FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

...On any fair examination of our country’s past, the Black-Rutledge-SouterACLU rendition is not only wrong, but an exact inversion of the record...

...As may be shown in some detail, the secular history in this respect is still more mistaken than in its casual disregard of fact in treatments of the individual Founders...

...Next door in New Jersey, religious zeal burned more hotly still, as this was the home of Witherspoon, a one-man Christian Coalition...

...His papers include notes on the Bible made at this period and a pocket booklet on The Necessary Duty of Family Prayer, with Prayers for Their Use...

...Rufus King, formerly of Massachusetts, would become warden of New York City’s Trinity Church...

...And this from 1778: “The commander in chief directs that Divine service be performed every Sunday at 11 o’clock, in each brigade which has a Chaplain...

...John Jay, co-author of The Federalist and later Chief Justice under the Constitution, was a devout evangelical Christian of Huguenot extraction...

...24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 F A I T H O F O U R F A T H E R S While we are duly performing the duty of good soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion...

...He would later play a pivotal role in shaping the religion clauses of the First Amendment...

...Jefferson, who followed Adams as chief executive, is much cited by the secularizers, as he held views in some respects congruent with their model...

...This has in turn led to angry conflict on a host of faith-related issues—abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, marriage—that now so painfully divide us...

...Foremost among these was the remarkable Carroll family—Archbishop John, signer of the Declaration Charles, and constitutional delegate Daniel...

...Vide his presidential proclamation of 1798, urging his fellow citizens to “acknowledge before God the manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable… beseeching Him at the same time of His infinite grace, through the Redeemer of the world, freely to remit all offenses and to incline us by His holy spirit to… repentance and reformation...

...Ironically, Franklin’s motion was opposed by Hamilton, objecting that a sudden resort to prayer might suggest things were going badly...

...Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, a former Presbyterian preacher...

...No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious values or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion...

...Looking strictly at delegates to the constitutional convention, we note that David Brearly of New Jersey was a delegate to the Episcopal Convention of 1786...

...Faith of Our Fathers Part I of a special three-part series, “The Christian History of the Constitution,” which examines the eradication of religious values from American life since our country’s founding...

...The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment,” said Black, “means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal government can set up a church...

...He was a moving spirit at the Continental Congress of ’74 in favor of having chaplains lead the group in prayer, despite denominational disagreements...

...To the distinguished character of a patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian...

...AMONGHISOTHERODDDISTINCTIONS,Jean Jacques Rousseau BY M. STANTON EVANS might be considered the patron saint of modern historiography...

...And, indeed, if we examine some of the other Founders, we find their ranks so replete with Biblebelieving Christians as to suggest that America at the epoch of the founding was a country awash in religious fervor...

...New York State was more heterodox than New England, but even here the religious convictions and activities of the founding generation were impressive...

...Washington’s most notable comment to this effect—though by no means the only one—was his Farewell Address, wherein he stated that “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle...

...I can hear a prayer by a man of piety and virtue, who is at the same time a friend of his country...

...It was Boudinot who, in September 1789, moved that Congress go on the record “in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings He poured down upon them...

...Not too different from Washington’s comments were those of his successor to the nation’s highest office, John Adams of Massachusetts...

...Moving roughly North to South along the coastline, following are a few case studies...

...One of his writings is entitled, A Short Sermon on the Duty of Self-Examination Preparatory to Receiving the Lord’s Supper...

...Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but a few other instances may be briefly cited by way of wrap-up...

...STONISHING AS IT MAY SEEM, given the axiomatic status of such notions, all of this is absurdly false—Rousseauvian history at its worst, running amok and at full throttle...

...In this telling, Jefferson, Madison, et al., were proto-ACLUers: rationalists and skeptics who wanted a purely secular system...

...The legal pretext for these rulings is that tax support for such observance violates the clause in the First Amendment prohibiting an “establishment of religion” in official practice...

...The court decrees that have produced all this are closely linked to the Rousseauvian method, as these edicts—somewhat distinctively for legal rulings—are based on a purported history of our founding...

...These far-seeing statesmen, we’re told, mandated a strict separation of church and state when they adopted the First Amendment, so we’re obliged today to banish tax support for religious doctrine...

...In Maryland, there was small chance that irreligion would flourish, as this was the refuge of America’s then small band of Catholics...

...Schurch—one that would remain es tablished, tax-supported tate with an es ed a s AMADAMSWASNOTONLYAPURITANbut representtablished for the next six decades...

...All of which looks a lot like religious advocacy in a tax-supported setting (though tax support for Washington’s armies was admittedly meager...

...Benjamin Rush, the surgeon general of the revolution, was a stalwart Calvinist who believed “the Bible must be the center of education...

...Between 1772 and 1775, he undertook an extenM . S T A N T O N E V A N S sive study of Scripture at Montpelier...

...Thus by relentless pressure are the words and symbols of traditional faith driven from our discourse...

...Adams would reinforce this view in public statements when he became the country’s leader...

...Yet as a youthful member of the Continental Army, we’re told, he was known for religious devotion, and as a mature politician, sought to found a “Christian constitutional society” in “support of the Christian religion...

...As commander F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 2 3 Jefferson, who followed Adams as chief executive, is much cited by the secularizers, as he held views in some respects congruent with their model...

...Though portrayed in many histories as a hotbed of irreligion—and there had been instances in the earlier going among the Cavalier squirearchy—the Old Dominion in the late 18th century was Ground Zero for religious fervor...

...A patriot must be a religious man...

...COURSE, no such discussion can omit the case of Benjamin Franklin, with Jefferson the quintessential American enlightenment figure, and like Jefferson a Unitarian in doctrine...

...In obedience to lessons allegedly taught in these irreligious histories, archly secularist views have been imparted, and measures taken, severely wrenching the lives and customs of our people...

...As he wrote to his wife Abigail in 1775: “Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand...

...Most tellingly, in the fatal duel with Burr, as Hamilton wrote beforehand, he resolved not to fire his weapon, “as the scruples of a Christian have determined me to expose my own life to any extent rather than subject myself to the guilt of taking the life of another...

...Or, as he put it on another occasion: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time...

...From the religious views and practices of the founding era, to Madison and Jefferson in Virginia, to the adoption of the First Amendment, the Court’s rulings on these matters, and the history they embody, have blithely set aside the facts to reach a pre-ordained conclusion...

...Banning prayer from the schools and all the rest are in alleged fulfillment of their vision...

...Bible reading and prayer in the public schools, display of the Ten Commandments, Christmas manger scenes, and other expressions of faith in public settings have been stamped out as contrary to the wishes of our Founders...

...Far from being a secularist or skeptic, Washington throughout his public life was a staunch supporter of the view that religious piety was essential to the well-being of the country...

...This fact-free technique, used often by Rousseau, wowed the literati of Europe circa 1750 and made him the toast of Paris...

...Space permits only a sampling, but even a cursory survey is enough to suggest the errors in the standard version...

...Moving southward to Virginia, we find still other staunch religionists holding office...

...And, more to the point of the larger history, what’s the likelihood that people holding such opinions would have decided to ban religion from the conduct of the nation’s business...

...Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, the wily strategist of independence, was an old-fashioned Puritan who saw in America the makings of a “Christian Sparta” not unlike the city on a hill envisioned by his Bay State forebears...

...In countless books and essays, relevant facts have indeed been set aside— or baldly misstated—to support some view already held before the history writing started...

...Yet he was on all the evidence not a skeptic, but a believing Christian...

...Among his messages to his troops, for instance, was this from 1776: “The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary, but especially so in times of public distress and danger...

...In the course of a long career he backed this precept with many actions, including proclamations of Thanksgiving to God and support for tax assessments to advance religious teaching...

...If Hamilton was the “least religious” of the Founders, what does this say about the rest...

...Can the liberties of a nation be secure,” he asked, “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...

...These four early leaders have been cited, not only because they were among the most eminent Founders, but also because they are often depicted in the standard histories as skeptics, theological liberals, or devotees of secularizing doctrine...

...Even so, the fit isn’t a very good one, as Jefferson repeatedly voiced his faith in a providential God, and likewise expressed the view that freedom depended on religion...

...As explained in discursive comments by Justices Wiley Rutledge and David Souter, among others, we have to do these things because that’s the way the Founders set it up...

...2 6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7...

...He was, for instance, a protégé of the Calvinist John Witherspoon at Princeton, read theology with his mentor, and maintained his interest in the subject for years thereafter...

...Richard Bassett of Delaware, a strong supporter of Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury...

...This dictate has been enforced with increasing rigor through the years and, despite anomalies in the process, Black’s absolutist doctrine is now accepted as conventional wisdom on the subject...

...Yet it was Franklin who at the Constitutional Convention called for prayer to aid the drafters in their efforts...

...Madison, Jefferson’s political ally and successor in the White House, is likewise cited in the standard histories, as he did hold separationist views, up to a point and with provisos...

...The locus classicusfor this viewis the statement of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in a 1947 decision...

...M. Stanton Evans is author of The Theme is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition (Regnery, 1994...

...Upon retirement from public life, he pursued intensive biblical studies, with particular focus on the Book of Matthew...

...Without pursuing that aspect here—and there is more to be said about it—suffice it to note that, if these were the liberals, we can well imagine what things were like in more orthodox circles of the era...

...The guiding concepts of these a priorist studies have been intense hostility to religion, a concomitant wish to downplay its importance, and a determined effort to write our history in keeping with such notions...

...The effects of this have gone beyond the realm of academic error, bad as that is, to help work enormous changes in the social order...

...Sherman, one of the most important but also most neglected of the Founders, was as much an oldfangled Puritan as Sam Adams...

...Things weren’t very different in Connecticut—yet another Puritan state with yet another tax-supported church—where constitutional founders Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth were mainstays of the Puritan-founded Congregational Church, and served in Congress also...

...It seems to have impressed a lot of other people since, as the same non-empirical method has been routinely wielded in many academic studies, from retrospectives of the Middle Ages to discussions of the Cold War...

...He objected to traveling on Sunday, was a leader in the ecclesiastical doings of New Haven, and engaged in theological correspondence even while tending to his worldly obligations...

...This has led some secularizers to conclude Hamilton was the skeptic —the “least religious of the founders,” in one version...

...His Pennsylvania colleague James Wilson, arguably the foremost legal scholar of the era, was another evangelical Christian, who opined that the “will of God” was the supreme law of nations...

...Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, the longtime president of the Charleston Bible Society...

...Cynics have suggested that the old philosopher was showboating, as he sometimes did, but his private papers tell us he was sincere in this avowal, reflecting as his personal credo that “there is one God who made all things,” who “governs the world by his providence,” and who was to be adored and worshiped...

...As he put it: “I am not a bigot...

...The Custom of the Country,” part II of his series “The Christian History of the Constitution,” will appear in our March issue...

...In Pennsylvania (and Delaware), the learned John Dickinson, pamphleteer of America’s cause in its legal contests with Great Britain, was a devout Quaker, and in 1781 would deliver a tough official message warning against the threat of creeping irreligion...

...Adams frequently expressed in both private and public statements the belief that political liberty required religious virtue...

...F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 2 5 F A I T H O F O U R F A T H E R S Less acclaimed than Witherspoon, but known for piety also, was his New Jersey colleague Elias Boudinot, a leader in the Continental Congress and in the new Congress under the Constitution...

...This Trinitarian message was issued from the highest office in the land within a decade after adoption of the First Amendment...

...And where it isn’t yet applied as stringently as some would like, the legal watchdogs of the American Civil Liberties Union and such are ever alert to enforce its sanctions...

...He at any rate caught the spirit of it when he said, in a famous passage, “Let us begin by setting aside all the facts, because they do not affect the question...

...In this respect the obvious place to start is with George Washington, military hero of the War of Independence, presiding officer at the Constitutional Convention, and first president of the new republic...

...The main champions of this outlook, it’s said, were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who worked to disestablish Virginia’s Episcopal Church in the 1780s, then carried the battle to the national level with the First Amendment...

...He was also President of Princeton, where Madison and many other political leaders were his students, and which at the era of the founding was a stronghold of Calvinist Christianity...

...and William Few of Georgia, “a staunch believer in revealed religion”—to cite only a handful from a considerable roster...

...of our military forces, he made diligent efforts to provide the armies with chaplains and require attendance at religious service...

...Patrick Henry was, for instance, much influenced by Davies and a zealous Christian...

...the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them...

...The formidable Alexander Hamilton—often depicted as a skeptic—was another believing Christian who would prove his faith in dramatic fashion...

...2 2 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 In few cases has this been more apparent than in historical treatments of religion in the life of our republic, with particular emphasis on the War of Independence and constitutional founding that followed...

...The two political Carrolls, like others mentioned, were members of the Congress that approved the First Amendment...

...Yet it was Franklin who at the Constitutional Convention called for prayer to aid the drafters in their efforts, saying that, the longer he lived, the more he was convinced “God governs in the affairs of men...

...Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another...

...A Presbyterian divine from Scotland, Witherspoon was not only an influential preacher, but a member of the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence...

...This resulted in an overwhelming vote in favor of a day of prayer and Thanksgiving— passed the day after the House approved the language of the First Amendment...

...While the proofs of this are many, among the simplest ways of grasping the truth of the matter is to consult the views of leading politicians in the revolutionaryconstitutional epoch...

...The general hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country...

...His staunchly Calvinist views were shared by others from Massachusetts, including Caleb Strong and Elbridge Gerry, both delegates to the constitutional convention and members of the Federal Congress...

...ASHINGTON’S STATEMENTS on these topics, be it noted, weren’t merely religious in some indefinite sense but were expressly Christian...

...In legal terms, the most obvious manifestation of the problem has been a series of federal court decrees barring religious value and observance from vast sectors of American life...

...Other famous Virginians such as Edmund Pendleton, Richard Bland, and Edmund Randolph were likewise known for their devotion to religious causes...

...This resulted from the so-called Great Awakening led by the Presbyterian Samuel Davies and the Baptists captained by John Leland...