Rush believed that God had given him. There is nothing derogatory or scornful in Adams’ reference to “prophecy” – a direct and positive product of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

Chris Pinto, in his analysis of Adams letter, has managed to ignore more than a millennia of church and world history in his unreasonable attempt to brand John Adams a heretic and blasphemer of the Holy Spirit. And adding insult to his malpractice injury, he also ignored more than thirty volumes of Adams’ published writings, containing hundreds of positive letters and repeated favorable references to religion and Christianity. Thus, Pinto’s claim about Adams’ irreligion is directly refuted not only by the context of the letter itself but also by the powerful evidence of the lifelong proven faith and character of John Adams.

In fact, in the very next letter Adams wrote Rush following letter that Pinto attacks, Adams vigorously defended Christianity against the attack made upon it by Thomas Paine, telling Rush:

He [Thomas Paine] understood neither government nor religion. . . . His billingsgate [vile and vulgar attack] . . . will never discredit Christianity, which will hold its ground in some degree as long as human nature shall have anything moral or intellectual left in it. The Christian religion. . . . will last as long as the world. Neither savage nor civilized man without a revelation could ever have discovered or invented it. Ask me not, then, whether I am a Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian. As far as they are Christians, I wish to be a fellow-disciple with them all.³⁴

This letter certainly does not reflect either the tone or the attitude of an heretic who would attack and blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Consider some of the scores of other quotes by John Adams, and contrast them with the anti-religious image that Pinto wrongly attempts to draw of Adams:

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!³⁵ 1756
I sat next to John Adams in Congress, and upon my whispering to him and asking him if he thought we should succeed in our struggle with Great Britain, he answered me, “Yes – if we fear God and repent of our sins.” This anecdote will, I hope, teach my boys that it is not necessary to disbelieve Christianity or to renounce morality in order to arrive at the highest political usefulness or fame.³⁶ 1777, Benjamin Rush, Reporting His Conversation with Adams
The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the Divine origin of Christianity³⁷] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.³⁸ 1778
[All persons elected must] make and subscribe the following declaration, viz. “I do declare that I believe the Christian religion and have firm persuasion of its truth.”³⁹ 1780, Constitution of Massachusetts (Adams wan an Author of this Clause)
On motion of the Hon. Mr. [John] Adams, Voted, That the Convention will attend morning prayers daily, and that the gentlemen of the clergy of every denomination be requested to officiate in turn.⁴⁰ 1788, Massachusetts Convention to Ratify the U. S. Constitution
The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity, let the blackguard [scoundrel, rogue] Paine say what he will.⁴¹ 1796
As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him. . . . I have therefore thought fit to recommend . . . a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer that the citizens of these States . . . offer their devout addresses to the Father of Mercies.⁴² 1798
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.⁴³ 1798
The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality, and the most refined policy that ever was conceived upon earth. . . .The curses against fornication and adultery, and the prohibition of every wanton glance or libidinous ogle at a woman, I believe to be the only system that ever did or ever will preserve a republic in the world. . . . I say then that national morality never was and never can be preserved without the utmost purity and chastity in women; and without national morality a republican government cannot be maintained.⁴⁴ 1807
I think there is nothing upon this earth more sublime and affecting than the idea of a great nation all on their knees at once before their God, acknowledging their faults and imploring His blessing and protection.⁴⁵ 1809
[I]t is notorious enough that I have been a church-going animal for seventy-six years from the cradle.⁴⁶ 1811
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were . . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed (and now believe) that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.⁴⁷ 1813
I have examined all [religions], . . . and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.⁴⁸ 1813
Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company: I mean hell.⁴⁹ 1817

There are numerous similar quotes by Adams. This certainly is not the profile of an individual who would blaspheme the Holy Spirit, Christianity, or religion.

One other point that illustrates the absurd results which occur under Modernism is John Adams’ request that Rush burn the letter after he reads it:

This letter is so much in the tone of my friend the Abbe Raynal [a French writer] and the grumblers of the last age, that I pray you to burn it.⁵⁰

Critics also point to this phrase as yet another proof that Adams was blaspheming Christians – that he did not want his true sacrilegious opinions to be known, so he asked Rush to burn the letter. But just as Pinto apparently had no idea what Adams meant when he referenced the oil at Reims or in the Tower of London, apparently critics did not know that a request to burn letters was a common practice in that era (especially for former presidents), regardless of the topic covered in the letter.

For example, after the death of George Washington in 1799, Martha burned all of the letters that had passed between them (only three remain today).⁵¹ George also asked friends to burn letters he sent them.⁵²

It was the same with Thomas Jefferson. Even with individuals whom he completely trusted, he would often ask his friends to return the letter after they read it,⁵³ or else burn, destroy, or keep its contents private.⁵⁴

James Madison also destroyed much of his correspondence, and Dolly Madison did the same with hers. In fact, in much of her correspondence that did survive, she often asked her recipients to burn her letter after reading it.⁵⁵ Even individuals who wrote to Madison asked that he burn their letter.⁵⁶

John Adams had the same practice.⁵⁷

Pinto’s preposterous analysis of Adams’ letter is based on the flawed practices of Modernism and Minimalism. Unfortunately, he repeats these same practices throughout his other videos, frequently taking deep multi-faceted issues, failing to recognize or acknowledge crucial references to historical events or practices, and presenting an especially negative view of history. It is for this reason that Pinto is also a Deconstructionist.

Deconstructionism (another of the five malpractices in the modern study of history) is an approach that “tends to deemphasize or even efface the subject” – that is, to malign or smear the subject by posing “a continuous critique” to “lay low what was once high.”⁵⁸ It is a steady flow of belittling and malicious portrayals of traditional heroes, beliefs, values, and institutions. Deconstructionists happily point out everything that can possibly be portrayed as a flaw, even if they have to distort information to do it; yet they remain ominously silent about the multitude of reasons to be proud of America, her many heroes, and her many successes. As a result of the work of Deconstructionists, most Americans today can recite more of what’s wrong with America and the Founding Fathers than what’s right.

It is time for Americans, and especially Christians, to become better informed about America’s remarkable moral, religious, and constitutional foundations and to reject the efforts of Deconstructionists who attempt to undermine so many positive aspects of America’s extraordinary heritage – a heritage that has provided unprecedented blessings, and a heritage for which we should be humbly grateful to Almighty God.

Endnotes

¹ John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

² See, for example, a series of podcasts “The Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers,” Waking Jonah, accessed June 13, 2011.

³ Chris Pinto, “David Barton Approves of Sharia Law in America and Misleads Jon Stewart?,” Worldview Times, April 10, 2011.

⁴ Chris Pinto, “David Barton Approves of Sharia Law in America and Misleads Jon Stewart?,” Worldview Times, April 10, 2011.

⁵ Of the 27, 14 women and 5 men were tried, found guilty and hung; 1 man was tortured to death by crushing because he refused to cooperate with the court and answer their questions. To persuade him to talk they took him to a field and put a board on him with rocks, they increased the number of rocks until he would cooperate but he continued to refuse and was crushed to death. He was therefore never convicted but he is considered the 20th victim as he was on trial for being a wizard. And 7 individuals died in prison awaiting trial; one was a baby in prison with her mother, who was awaiting trial as a witch. Salem Witch Museum, January 13, 2011, per the museum’s Department of Education.

⁶ William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 61.

⁷ Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (Nashville: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, 1898), 110.

⁸ Galloway, Christianity and American (1898), 110.

⁹ Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Mather, Increase” and “Brattle, Thomas.” See also “The Salem Witch Trials: Reason Returns,” Court TV: Crime Library, accessed February 3, 2011.

¹⁰ Sweet, Story of Religion (1950), 62.

¹¹ Galloway, Christianity and American (1898), 90.

¹² John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

¹³ Chris Pinto, “David Barton Approves of Sharia Law in America and Misleads Jon Stewart?,” Worldview Times, April 10, 2011.

¹⁴ Clinton Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic: Origin of the American Tradition of Political Liberty (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1953), 2.

¹⁵ John Wise, A Vindication of the Government of New-England Churches (Boston: John Boyles, 1772), 3.

¹⁶ Wise, Vindication of the Government (1772), 5.

¹⁷ “Medieval Sourcebook: Banning of Other Religions, Theodosian Code XVI.1.2,” Fordham University.

¹⁸ Samuel Smith Harris, The Relation of Christianity to Civil Society (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1883), 62.

¹⁹ Joseph Blötzer, transcribed by Matt Dean, “Inquisition,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910), VIII, Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

²⁰ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New Haven, 1828), s.v., “kingcraft” and “priestcraft.”

²¹ Wise, Vindication of the Government (1772), 6.

²² J. M. Mathews, The Bible and Civil Government, in a Course of Lectures (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1851), 231.

²³ Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), 339.

²⁴ Daniel Webster, Mr. Webster’s Speech in Defense of the Christian Ministry and In favor of the Religious Instruction of the Young. Delivered in the Supreme Court of the United States, February 10, 1844, in the Case of Stephen Girard’s Will (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1844), 52.

²⁵ John Jay, “Charge to the Grand Jury of Ulster County,” September 9,1777, William Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York:J. &J. Harper, 1833), 80.

²⁶ John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), 17.

²⁷ John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

²⁸ John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

²⁹ John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

³⁰ John Leland, The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, Including Some Events in His Life (New York: G. W. Wood, 1845), 484.

³¹ John Adams to Dr. Jedediah Morse, December 2, 1815, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), X:185. See also letter from John Adams to Jonathan Mason, August 31, 1820, National Archives.

³² John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

³³ John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

³⁴ Adams to Benjamin Rush, January 21,1810, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1854), IX:626- 267.

³⁵ Adams, diary entry for February 22, 1756, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1850), II:6-7.

³⁶ Benjamin Rush to John Adams on February 24, 1790, Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. L. H. Butterfield (NJ: American Philosophical Society, 1951), I:534.

³⁷ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), s.v. “infidelity.”

³⁸ John Adams to James Warren, August 4, 1778, Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert J. Taylor (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 1983), 6:348.

³⁹ A Constitution or Frame of Government Agreed Upon by the Delegates of the People of the State of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston: Benjamin Edes & Sons, 1780), 44, Chapter VI, Article I.

⁴⁰ The Debates in the Several Conventions, on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, ed. Jonathan Elliot (Washington: Printed for the Editor, 1836), II:2, Massachusetts Convention, January 9, 1788.

⁴¹ John Adams diary entry for July 26, 1796, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1856), III:421.

⁴² Adams, “Proclamation for a National Fast on March 23, 1798,” Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1854), IX:169.

⁴³ Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1854), IX:229.

⁴⁴ John Adams to Benjamin Rush, February 2, 1807, Old Family Letters, ed. Alexander Biddle (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1892), 127-128.

⁴⁵ John Adams, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1854), IX:291, originally published in the Boston Patriot, 1809, Letter XIII.

⁴⁶ Adams to Benjamin Rush, August 28, 1811, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams, editor (1854), IX:637.

⁴⁷ John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XIII:293.

⁴⁸ John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 25, 1813, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1856), X:85.

⁴⁹ Adams to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1817, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (1856), X:254.

⁵⁰ John Adams letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush on December 21, 1809, from an original in WallBuilders’ Collection.

⁵¹ “Slide Four—A Family Man: A Letter to Martha,” The University of Virginia, accessed June 6, 2011.

⁵² See, for example, George Washington to Arthur Young, December 12, 1793, Letters from His Excellency General Washington to Arthur Young (London: B. McMillan, 1801), 159; George Washington to Clement Biddle, July 20, 1790, The Writings of George Washington, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891), XI:490; George Washington to George William Fairfax, June 25, 1786, The Writings of George Washington, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Metcalf, and Hilliard, Gray, and Co., 1835), IX:175.

⁵³ Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, August 22, 1813, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Charlottesville: F. Carr, and Co., 1829), IV:206; Jefferson to F. A. Van Der Kemp, April 25, 1816, Writings of Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1903), XV:1.

⁵⁴ See, for example, Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), IX:459, note. See also Jefferson to William Short, April 13, 1820, Memoir, ed. Randolph (1830), IV:320; Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson, May 5, 1803, Letters, ed. Butterfield (1951), II:863-864; Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May 11, 1785, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), IV:413; Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799, Works of Jefferson, ed. Ford (1905), IX; Jefferson to Horatio Gates Spafford, January 10, 1816, Works of Jefferson, ed. Ford (1905), Vol. XI; Jefferson to James Cheetham, January 17, 1802, Works of Jefferson, ed. Ford (1905), IX.

⁵⁵ “James Madison’s Nieces and Nephews,” University of Virginia Press, accessed June 8, 2011.

⁵⁶ See, for example, James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell, September 7, 1829, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900), IX.

⁵⁷ See, for example, John Adams to John Tudor, July 23, 1774, Works of John Adams, ed. Adams (856), IX.

⁵⁸ Jack M. Balkin, “Tradition, Betrayal, and the Politics of Deconstruction – Part II,” Yale University, 1998.

Tea Parties- Same Song, Second Verse

History of Tea Parties

America’s first Tea Party in 1773 was not an act of wanton lawlessness but rather a deliberate protest against heavy-handed government and excessive taxation.¹ Its leaders took great care to ensure that nothing but tea was thrown overboard – no other items were damaged. The “Indians” even swept the decks of the ships before they left.²

Tea Parties occurred not only in Boston but also in numerous other locales.³ And those who participated were just ordinary citizens expressing their frustration over a government that had refused to listen to them for almost a decade. Their reasonable requests had fallen on deaf ears. Of course, the out-of-touch British claimed that the Tea Parties were lawless and violent,⁴ but such was not the case.

Tea Party Today

Interestingly, in many ways, today’s Tea Parties parallel those of long ago. But rather than protesting a tax on tea, today they are protesting dozens of taxes represented by what they call the Porkulus/Generational Theft Act of 2009 (officially called the “American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act”). For Tea Party members (and for most Americans), that act and the way it was passed epitomizes a broken system whose arrogant leaders often scorn the concerns of the citizens they purport to represent.

Tea Party folks agree with the economic logic of our Founders.

“To contract new debts is not the way to pay off old ones.”⁵ “Avoid occasions of expense…and avoid likewise the accumulation of debt not only by shunning occasions of expense but by vigorous exertions…to discharge the debts.”⁶ GEORGE WASHINGTON
“Nothing can more [affect] national credit and prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to…extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possible the incurring of any new debt.”⁷ ALEXANDER HAMILTON
“The maxim of buying nothing but what we have money in our pockets to pay for lays the broadest foundation for happiness.”⁸ “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”⁹ THOMAS JEFFERSON

These are not radical positions – nor are the others set forth in the Tea Party platform – that Congress should: (1) provide the constitutional basis for the bills it passes; (2) reduce intrusive government regulations; (3) balance the budget; (4) limit the increase of government spending to the rate of population growth; (5) and eliminate earmarks unless approved by 2/3rds of Congress.¹⁰ Are these positions dangerous or extreme? Certainly not. In fact, polling shows that Americans support these Tea Party goals by a margin of two-to-one.¹¹

Citizens are angry about the current direction of government. As John Zubly, a member of the Continental Congress in 1775, reminded the British: “My Lord, the Americans are no idiots, and they appear determined not to be slaves. Oppression will make wise men mad.”¹² But does that anger automatically equate to violence? Of course not. It does equate to action, however; but instead of throwing tea overboard, modern Tea Parties are throwing out-of-touch politicians from both parties overboard.

The Tea Parties represent much of what is right in America – citizens reacquainting themselves with the Constitution and holding their elected officials accountable to its standards. Two centuries ago, Daniel Webster could have been talking to today’s Tea Party rallies when he said: “Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution!”¹³

Endnotes

¹ George Bancroft, History of the United States of America (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), III:443-447.

² Bancroft, History (1888), III:456-457; “Facts You May Not Know about the Tea Party,” Boston Tea Party Historical Society (accessed on July 21, 2010).

³ Bancroft, History (1888), III:457 (Philadelphia, NY, SC).

⁴ Bancroft, History (1888), III:460.

⁵ George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1940), 37:177, letter to James Welch, April 7, 1799.

⁶ Washington, Writings, ed. Fitzpatrick (1939), 35:230, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.

⁷ Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), XI:140-141.

⁸ Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), VI:188, letter to Mr. Skipwith, July 28, 1787.

⁹ Jefferson, Writings, ed. Lipscomb (1904), XV:23, letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816.

¹⁰ “Contract From America,” TeaParty365.com, April 10, 2010.

¹¹ See, for example, “Tea Party 48%, Obama 44%,” Rasmussen Reports, April 5, 2010 (at: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/april_2010/tea_party_48_obama_44); “Most Say Tea Party Has Better Understanding of Issues than Congress,” Rasmussen Reports, March 28, 2010 (at: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2010/most_say_tea_party_has_better_understanding_of_issues_than_congress).

¹² William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit; or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished American Clergymen or Various Denominations (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1858), 3:221.

¹³ Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 108th Congress, Second Session (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 2004), 150:17247, Representative Franks quoting Daniel Webster, July 22, 2004.

Thomas Jefferson and Religion at the University of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson and Religion at the University of Virginia
by Dr. Mark Beliles ¹ and Dr. David Barton ²It is a common assertion among many academic writers today that Thomas Jefferson, in what those writers wrongly allege to be Jefferson’s disdain for religion in general and Christianity in particular, founded the University of Virginia as America’s first explicitly secular school. For example, according to Dr. Daryl Cornett of Mid-America Theological Seminary:

Jefferson also founded the first intentionally secularized university in America. His vision for the University of Virginia was for education finally free from traditional Christian dogma. He had a disdain for the influence that institutional Christianity had on education. At the University of Virginia there was no Christian curriculum and the school had no chaplain. Its faculty were religiously Deists and Unitarians.

Many other professors make similar claims:

After Jefferson left the presidency in 1809, he embarked on what has unequivocally been determined as his finest architectural design achievement: the University of Virginia….A Deist and a Secular Humanist, Jefferson rejected the religious tradition that had provided the foundation for the colonial universities. ³ PROFESSOR ANITA VICKERS, PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
The university which Thomas Jefferson established at Charlottesville in Virginia was America’s first real state university….[I]ts early orientation was distinctly and purposely secular. ⁴ PROFESSOR JOHN BRUBACHER, YALE UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; PROFESSOR WILLIS RUDDY, FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY
The University of Virginia affords the first historical instance in any country in which the university was deliberately and purposefully conceived as an agency of the realm of the secular state. ⁵ PROFESSOR LEWIS P. SIMPSON, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia, founded in 1819…became the first purely secular institution. ⁶ PROFESSOR CATHERINE COOKSON, VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE
No part of the regular school day was set aside for religious worship….Jefferson did not permit the room belonging to the university to be used for religious purposes. ⁷ PROFESSOR LEONARD LEVY, SOUTHERN OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY, CLAREMONT GRADUATE SCHOOL

Sadly, the current academic over-emphasis on peer-review among professors has caused many to develop the regrettable tendency of heavily reading, quoting, and citing each other rather than actual historical documents related to the object of their inquiry. That is, rather than saying “Thomas Jefferson says that the University of Virginia was founded in order to . . .”, they instead say, “Professor _____ says that Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in order to . . .” Consequently, when one academic writer makes a particular claim, many others repeat that claim as though it were indisputable fact – even if that claim can be factually disproved. As a result of this modern academic malpractice, four oft-repeated claims have emerged about Jefferson’s founding of the University of Virginia:

1. Jefferson founded a deliberately secular university
2. Jefferson sought out Unitarians to be its faculty
3. Jefferson barred religious activities and instruction from the program of the school
4. Affirming its commitment to secularism, the University of Virginia had no chaplain

It will be seen below that numerous original documents incontestably disprove these four assertions, including Jefferson’s own writings, the records of the University of Virginia, the writings of those involved in the formation of the University, and other public records of that day.

Was the University of Virginia Founded as a Secular University?Three distinctive features characterized most universities founded in America prior to the University of Virginia. Those universities commonly: (1) were founded and controlled by one particular denomination, (2) housed a theological seminary for that denomination, and (3) had a minister from that denomination serving as president of the university.

Illustrative of this pattern, in 1636, Harvard was founded by and for CONGREGATIONALISTS to train Congregationalist ministers (as was Yale in 1701 and Dartmouth in 1769); in 1692, the College of William and Mary was founded by and for the ANGLICANS to train Anglican ministers (as was the University of Pennsylvania in 1740, Kings College in 1754, and the College of Charleston in 1770); in 1746, Princeton was founded by and for PRESBYTERIANS (as was Dickinson in 1773 and Hampden-Sydney in 1775); in 1764, the College of Rhode Island (now Brown University) was founded by the BAPTISTS; in 1766, Queens College (now Rutgers) was founded by and for the DUTCH REFORMED; in 1780, Transylvania University was founded by and for the DISCIPLES OF CHRIST; etc.

Jefferson and his Board of Visitors (i.e., Regents) founded the University of Virginia as a school not affiliated with only one denomination; it was specifically founded as a trans-denominational school. Consequently, it did not incorporate the three features so commonly associated with other universities at that time, thus causing modern critics wrongly to claim that it was founded as a secular university.

In implementing a trans-denominational approach, Jefferson was embracing the position that had been nationally set forth by an evangelical Presbyterian clergyman, Samuel Knox of Baltimore, whom Jefferson later asked to be his first faculty member at the University of Virginia. ⁸ In 1799, Knox penned an educational policy piece proposing the formation of a state university that would not have just one specific theological school but rather would invite many denominations to establish schools at the university; the various denominations would therefore all work together in mutual cooperation rather than in competition. ⁹ Jefferson agreed with this philosophy, and it was this model that he employed at the University of Virginia.

Significantly, thirty years earlier, Jefferson had begun actively promoting Christian non-preferentialism in his famous 1786 Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which disestablished the Anglican Church as the only legally recognized and established denomination in Virginia and instead placed all Christian denominations on an even footing. Because the charter for the new University had been issued by the state legislature, the school was required to conform to the denominational non-preferentialism set forth in the Virginia Statute and the Virginia Constitution.

Since the University would have no single denominational seminary but rather the seminaries of many denominations, Jefferson and the Visitors (i.e., Regents) decided that there should be no clergyman as university president and no specified Professor of Divinity, either of which might wrongly cause the public to think that the University favored the particular denomination with which the university president or Professor of Divinity was affiliated. ¹⁰ As Jefferson explained:

In conformity with the principles of our constitution which places all sects [denominations] of religion on an equal footing – with the jealousies of the different sects in guarding that equality from encroachment and surprise, and with the sentiments of the legislature in favor of freedom of religion manifested on former occasions [as in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom] – we have proposed no Professor of Divinity. ¹¹

But the fact that the school would have no Professor of Divinity did not mean that religious instruction would not take place. To the contrary, Jefferson personally ensured that religious instruction would occur, directing that the teaching of . . .

the proofs of the being of a God – the Creator, Preserver, and Supreme Ruler of the Universe – the Author of all the relations of morality and of the laws and obligations these infer – will be within the province of the Professor of Ethics. ¹²

Jefferson made sure that the teaching of religion to students definitely would occur, but he merely placed it under a professor different than was traditionally used; Jefferson absolutely did not eliminate religious instruction. In fact, he wanted it clearly understood that not having a Professor of Divinity definitely did not mean that the University would be secular:

It was not, however, to be understood that instruction in religious opinions and duties was meant to be precluded by the public authorities as indifferent to the interests of society. On the contrary, the relations which exist between man and his Maker – and the duties resulting from those relations – are the most interesting and important to every human being and the most incumbent on his study and investigation. ¹³

(Incidentally, in 1896 after the trans-denominational reputation of the school was fully established, a Bible lectureship was established by the University; by 1909, it had become a full Professorship of Divinity.)

Jefferson also made clear that the religious instruction which would occur at the University would incorporate the numerous religious beliefs on which Christian denominations agreed rather than just the specific theological doctrines of any one particular denomination. As he explained, “provision…was made for giving instruction in…the earliest and most respected authorities of the faith of every sect [denomination] and for courses of ethical lectures developing those moral obligations in which all sects agree.” ¹⁴

(This trans-denominational approach to teaching Christian beliefs and morals was so common in America that famous writer Alexis de Tocqueville reported:

The sects [denominations] which exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due from man to his Creator, but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all the sects preach the same moral law in the name of God….[A]lmost all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same. ¹⁵

Jefferson made clear to the public on multiple occasions and in several different writings that religious and moral instruction definitely would be part of regular academic instruction at the University of Virginia. He also expounded on his design to invite many denominations to participate in student instruction:

We suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets on the confines of the university so near as that their students may attend the lectures there and have the free use of our library and every other accommodation we can give them….[B]y bringing the sects [denominations] together and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities [harshness], liberalize and neutralize their prejudices [prejudgment without an examination of the facts], and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality. ¹⁶

Jefferson observed that a positive benefit of this approach was that it “would give to the sectarian Schools of Divinity the full benefit of the public [university] provisions made for instruction” ¹⁷ and “leave every sect to provide as they think fittest the means of further instruction in their own peculiar tenets.” ¹⁸ Jefferson also pointed out that an additional benefit of this arrangement would be that “such establishments would offer the further and great advantage of enabling the students of the University to attend religious exercises with the Professor of their particular sect.” ¹⁹ The students would be offered many denominational choices, and Jefferson made clear that students would be expected to participate in the various denominational schools. ²⁰

Jefferson’s nondenominational approach caused Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and others to give the University the friendship and support necessary to make the new school succeed. Consider Presbyterian minister John Holt Rice as an example.

Holt was a nationally-known religious leader. In 1813, he helped found the Virginia Bible Society ²¹ (of which Jefferson was a significant financial contributor ²² ); in 1818 he started the Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine to emphasize Christianizing the culture and report on various revivals across the country; in 1819, he was elected national moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church; and in 1822, he was offered the presidency of Princeton but instead accepted the Chair of Theology at Hampden-Sydney College. Rice – an evangelical Presbyterian – fully supported the University of Virginia ²³ and worked diligently “in creating a popular sentiment favorable to the passage of the University bill [in the General Assembly].” ²⁴

Rice’s support of Jefferson’s school was no small endorsement and was representative of the support that the school received from other denominations. They understood that the University of Virginia was not secular but rather trans-denominational. As the official Centennial of the University of Virginia affirmed in 1921, “Thomas Jefferson…aimed no blow at any religious influence that might be fostered by it. The blow was at sectarianism only.” ²⁵ (emphasis added)

Clearly, Jefferson’s own writings and the records of the University absolutely refute the notion that he founded a secular university; and clergyman, historian, and author Anson Phelps Stokes (second-in-command at Yale and then resident canon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D. C.) correctly concluded about Jefferson that “even in establishing a quasi-state university on broad lines, the greatest liberal who took part in founding our government felt that instruction in the fundamentals of Christian theism and Christian worship were both important and proper.” ²⁶

(Incidentally, another indicator of the non-secular nature of the University what that when construction began in 1817, a special prayer was offered at the laying of the cornerstone, in the presence of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, beseeching “Almighty God, without invocation to Whom no work of importance should be begun, bless this undertaking and enable us to carry it on with success – protect this college, the object of which institution is to instill into the minds of youth principles of sound knowledge, to inspire them with the love of religion and virtue, and prepare them for filling the various situations in society with credit to themselves and benefit to their country.” ²⁷ Significantly, it was Jefferson and his Board of Visitors who made the arrangements and approved both the prayer and the Scriptures for that ceremony.)

Was Jefferson’s Faculty Composed of Unitarians?Jefferson had agreed with the Rev. Samuel Knox’s plan of excluding a clergyman from being either the university president or the Professor of Divinity but he certainly had no such concerns about clergymen on the teaching faculty at the University. In fact, as previously noted, in 1817, Jefferson specifically made the Rev. Knox his very first faculty selection, asking him to be the Professor of Languages, Belles Lettres, Rhetoric, History and Geography. ²⁸ It is a noteworthy commentary that this Presbyterian minister – known for publishing a tract against the religious beliefs of famous Unitarian Joseph Priestley ²⁹ – was offered the very first teaching position at Jefferson’s University. (Interestingly, through a miscommunication, Knox did not respond to the offer in a timely fashion so his teaching slot was finally offered to someone else. ³⁰ )

Jefferson eventually settled on ten teaching positions at the University; ³¹ and significantly, when those positions were filled, notwithstanding the errant claims of modern critics, none of the professors was Unitarian. In fact, two of the original professors hired by Jefferson (George Tucker, Professor of Moral Philosophy, and Robley Dunglison, Professor of Anatomy and Medicine) were later asked about Jefferson’s views on the religious beliefs of the professors he had selected – specifically, had Jefferson sought to fill the faculty with Deists or Unitarians? To that question, Professor Dunglison replied:

I have not the slightest reason for believing that Mr. Jefferson was in any respect guided in his selection of professors of the University of Virginia by religious considerations…. In all my conversations with Mr. Jefferson, no reference was made to the subject. I was an Episcopalian, so was Mr. Tucker, Mr. Long, Mr. Key, Mr. Bonnycastle, and Dr. Emmet. Dr. Blaettermap, I think, was a Lutheran, but I do not know so much about his religion as I do about that of the rest. There certainly was not a Unitarian among us. ³² (emphasis added)

Professor Tucker agreed, declaring:

I believe that all the first professors belonged to the Episcopal Church, except Dr. Blaetterman, who, I believe, was a German Lutheran….I don’t remember that I ever heard the religious creeds of either professors or Visitors [Regents] discussed or inquired into by Mr. Jefferson – or anyone else. ³³

Jefferson simply did not delve into the denominational affiliations or specific religious beliefs of his faculty; what he sought was professors who had proper knowledge and deportment. As he once told his close friend and fellow-patriot and co-signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush:

For thus I estimate the qualities of the mind: 1. good humor; 2. integrity; 3. industry; 4. science. The preference of the first to the second quality may not at first be acquiesced in, but certainly we had all rather associate with a good-humored, light-principled man than with an ill-tempered rigorist in morality. ³⁴

It was by applying such standards that Jefferson once invited Thomas Cooper to be Professor of Chemistry and Law, ³⁵ but when it became known that Cooper was a Unitarian, a public outcry arose against him and Jefferson and the University withdrew its offer to him. ³⁶

Obviously, this type of original documentary evidence concerning Jefferson and the religious views of his faculty is ignored by many of today’s writers and educators. However, Professor Roy Honeywell of Eastern Michigan University did review the original historical evidence rather than just the claims of other professors, and he correctly concluded:

In general, Jefferson seems to have ignored the religious affiliations of the professors. His objection to ministers was because of their active association with sectarian groups – in his day a fruitful source of social friction. The charge that he intended the University to be a center of Unitarian influence is totally groundless. ³⁷

There simply is no historical merit to the claim that Jefferson sought out Unitarians or Deists in order to make the school a seedbed of Unitarianism.

Did Jefferson Bar Religious Instruction from the Academic Program?It was in 1818 that Jefferson and the Visitors first released to the public their plan for the new University. As already noted, Jefferson announced that the school would be trans-denominational and that religious instruction would be provided to students by the Professor of Ethics. But Jefferson also took additional steps to ensure that religious instruction would occur.

For example, he directed the Professor of Ancient Languages to teach Biblical Greek, Hebrew, and Latin to students so that they would be equipped to read and study the “earliest and most respected authorities of the Christian Faith.” ³⁸ Wanting the writings of those Christian authorities and “the writings of the most respected authorities of every sect [denomination]” ³⁹ to be placed in the university library, Jefferson asked James Madison to prepare such a list for the library. ⁴⁰

In September 1824, Madison returned his list to Jefferson in which he included the works of the Alexandrian Fathers (the early Alexandrian church fathers included Clement, Origen, Pantaenus, Cyril, Athanasius, and Didymus the Blind); Latin authors such as St. Augustine; the writings of St. Aquinas and other Christian leaders from the Middle Ages; and the works of Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Socinius, and Bellarmine from the Reformation era. Madison’s list also included more modern theologians and religious writers such as Grotius, Tillotson, Hooker, Pascal, Locke, Newton, Butler, Clarke, Wollaston, Edwards, Mather, Penn, Wesley, Priestley, Price, Leibnitz, and Paley. ⁴¹

In addition to the religious instruction by the Professor of Ancient Language, Jefferson succinctly stated that he had personally arranged the curriculum so that religious study would also be an inseparable part of the study of law and political science. ⁴² It is clear that Jefferson took numerous steps to secure religious instruction as part of academic studies.

But Jefferson not only sought to ensure that students would study about God, he also made provision for them to worship God. In the early planning stages of the University, he had stipulated “that a building…in the middle of the grounds may be called for in time in which may be rooms for religious worship”; ⁴³ later, he specifically ordered that in the University Rotunda, “one of its large elliptical rooms on its middle floor shall be used for…religious worship” and that “the students of the University will be free and expected to attend.” ⁴⁴ (emphasis added).

Clearly, the modern claim that there was no Christian curriculum at the University of Virginia is demonstrably false not only by Jefferson’s own writings but also by those of University Visitors such as James Madison.

Did the University of Virginia Have Chaplains?A fourth modern claim made about the University of Virginia is that it had no chaplains. This charge is easily disproved by numbers of original documents, including newspaper ads run by the University to recruit its students. For example, in ads run in the Washington newspaper, The Globe, the Rev. Mr. Tuston – identified in the ad as the chaplain of the University – discussed religious life at the school, noting:

[F]or several years after its operations commenced [founded in 1819, it opened to students in 1825]….It was by many supposed that infidelity was interwoven with the very elements of its existence, and consequently its early history was overhung with the clouds of discouragement. How far these prejudices were just may be ascertained from the fact (not generally known) that in the original organization of this establishment, the privilege of erecting Theological Seminaries on the territory [grounds] belonging to the university was cheerfully extended to every Christian denomination within the limits of the State.
In the present arrangement for religious services at the University, you have all the evidence that can with propriety be asked respecting the favorable estimate which is placed upon the subject of Christianity.
The chaplains, appointed annually and successively from the four prominent denominations in Virginia [Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist], are supported by the voluntary contributions of professors and students….
Beside the regular services of the Sabbath, we have….also a Sabbath School in which several of the pious students are engaged.
The monthly concert for prayer is regularly observed in the pavilion which I occupy.
In all these different services we have enjoyed the presence and the smiles of an approving Redeemer….[and i]t has been my pleasure on each returning Sabbath to hold up before my enlightened audience the cross of Jesus – all stained with the blood of Him that hung upon it – as the only hope of the perishing. ⁴⁵ (emphasis added)

Another ad run by the University similarly noted:

Religious services are regularly performed at the University by a chaplain, who is appointed in turn from the four principal denominations of the State. And by a resolution of the Faculty, ministers of the Gospel and young men preparing for the ministry may attend any of the schools without the payment of fees to the professors. ⁴⁶ (emphasis added)

It was the custom of that day that all faculty members receive their salaries from fees paid by the students directly to the professors, but the University waived those fees for students studying for the Gospel ministry. If the University of Virginia truly held the secular orientation claimed by so many of today’s writers, then why did it extend preferential treatment to students pursuing religious careers? Surely a truly secular university would give preference to secular-oriented students rather than religiously-oriented ones – something the University of Virginia did not do.

The University of Virginia did indeed have chaplains – albeit not in its first three years. At the beginning when the University was establishing its reputation as a non-denominational university, there was no appointed chaplain for the same reasons there had been no clergyman as president and no Professor of Divinity: an ordained clergyman in any of those three positions might send an incorrect signal that the University was aligned with the denomination of that specific clergyman. Furthermore, clergymen representing each seminary were on campus and available to minister to students. But by 1829, the non-denominational direction of the University had been established, so President Madison (who became Rector of the University after Jefferson’s death in 1826) announced “that [permanent] provision for religious instruction and observance among the students would be made by…services of clergymen.” ⁴⁷

The University therefore extended official recognition to one primary chaplain for the students, with the chaplain position to rotate annually among the major denominations. (According to Jefferson, “about 1/3 of our state is Baptist, 1/3 Methodist, and of the remaining 1/3, two parts may be Presbyterian and one part Anglican.” ⁴⁸ ) In 1829, Presbyterian clergyman Rev. Edward Smith became the first chaplain – an official university position, but unpaid. In 1833 after three-fourths of the students pledged their own money for the chaplain’s support, Methodist William Hammett became the first paid chaplain, leading Sunday worship and daily morning prayer meetings in the Rotunda. In 1855, the University built a parsonage to provide a residence on the grounds for the university chaplain. Significantly, many of the University of Virginia’s chaplains went on to famous religious careers, including Episcopalian Joseph Wilmer, Presbyterians William White, William H. Ruffner, and Robert Dabney, Baptists Robert Ryland and John Broaddus, and many others.

Clearly, the University of Virginia did have chaplains, and it placed a strong emphasis on the spiritual preparedness of its students through the important ministry of those chaplains.

— — — ◊ ◊ ◊ — — —

The charge that Jefferson founded the University of Virginia as a secular institution that excluded traditional religious instruction from students and instead inculcated them in the principles of Deism and Unitarianism is completely false. In fact, if anyone examines the original primary source documents and then claims otherwise, they are (to use the words of military chaplain William Biederwolf, 1867-1939) just as likely to “look all over the sky at high noon on a cloudless day and not see the sun.” ⁴⁹

Endnotes

1. Mark Beliles is founder of the Providence Foundation and vice-President of its Biblical Worldview University. Mark is chairman of the City of Charlottesville’s Historic Resources Committee and the annual “Governor Jefferson Thanksgiving Festival,” has convened a number of academic symposiums at the University of Virginia, and lectures throughout the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe. He earned his PhD from Whitefield Theological Seminary (dissertation: Churches and Politics in Jefferson’s Virginia). Beliles’ extensive primary source documentary research on Jefferson highlights Jefferson’s founding of the Calvinistical Reformed Church of Charlottesville during the Revolution and then demonstrates that Jefferson’s subsequent rejection of Trinitarian language and creeds later in life was mainly from the influence of the evangelical “primitive” and “restoration” church movement that arose in the Central Virginia Piedmont rather than being the result of secular European Enlightenment, New England Unitarianism, or Deism. For more information contact Mark Beliles at [email protected] or call 434-249-4032.

2. David Barton is the author of numerous books and the president of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization dedicated to “presenting America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage.” a consultant to state and federal legislators and has been involved in several federal court cases, including at the U.S. Supreme Court. He personally owns thousands of original documents from the Founding Era, including handwritten documents of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Barton has been appointed by State Educational Boards in California, Texas, and other states to help write the history and government standards for students in those states. He has served as an editor for national publishers of school history textbooks. Barton is the recipient of several national and international awards, including the Daughters of the American Revolution Medal of Honor (1998), the George Washington Honor Medal (2006, 1995), Who’s Who in America (2009, 2008, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997), Who’s Who in the World (2009, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996), Who’s Who in American Education (2007, 2004, 1997, 1996), International Who’s Who of Professionals (1996), Two Thousand Notable American Men Hall of Fame (1995), Who’s Who Among Outstanding Americans (1994), Who’s Who in the South and Southwest (2001, 1999, 1997, 1995), Outstanding Young Men in America (1990), and numerous other awards. He is the author of numerous books and holds a B.A. from Oral Roberts University and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Pensacola Christian College. Time Magazine has listed him as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.

3. Anita Vickers, The New Nation (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2002), p. 74.

4. John S. Brubacher & Willis Rudy, Higher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Universities (Transaction Books, 1997), pp. 147-149.

5. Lewis P. Simpson, Imagining Our Time: Recollections and Reflections on American Writing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007), p. 47. See also Lewis P. Simpson, “Jefferson and the Crisis of the American University,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, 2000, pp. 388-402 (at: https://www.vgronline.org/articles/2000/summer/simpson-jefferson ).

6. Encyclopedia of Religious Freedom, Catherine Cookson, editor (Taylor & Francis, 2003), p. 140.

7. Leonard Levy, “Jefferson, Religion and the Public Schools,” Separation of Church and State (at: https://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/jeffschl.htm ), from Levy’s book Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side (1989).

8. Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XIX, pp. 365-366, “Minutes of the Visitors of Central College,” July 28, 1817. Jefferson also wrote a letter to Knox on February 12, 1810, discussing the proper training of youth – America’s next generation of national leaders. As Jefferson correctly observed to Knox, “The boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the sole guardians of the principles we deliver over to them.” (See Jefferson, Writings, (1904), Vol. XII, pp. 359-361, letter to Rev. Samuel Knox, February 12, 1810.)

9. Samuel Knox, Essay on the Best System of Liberal Education (Baltimore: Warner and Hanna, 1799), pp. 78-79.

10. Henry Randall’s early biography of Jefferson (published in 1858) explains that, “The omission in the plan of the University to make provision for religious instruction [by establishing a specific Professor of Divinity] has been misconstrued by many candid persons because they have not understood the true nature of that institution. They look round on the American colleges and see such a provision generally made in them. But these schools have mostly been founded by particular sects… [If Virginia’s state university] was placed under the religious supervision or influence of any particular sect, the public money of all sects would be used for the benefit of one.” See Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1858), Vol. III, pp. 469-470.

11.Thomas Jefferson, “Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia,” August 4, 1818 [The Rockfish Gap Report], from The University of Virginia (at: https://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefRock.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1). See also Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, pp. 413-414, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 7, 1822.

12. Thomas Jefferson, “Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia,” August 4, 1818 [The Rockfish Gap Report], from The University of Virginia (at: https://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefRock.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1).

13. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 414, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 7, 1822.

14. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 414, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 7, 1822.

15. Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1851), Vol. I, p. 331.

16. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, pp. 405-406, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822.

17. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 415, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 7, 1822.

18. Thomas Jefferson, “Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia,” August 4, 1818 [The Rockfish Gap Report], from The University of Virginia (at: https://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefRock.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1).

19. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, pp. 415-416, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 7, 1822.

20. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, pp. 449-450, A Meeting of the Visitors of the University of Virginia on Monday the 4th of October, 1824.

21. William Henry Foote, Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1856), p. 325. See also Address of the Managers of the Bible Society of Virginia to the Public (Richmond: Samuel Pleasants, 1814), p. 8.

22. Thomas Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIV, p. 81, letter to Samuel Greenhow, January 31, 1814.

23. See, for example, his articles expressing his strong support in his Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine, such as that in Vol. I, 1818, p. 548 (printed in A.J. Morrison, The Beginnings of Public Education in Virginia, 1776-1860 (Richmond: Davis Bottom, 1917), p. 38), wherein after announcing his support, he promised to return to the subject as often as necessary, declaring: “The writer of this will return to it again and again, and however feeble his abilities, will give them, in their best exercise, to an affair so deeply involving the best interests of his country.”

24. Philip Alexander Bruce, History of the University of Virginia, 1819-1919 (New York: The MacMillian Company, 1920), Vol. I, p. 204.

25. The Centennial of the University of Virginia 1819-1921, John Calvin Metcalf, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1922), p. 6.

26. Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States (New York: Harper & Bothers Publishers, 1950), Vol. I, p. 338.

27. Alexander Garrett, “Outline of Cornerstone Ceremonies,” October 6, 1817, from The University of Virginia (at: https://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Jef1Gri.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=47&division=div1 ). See also Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1981), Vol. VI, p. 265.

28. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, pp. 365-366, “Minutes of the Visitors of Central College,” July 28, 1817. Jefferson also wrote a letter to Knox on February 12, 1810, discussing the proper training of youth – America’s next generation of national leaders. As Jefferson correctly observed to Knox, “The boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the sole guardians of the principles we deliver over to them.” (See Jefferson, Writings, (1904), Vol. XII, pp. 359-361, letter to Rev. Samuel Knox, February 12, 1810.)

29. Samuel Knox, The Scriptural doctrine of future punishment vindicated : in a discourse from these words, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.” Math. XXV, & 46th. : To which are prefixed some prefatory strictures on the lately avowed religious principles of Joseph Priestley, L.L.D. F.R.S. &c. &c. Particularly in a discourse delivered by him in the church of the Universalists, in Philadelphia, and published in1796. –Entitled: “Unitarianism explained and defended” &c (Georgetown: Green, English & Co., 1796).

30. See Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 367, Board of Visitors, Minutes, Charlottesville, October 7, 1817, and Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 390, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 2-3, 1820.

31. In the 1818 report by Jefferson and the Board of Visitors, Jefferson announced: “We are further of opinion, that after declaring by law that certain sciences shall be taught in the University, fixing the number of professors they require, which we think should, at present, be ten.” See Thomas Jefferson, “Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia,” August 4, 1818 [The Rockfish Gap Report], from The University of Virginia (athttps://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefRock.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1).

32. Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1858), Vol. III, pp. 467-468, letter from Robley Dunglison to Henry S. Randall, June 1, 1856.

33. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (1858), Vol. III, p. 467, letter from George Tucker to Henry S. Randall, May 28, 1856.

34. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XI, p. 413, letter to Benjamin Rush, January 3, 1808.

35. See Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 367, Board of Visitors, Minutes, Charlottesville, October 7, 1817.

36. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 389, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 2-3, 1820. See also “Thomas Cooper (US Politician),” Wikipedia, October 8, 2008 (at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cooper_(US_politician); “Thomas Cooper Society,” University of South Carolina, February 20, 2008 (at: https://www.sc.edu/library/develop/tcsinfo.html ).

37. Roy Honeywell, The Educational Work of Thomas Jefferson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931), p. 92.

38. Thomas Jefferson, “Report to the President and Directors of the Literary Fund,” The Avalon Project, October 7, 1822 (at: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffrep3.asp ). Thomas Jefferson, “Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia,” August 4, 1818 [The Rockfish Gap Report], from The University of Virginia (at: https://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefRock.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1).

39. Thomas Jefferson, “Report to the President and Directors of the Literary Fund,” The Avalon Project, October 7, 1822 (at: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffrep3.asp ).

40. In a letter on August 8, 1824, Jefferson said “I have undertaken to make out a catalogue of books for our library, being encouraged to it by the possession of a collection of yellowed catalogues; and, knowing no one capable to whom we could refer the task, it has been laborious far beyond my expectation, having already devoted 4 hours a day to it for upwards of two months and the whole day for some time past and not yet in sight of the end. It will enable us to judge what the object will cost. The chapter in which I am most at a loss is that of divinity, and knowing that in your early days you bestowed attention on this subject, I wish you could suggest to me any works really worthy of place in the catalogue.” Thomas Jefferson, “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson,” Library of Congress, letter to James Madison, August 8, 1824 (at: https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mtj1&fileName=mtj1page054.db&recNum=725&itemLink=/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjser1.html&linkText=7&tempFile=./temp/~ammem_kF9i&filecode=mtj&itemnum=1&ndocs=1 ).

41. James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910), Vol. IX, pp. 203- 207, letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 10, 1824.

42. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XVI, p. 19, letter to Judge Augustus B. Woodward, March 24, 1824.

43. Thomas Jefferson, “Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia,” August 4, 1818 [The Rockfish Gap Report], from The University of Virginia (at: https://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefRock.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1) called for this building and the stated purpose of religious worship in it; the subsequent reports Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, p. 394, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 2-3, 1820; Jefferson, Writings, Vol. XIX, pp. 411-412, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 7, 1822; and Jefferson, Writings, Vol. XIX, pp. 449-450, Board of Visitors, Minutes, October 4, 1824 reaffirmed that purpose.

44. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XIX, pp. 449-450, “A Meeting of the Visitors of the University of Virginia on Monday the 4th of October, 1824.”

45. The Globe (Washington, D. C.), September 8, 1837, Vol. VII, No. 75, p. 2, Advertisement for the University of Virginia, printing a copy of a letter from the Rev. Mr. Tuston, the Chaplain of the University of Virginia to Richard Duffield, Esq. (originally printed in the Charlestown Free Press).

46. The Globe (Washington, D. C.), August 2, 1843, Vol. VIII, No. 42, p. 2, University of Virginia advertisement.

47. James Madison, “The Papers of James Madison,” Library of Congress, letter to Chapman Johnson, May 1, 1828 (at: https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mjm&fileName=22/mjm22.db&recNum=379&itemLink=D?mjm:13:./temp/~ammem_LjNU::).

48. Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Selected Writing of Thomas Jefferson, Adrienne Koch and Williams Peden, editors (New York: Random House, Inc., 1944), p. 697, letter to Thomas Cooper, March 13, 1820.

49. Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Frank Mead, editor (New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1965), p. 50, quoting William Biederwolf.

America’s Religious Heritage As Demonstrated in Presidential Inaugurations

Religious activities at presidential inaugurations have become the target of criticism in recent years, ¹ with legal challenges being filed to halt activities as simple as inaugural prayers and the use of “so help me God” in the presidential oath.² These critics – evidently based on a deficient education – wrongly believe that the official governmental arena is to be aggressively secular and religion-free. The history of inaugurations provides some of the most authoritative proof of the fallacy of these modern arguments.

In fact, since America’s first inauguration in 1789 included seven distinct religious activities, that original inauguration is worthy of review. Every inauguration since 1789 has included numerous of those activities.

The First Inauguration

Constitutional experts abounded at America’s first inauguration. Not only was the first inauguree (George Washington) a signer of the Constitution but numerous drafters of the Constitution were serving in the Congress that organized and directed that first inauguration. In fact, just under one fourth of the members of the first Congress had been delegates to the Convention that wrote the Constitution.³ Furthermore, the identical Congress that directed and oversaw these inaugural activities also penned the First Amendment. Having therefore produced both the Constitution and all of its clauses on religion, they clearly knew what types of religious activities were and were not constitutional. Clearly, then, the religious activities that occurred at the first inauguration may well be said to have the approval and imprimatur of the greatest collection of constitutional experts America has ever known. Therefore, a review of the religious activities acceptable in that first inauguration will provide guidance for citizens in general and critics in particular.

The first inauguration occurred in New York City. (New York City served as the nation’s capital for the first year of the new federal government; for the next ten, Philadelphia was the capital city; in 1800, the federal government moved to Washington, D. C. for its permanent home). George Washington had been at home at Mt. Vernon when Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, notified him that he had been unanimously elected as the nation’s first president.

On receiving this news, Washington departed from Mt. Vernon and began his trek toward New York City, stopping first at Fredericksburg, Virginia, to visit his mother, Mary¬ – the last time the two would see each other. Mary was eighty-two and suffering from incurable breast cancer. Mary parted with her son, giving him her blessings and offering him her prayers, telling him: “You will see me no more; my great age and the disease which is rapidly approaching my vitals, warn me that I shall not be long in this world. Go, George; fulfill the high destinies which Heaven appears to assign to you; go, my son, and may that Heaven’s and your mother’s blessing be with you always.” ⁴ Washington did go, and he did indeed fulfill the high destinies assigned him by Heaven. A moving painting was made of her giving him her final charge; his mother passed away a few months after that final meeting.

Leaving his mother, Washington continued northward toward New York City. In town after town along the way, special dinners and celebrations were held – including in Alexandria, Georgetown, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Trenton, and other locations. Finally reaching Elizabethtown, New Jersey, Washington boarded a barge that carried him the rest of the way, where another celebration awaited him upon entering New York Harbor.

On April 30th, 1789, George Washington was to be inaugurated on the balcony outside Federal Hall. (Federal Hall was originally named Old Hall, but New York City – in an effort to convince the new federal government that the City was serious about becoming the national capital – remodeled the structure, renaming it Federal Hall. The House and Senate met in two chambers inside that Hall, and the inauguration took place on the remodeled building’s balcony.) Incidentally, religious activities had been planned to precede the inauguration, with the people of New York City being called to a time of prayer. The papers in the Capital City reported on that scheduled activity:

[O]n the morning of the day on which our illustrious President will be invested with his office, the bells will ring at nine o’clock, when the people may go up to the house of God and in a solemn manner commit the new government, with its important train of consequences, to the holy protection and blessing of the Most high. An early hour is prudently fixed for this peculiar act of devotion and . . . is designed wholly for prayer. ⁵

The preparations for the inauguration had been extensive; everything had been well planned; the event seemed to be proceeding smoothly. The parade carrying Washington by horse-drawn carriage to the swearing-in was nearing Federal Hall when it was realized that no Bible had been obtained for administering the oath. Parade Marshal Jacob Morton hurried to the nearby Masonic Lodge and grabbed its large 1767 King James Bible.

The Bible was laid upon a crimson velvet cushion (held by Samuel Otis, Secretary of the Senate) and, with a huge crowd gathered below watching the ceremony on the balcony, New York Chancellor Robert Livingston was to administer the oath of office. (Robert Livingston had been one of the five Founders who had drafted the Declaration of Independence; however, he was called back to New York to help his State through the Revolution before he could affix his signature to the very document he had helped write. As Chancellor, Livingston was the highest ranking judicial official in New York.) Beside Livingston and Washington stood several distinguished officials, including Vice President John Adams, original Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, Generals Henry Knox and Philip Schuyler, and a number of others. The Bible was opened at random to the latter part of Genesis; Washington placed his left hand upon the open Bible, raised his right, and then took the oath of office prescribed by the Constitution. Washington then bent over and kissed the Bible, reverently closed his eyes, and said, “So help me God!” Chancellor Livingston then proclaimed, “It is done!” Turning to the crowd assembled below, he shouted, “Long live George Washington – the first President of the United States!” That shout was echoed and re-echoed by the crowd below.

Critics today claim that George Washington never added “So help me God!” to his oath ⁶ – that associating religious intent with the oath is of recent origins. After all, the presidential oath of office as prescribed in Article II of the Constitution simply states:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

But overlooked by many today is the fact that the Framers of our government considered an oath to be inherently religious – something George Washington affirmed when he appended the phrase “So help me God” to the end of the oath. In fact, it was universally acknowledged by every American legal scholar of that day that any legally-binding oath was overtly religious in nature. As signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon succinctly explained:

An oath is an appeal to God, the Searcher of Hearts, for the truth of what we say and always expresses or supposes an imprecation [a calling down] of His judgment upon us if we prevaricate [lie]. An oath, therefore, implies a belief in God and His Providence and indeed is an act of worship. . . . Persons entering on public offices are also often obliged to make oath that they will faithfully execute their trust. . . . In vows, there is no party but God and the person himself who makes the vow.⁷

Signer of the Constitution Rufus King similarly affirmed:

[B]y the oath which they [the laws] prescribe, we appeal to the Supreme Being so to deal with us hereafter as we observe the obligation of our oaths. The Pagan world were and are without the mighty influence of this principle which is proclaimed in the Christian system – their morals were destitute of its powerful sanction while their oaths neither awakened the hopes nor fears which a belief in Christianity inspires. ⁸

James Iredell, a ratifier of the Constitution and a U. S. Supreme Court justice appointed by George Washington, also confirmed:

According to the modern definition [1788] of an oath, it is considered a “solemn appeal to the Supreme Being for the truth of what is said by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and in a future state of rewards and punishments according to that form which would bind his conscience most.” ⁹

The great Daniel Webster – considered the foremost lawyer of his time ¹⁰ – also declared:

“What is an oath?” . . . [I]t is founded on a degree of consciousness that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues or punish our vices. . . . [O]ur system of oaths in all our courts, by which we hold liberty and property and all our rights, are founded on or rest on Christianity and a religious belief. ¹¹

Clearly, at the time the Constitution was written, an oath was a religious obligation. George Washington understood this, and at the beginning of his presidency had prayed “So help me God” with his oath; at the end of his presidency eight years later in 1796 in his “Farewell Address,” he reaffirmed that an oath was religious when he pointedly queried:

[W]here is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths . . . ? ¹²

Numerous other authoritative sources affirm that oaths were inherently religious. ¹³

The evidence is clear: from a constitutional viewpoint, the administering of a presidential oath was the administering of a religious obligation – something that was often acknowledged during presidential inaugurations following Washington’s. For example, during his 1825 inauguration, John Quincy Adams declared:

I appear, my fellow-citizens, in your presence and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities of religious obligation to the faithful performance of the duties allotted to me in the station to which I have been called. ¹⁴

Subsequent presidents made similar acknowledgments:

HERBERT HOOVER: This occasion is not alone the administration of the most sacred oath which can be assumed by an American citizen. It is a dedication and consecration under God to the highest office in service of our people. ¹⁵
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: As I stand here today, having taken the solemn oath of office in the presence of my fellow countrymen – in the presence of our God . . . ¹⁶
JOHN F. KENNEDY: For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago. ¹⁷
RICHARD NIXON: I have taken an oath today in the presence of God and my countrymen to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. ¹⁸

There were others as well. ¹⁹ The taking of the presidential oath is a religious action – or what Founding Father John Witherspoon had called “an act of worship.” ²⁰

Returning to Washington’s inauguration, following the taking of the oath on the Bible, Washington and the officials then departed the balcony and went inside Federal Hall to the Senate Chamber where Washington delivered his Inaugural Address. From the outset of that first-ever presidential address, Washington – as his first very official act – set a religious tone by expressing his own heartfelt prayer to God:

Such being the impressions under which I have – in obedience to the public summons – repaired to [arrived at] the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being Who rules over the universe, Who presides in the councils of nations, and Whose providential aids can supply every human defect – that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes. ²¹

The remainder of Washington’s address was no less strongly religious; he even called on his listeners to remember and acknowledge God:

In tendering this homage [act of worship] to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of Providential Agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government [i.e., the creation and adoption of the Constitution] . . . cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude. . . .
These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. . . . [T]he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality . . . since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness – between duty and advantage – between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious [favorable] smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained. . . .
Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that . . . His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this government must depend. ²²

Washington and the Members of Congress then marched in a procession to St. Paul’s Church for Divine Service. That Congress should have gone to church en masse as part of the inauguration was no surprise, for Congress had itself scheduled these inaugural services.

That is, while the new Constitution had established the presidency, it stipulated nothing specific about the inaugural activities. It was therefore within the authority of Congress to help direct those activities. The Senate therefore acted:

Resolved, That after the oath shall have been administered to the President, he – attended by the Vice-President and members of the Senate and House of Representatives – proceed to St. Paul’s Chapel to hear Divine service. ²³

The House quickly approved the same resolution. ²⁴ Once the presidential oath had been administered and the inaugural address delivered, according to official congressional records:

The President, the Vice-President, the Senate, and House of Representatives, &c., then proceeded to St. Paul’s Chapel, where Divine Service was performed by the chaplain of Congress. ²⁵

The service at St. Paul’s was conducted by The Right Reverend Samuel Provoost – the Episcopal Bishop of New York, who had been chosen chaplain of the Senate the week preceding the inauguration. The service was performed according to The Book of Common Prayer, and included a number of prayers taken from Psalms 144-150 as well as Scripture readings and lessons from the book of Acts, I Kings, and the Third Epistle of John. ²⁶

– – – ◊ ◊ ◊ – – –The very first inauguration – conducted under the watchful eye of those who had framed our government and written its Constitution – incorporated numerous religious activities and expressions. That first inauguration set the constitutional precedent for all other inaugurations; and the activities from that original inauguration that have been repeated in whole or part in every subsequent inauguration include: (1) the use of the Bible to administer the oath; (2) the religious nature of the oath and including “So help me God”; (3) inaugural prayers by the president; (4) religious content in the inaugural addresses; (5) the president calling the people to pray or acknowledge God; (6) inaugural worship services; and (7) clergy-led inaugural prayers.

Endnotes

¹ A number of legal authorities, university professors, and news writers have criticized inaugural religious activities. See, for example, Alan M. Dershowitz, “Bush Starts Off by Defying the Constitution,” Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, January 24, 2001 Metro section, Part B, 9; Larry Judkins, Religion Page Editor, Sacramento Valley Mirror, “Dershowitz Piece Misleading: All Presidents Flaunt Constitution,” in Positive Atheism Magazine, Thursday, January 25, 2001; “President Bush Announces Religious Agenda on Inauguration Day,” Americans United for Separation of Church and State, January 20, 2001; et. Al.

² Noted atheist Michael Newdow filed suit in federal court to have prayers barred from the Presidential Inauguration of 2001, 2005, and in 2009 to have inaugural prayers halted and to prevent the Chief-Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court from saying “So help me God” when administering the oath of office to the president.

³ Significantly, many of the U. S. Senators at the first Inauguration had been delegates to the Constitutional Convention that framed the Constitution including William Samuel Johnson, Oliver Ellsworth, George Read, Richard Bassett, William Few, Caleb Strong, John Langdon, William Paterson, Robert Morris, and Pierce Butler; and many members of the House had been delegates to the Constitutional Convention, including Roger Sherman, Abraham Baldwin, Daniel Carroll, Elbridge Gerry, Nicholas Gilman, Hugh Williamson, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, and James Madison.

⁴ Benson J. Lossing, Our Country: A Household History for All Readers (New York: Henry J. Johnson, 1877), IV:1121.

⁵ The Daily Advertiser, (New York: April 23, 1789), 2.

⁶ See, for example, Newdow v. Roberts, complaint filed by Newdow on December 29, 2008, 20-21, par. 103-104 of the complaint. See also Cathy Lynn Grossman, “No proof Washington said ‘so help me God’ – will Obama,” USA Today, January 9, 2009.

⁷ John Witherspoon, “Lectures on Moral Philosophy,” The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), VII:139-140, 142.

⁸ Rufus King, October 30, 1821, Reports of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1821, Assembled for the Purpose of Amending The Constitution of the State of New York (Albany: E. and E. Hosford, 1821), 575.

⁹ Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions, on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Washington: 1836), IV:196, James Iredell, July 30, 1788.

¹⁰ Dictionary of American Biography, s. v. “Webster, Daniel.”

¹¹ Daniel Webster, Mr. Webster’s Speech in Defense of the Christian Ministry and in Favor of the Religious Instruction of the Young, Delivered in the Supreme Court of the United States, February 10, 1844, in the Case of Stephen Girard’s Will (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1844), 43, 51.

¹² George Washington, Address of George Washington, President of the United States . . . Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore: George and Henry S. Keatinge, 1796), 23.

¹³ See, for example, James Coffield Mitchell, The Tennessee Justice’s Manual and Civil Officer’s Guide (Nashville: Mitchell and C. C. Norvell, 1834), 457-458; City Council of Charleston v. S.A. Benjamin, 2 Strob. 508, 522-524 (Sup. Ct. S.C. 1846); and many other legal sources.

¹⁴ John Quincy Adams, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, ed. James D. Richardson (Washington, D.C.: 1900), 2:860, March 4th 1825.

¹⁵ Herbert Hoover, “Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1929, The American Presidency Project.

¹⁶ Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1945, The American Presidency Project.

¹⁷ John F. Kennedy, “Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1961, The American Presidency Project.

¹⁸ Richard Nixon, “Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1969, The American Presidency Project.

¹⁹ Warren G. Harding, “Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1921, The American Presidency Project; Jimmy Carter, “Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1977, The American Presidency Project.

²⁰ John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), VII:139, from his “Lectures on Moral Philosophy,” Lecture 16 on Oaths and Vows.

²¹ The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, ed. Joseph Gales (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1834), I:27. See also George Washington, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, James D. Richardson, editor (Washington, D.C.: 1899), 1:44-45, April 30, 1789.

²² Debates and Proceedings (1834) I:27-29, April 30, 1789.

²³ Debates and Proceedings (1834), I:25, April 27, 1789.

²⁴ Debates and Proceedings (1834), I:241, April 29, 1789.

²⁵ Debates and Proceedings (1834) I:29, April 30, 1789.

²⁶ Book of Common Prayer (Oxford: W. Jackson & A. Hamilton, 1784), s.v., April 30th.

The Aitken Bible and Congress

Prior to the American Revolution, the only English Bibles in the colonies were imported either from Europe or England. Publication of the Bible was regulated by the British government, and an English language Bible could not be printed without a special license from the British government; all English language Bibles had to bear the imprint of the Crown. However, other language Bibles were printed in America, including America’s first – the Eliot Bible (1661-1663), by John Eliot, the “Apostle to the Indians,” but his Bible was in the Massachusetts Indian language. Bibles could also be printed in French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, other Indian languages – just about anything but English.

Because English language Bibles could not be printed in America but had to be imported, when the Revolution began and the British began to blockade all materials coming to America, the ability to obtain such Bibles ended. Therefore, in 1777, America began experiencing a shortage of several important commodities, including Bibles. On July 7, a request was placed before Congress to print or import more, because “unless timely care be used to prevent it, we shall not have Bibles for our schools and families and for the public worship of God in our churches.”¹ Congress concurred with that assessment and announced: “The Congress desire to have a Bible printed under their care and by their encouragement.”² A special committee overseeing that project therefore recommended:

[T]he use of the Bible is so universal and its importance so great, . . . your Committee recommend that Congress will order the Committee of Commerce to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere, into the different ports of the States of the Union.³

Congress agreed with the committee’s recommendation and ordered Bibles imported.⁴ While those Bibles were ordered imported by Congress, there is no indication that any ever arrived.

(Interestingly, decades later in 1854, when a group claimed that the government was violating the separation of church and state by allowing government-sponsored religious activities in public, James Meacham of the House Judiciary Committee responded with a lengthy report refuting their claims. In so doing, he specifically cited that 1777 act of Congress, noting:

I do not deem it out of place to notice one act of many to show that Congress was not indifferent to the religious interests of the people and they were not peculiarly afraid of the charge of uniting Church and State. On the 11th of September, 1777, a committee having consulted with Dr. Allison [an early congressional chaplain] about printing an edition of thirty thousand Bibles, and finding that they would be compelled to send abroad for type and paper with an advance of £10,272, 10s [over $2 million in today’s currency], Congress voted to instruct the Committee on Commerce to import twenty thousand Bibles from Scotland and Holland into the different ports of the Union. The reason assigned was that the use of the book was so universal and important. Now, what was passing on that day? The army of Washington was fighting the battle of Brandywine; the gallant soldiers of the Revolution were displaying their heroic though unavailing valor; twelve hundred soldiers were stretched in death on that battlefield; Lafayette was bleeding; the booming of the cannon was heard in the hall where Congress was sitting [in Philadelphia] – in the hall from which Congress was soon to be a fugitive. At that important hour, Congress was passing an order for importing twenty thousand Bibles; and yet we have never heard that they were charged by their generation of any attempt to unite Church and State or surpassing their powers to legislate on religious matters.⁵)

Four years later, in January of 1781, Robert Aitken (publisher of the Pennsylvania Magazine in Philadelphia) petitioned Congress for permission to print an English-language Bible on his presses in America rather than import the Bibles. In his memorial to Congress, Aitken said “your Memorialist begs leave to, inform your Honours That he both begun and made considerable progress in a neat Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools” and went on to say “your Memorialist prays, that he may be commissioned or otherwise appointed & Authorized to print and vend Editions of, the Sacred Scriptures, in such manner and form as may best suit the wants and demands of the good people of these States.”⁶ Congress appointed a committee⁷ that was to “from time to time [attend] to his progress in the work; that they also [recommend] it to the two Chaplains of Congress to examine and give their opinion of the execution.”⁸ The committee, comprised of Founding Fathers James Duane, Thomas McKean, and John Witherspoon,⁹ reported back to Congress in September of 1782 giving its full approval. They also included assurances from the two chaplains of Congress that “Having selected and examined a variety of passages throughout the work, we are of opinion that it is executed with great accuracy as to the sense, and with as few grammatical and typographical errors as could be expected in an undertaking of such magnitude.”¹⁰ Congress gave Aitken a ringing endorsement in the form of a congressional resolution to “publish this Recommendation in the manner he shall think proper”¹¹ to help sell and circulate the Bible. The complete text of this Congressional resolution is:

Whereupon,
RESOLVED,
THAT the United States in Congress assembled highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion, as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorize him to publish this Recommendation in the manner he shall think proper.¹²

Robert Aitken then proceeded to print his Bible, now known as the Aitken Bible or the Bible of the Revolution. That Bible – approved by the Founding Fathers in Congress – was the first English-language Bible to be printed in America. Records show that of the 10,000 originally printed by Aitken, 30-40 total copies still exist¹³ (5-10 of which are in private hands); one of these existing Bibles is at WallBuilders.

(Incidentally, on May 30, 1783, the Rev. John Rodgers, a military chaplain and close friend of George Washington, suggested to his Commander-in-Chief that one of these congressionally approved Bibles be given to every member of the Continental Army. Washington was highly pleased with the suggestion but regretfully noted that Roger’s proposal had arrived too late – Congress had just disbanded the Continental Army, retaining only a skeleton force. Washington lamented:

Your proposition respecting Mr. Aitkin’s Bibles would have been particularly noticed by me – had it been suggested in season… It would have pleased me if Congress should have made such an important present to the brave fellows who have done so much for the security of their country’s rights and establishment.¹⁴)

Of this Bible, and of Congress’ direct role in its creation and distribution, one early historian observed:

Who, in view of this fact, will call in question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the states assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!¹⁵

You can view the Congressional actions concerning the Aitken Bible in the WallBuilders “Library” section here.

Endnotes

¹ Letters of Delegates to Congress, ed. Paul H. Smith (Washington: Library of Congress, 1981), 7:311, n1.
² Letters of Delegates, ed. Smith (1981), VII:311, “Committee on Publishing a Bible to Sundry Philadelphia Printers,” July 7, 1777.
³ Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907), VIII:734, September 11, 1777.
⁴ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), VIII:735, September 11, 1777.
⁵ Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives, Made During the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress (Washington: A. P. Nicholson, 1854), II:126, “Rep. No. 124: Chaplains in Congress and in the Army and Navy,” March 27, 1854.
⁶ The Holy Bible as Printed by Robert Aitken and Approved & Recommended by the Congress of the United States of America in 1782 (New York: Arno Press, 1968), Introduction to this Aitken Bible reprint.
⁷ Journals of the Continental Congress (1912), XIX:91, January 26, 1781.
⁸ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:572-573, September 12, 1782.
⁹ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:572, September 12, 1782.
¹⁰ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XXIII:573, September 12, 1782.
¹¹ Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XIII:574, September 12, 1782; The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments (Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1782).
¹² Journals of the Continental Congress (1907), XIII:574, September 12, 1782; The Holy Bible (1782).
¹³ “ The First English Language Bible Published in North America,” Library of Congress, accessed on March 29, 2012.
¹⁴ George Washington to John Rodgers on June 11, 1783, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1938), 27:1.
¹⁵ W. P. Strickland, History of the American Society from its Organization to the Present Time (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1849), 20-21.

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Types of Slavery Permitted by the Bible

The Mosaic law permitted some types of slavery. These include:

Involuntary Servitude is Not Biblical

America’s Founders and Slavery

The Founders Believed Slavery Was Fundamentally Wrong

The Founders took action against slavery

Slavery and the Constitution

The View of Slavery Changes

The Civil War

Endnotes

Talking Points About the Judiciary

1. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT A CO-EQUAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

2. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT TO BE AN INDEPENDENT BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

3. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT THE SOLE BRANCH CAPABLE OF DETERMINING CONSTITUTIONALITY

4. FEDERAL JUDGES DO NOT HOLD LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS

5. THE PURPOSE OF THE SUPREME COURT IS NOT TO PROTECT THE MINORITY FROM THE MAJORITY, AND CONGRESS IS A BETTER PROTECTOR OF MINORITY RIGHTS THAN IS THE JUDICIARY

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David Barton 2008

Thomas Paine

John Quincy Adams

Benjamin Franklin

John Adams

James Wilson

Daniel Webster

Thomas Jefferson

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Resolution Acknowledging the Inalienable Rights of Private Property

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History of Tea Parties

Tea Party Today

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The First Inauguration

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