John Quincy Adams used a law book in 1825

Every four years a flurry of articles appear that cover the events surrounding the presidential inauguration. Many of these articles, like the January 20, 2021 AP news article, Biden’s Bible puts him in line with inaugural tradition, claim John Quincy Adams used a law book in 1825. One such article appeared eight years ago at the time of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. In this particular article, Dean Obeidallah expressed the opinion that even though there’s been a long tradition of president’s using a Bible, "Presidents should not swear in on a Bible." In making the case, she mentions the swearing-in ceremonies for both John Quincy Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt (with more emphasis on the former).

The Constitution does not require that the president take the oath of office by swearing on a Bible. That would have been a very simple requirement for the constitutional drafters to include. To the contrary, the Founders wanted to ensure that Americans of any faith – or no faith – could hold federal office.

They set it forth plainly in Article VI: “… No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Placing a hand on a Bible while reciting the presidential oath is simply a tradition started by George Washington. Indeed, two presidents, Teddy Roosevelt and John Quincy Adams, did not use a Bible at their swearing-in ceremonies.

Although Roosevelt’s reasons are unclear, John Quincy Adams’ reasons could not be more plain.

Adams, the son of President John Adams, was a religious man. But he chose to be sworn in with his hand on a book of U.S. laws. He wanted to demonstrate that he recognized a barrier between church and state and that his loyalty was to our nation’s laws above all else.

Despite the many repeated claims that John Quincy Adams used a law book, the reasoning put forward as to why John Quincy Adams “chose to be sworn in with his hand on a book of U.S. laws” is totally incorrect. A law book did play a role at the March 4, 1825 inauguration of President JQA, but it was not for the purpose of placing his hand on the book (unless he was a palm reader). To be precise, Chief Justice John Marshall presented JQA with a law book from which he read the presidential oath.

The account written up in the July 6,1825 issue of The Independent Chronicle tells what actually took place::

A Contrast. – John Quincy Adams, President of the United States, is the son of the second President that ever ruled over America, the well known and peaceful successor of Washington – the Numa of the United States; and if we may judge from principles which he has taken the first occasion of testifying, he is well worthy of the honor which such an elevation confers. The manly plainness and simplicity of the form of his inauguration deserves notice. Think of the childish ceremonies, the idle pageantry, the ridiculous mummeries, holy oil, the feathers, furs, and flippery of a coronation in Europe, as contrasted with this dignified scene! At Washington, in the capitol, Mr. Adams, in a plain suit of black, ascends the Speaker’s chair, pronounces his address to his fellows citizens, walks to the table of the Judges, and on a volume of the laws of the United States reads his oath of office, and thus the magistrate of a mighty state installed.

What is plain to every president-elect is that even by John Quincy Adams’ own account a Bible was not used, and that a president-elect can chose to follow the same example set by our sixth president, which was a tradition already set in place by his five predecessors. According to contemporary historical records, the fact is that if we start with Washington’s second inauguration and examine the succeeding inaugural ceremonies for John Adams (once), Thomas Jefferson (twice), James Madison (twice), and James Monroe (twice), we’ll find they all fall in line, where there’s not the slightest indication of a Bible having been used.  

Virginia Constitution, "lack" of religious tests, TJ, & heresy

 I, for a long while, was under the initial impression that the 1776 Virginia Constitution can be seen as an exception when it came to the imposition of religious test oaths for public office. The following snippet had led me (and many others) in that direction:

The Virginia State Constitution: a reference guide, Part 56 by John J. Dinan

Section 7. Oath Or Affirmation

All officers elected or appointed under or pursuant to this Constitution shall, before they enter on the performance of their public duties, severally take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation:

   "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon me as ______________ according to the best of my ability (so help me God)."

Although the current oath has been uncontroversial, previous oaths have generated significant controversy. The 1864 Constitution was the first to require officeholders to take an oath [my italics] and the purpose was to ensure that officeholders were not supporters of the Confederacy. Then, the 1867-68 Convention approved a "test-oath" that would have prevented a significant number of past supporters of the Confederacy from holding state office. Both of these oaths approved by the 1867-68 Convention provoked significant controversy, whether at the time or in coming years. [end excerpt]

A little research shows that my initial impression was wrong. As can be readily seen, the Virginia Constitution doesn't lack religious test oath legislation.  See Founders Online here, and here, and again here, which show, early on (~1779), a list of various test oaths for state office.

In Virginia, even when an oath-taker held religious scruples that person still had to “repeat the formulary, which in his opinion, is or ought to be observed on such occasions, according to the religion in which such person professeth to believe, … .” While apparently quite tolerant this particular clause put a person like Thomas Jefferson in an awkward position.

Thomas Jefferson, an unorthodox Christian, was elected Virginia Governor on June 1, 1779. According to common law & Virginia statute TJ should have served from jail. At least, that’s how Frederick Jonassen (So Help Me ?, pg. 329, footnote 148; also Bradley) put it:

Until 1786, a non-Christian in Virginia would have to keep his religious opinions to himself because of a statute that made it a criminal offence to publically utter a non-Christian view."' <148>

148 - It is not clear how these provisions were enforced, whether through religious tests or otherwise. And a “professed atheist, polytheist, or unorthodox Christian” in Virginia presumably “would have had to serve from jail, because both by common law and statute Virginia criminalized at least the public utterance of such views. Note as well that Anglicanism was "established" or preferred even to other Protestant sects in Virginia until 1786.51

Gerard V. Bradley, The No Religious Test Clause and the Constitution of Religious Liberty: A Machine That Has Gone of Itself, p. 683; 51 - Isaac, Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the Baptists' Challenge to the Traditional Order in Virginia, 1765 to 1775, 31 WM. & MARY L. REV. 345-68 (1974); 52 - S. BOLTON, SOUTHERN ANGLICANISM 5 (1982). 

Written in 1781 and 1782, Jefferson assessed the state of religious rights in Virginia after the 1776 Constitution in his Notes on the State of Virginia Query #17 (published 1785):

QUERY XVII

Religion

The present state of our laws on the subject of religion is this. The convention of May 1776, in their declaration of rights, declared it to be a truth, and a natural right, that the exercise of religion should be free; but when they proceeded to form on that declaration the ordinance of government, instead of taking up every principle declared in the bill of rights, and guarding it by legislative sanction, they passed over that which asserted our religious rights, leaving them as they found them.

The same convention, however, when they met as a member of the general assembly in October 1776, repealed all acts of parliament which had rendered criminal the maintaining any opinions in matters of religion, the forbearing to repair to church, and the exercising any mode of worship; and suspended the laws giving salaries to the clergy, which suspension was made perpetual in October 1779. Statutory oppressions in religion being thus wiped away, we remain at present under those only imposed by the common law, or by our own acts of assembly. At the common law, heresy was a capital offence, punishable by burning. Its definition was left to the ecclesiastical judges, before whom the conviction was, till the statute of the 1 El. c. 1. circumscribed it, by declaring, that nothing should be deemed heresy, but what had been so determined by authority of the canonical scriptures, or by one of the four first general councils, or by some other council having for the grounds of their declaration the express and plain words of the scriptures. Heresy, thus circumscribed, being an offence at the common law, our act of assembly of October 1777, c. 17. gives cognizance of it to the general court, by declaring, that the jurisdiction of that court shall be general in all matters at the common law. The execution is by the writ De haeretico comburendo. By our own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more Gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offence by incapacity to hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or administrator, and by three years imprisonment, without bail. A father's right to the custody of his own children being founded in law on his right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course be severed from him, and put, by the authority of a court, into more orthodox hands [my italics].

This is a summary view of that religious slavery, under which a people have been willing to remain, who have lavished their lives and fortunes for the establishment of their civil freedom.  The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws.  

Meyerson Deconstructs Washington's Presidential Oath Story

On June 30th Steven Green took his turn at the current round of discussions at the Cato Institute, and opined that a “religionist interpretation of the founding” from those like Mark Hall and his colleagues (namely Daniel Dreisbach) offer conclusions with which he disagrees.

I fully agree. By way of explanation, let’s start off where Michael Meyerson, in his book, Endowed by Our Creator, deconstructs Washington's Presidential "So help me God" oath story:

Given this evidence of [Washington’s inaugural address that fully illustrates his] religious conviction, it is curious that so much emphasis has been placed on the uncertain story of Washington’s oath. It is discomforting to hear Justice Scalia treat a story of uncertain validity as historical fact. In an attempt to prove religion has never been “strictly excluded from the public forum,” Scalia asserted: “George Washington added to the form of Presidential oath prescribed by Art. II, par 1, cl.7, of the Constitution, the concluding words, ‘so help me God.’” Such an assertion weakens the largely accurate point he is trying to prove; if the factual predicate of his argument is doubtful, the persuasiveness of his reasoning is weakened.

Part of the appeal of Washington’s oath story is that it permits advocates to quote Washington using the word “God.” In most of his public addresses as president, Washington, instead used expressions as “Providence,” “Heaven,” “Director of Human Events,” and the “Grand Architect.” Any argument based on Washington’s use of religious language becomes more persuasive to modern ears if  the more familiar word “God” can be attributed to him.

The oath story also permits partisans to link religious statements made by modern presidents with the utterance made by Washington. One commentator has written: “The hand of the past is palpable on every occasion of the taking of the presidential oath; every president has followed the lead of George Washington in adding the words, ‘so help me God’ after the formal, prescribed constitutional oath.” This statement is entirely without factual foundation; neither John Adams, nor Thomas Jefferson, nor James Madison uttered the phrase. The first eyewitness documentation of any president saying “so help me God" is Chester Arthur in 1881. The power of [religionist] history, however, would be considerably diminished if one were reduced to claiming the tradition dates to Chester Arthur.

Now, when it comes to Mark Hall & Daniel Dreisbach, Washington’s presidential oath story illustrates Meyerson’s point.

When Hall says “it is eminently reasonable to infer from the lack of records that he [Washington] added those words [SHMG].” I ask, who, but a religious enthusiast is listening to that claim?

Dreisbach, in concert with Hall, observes that “these additional words [SHMG] have become so engrafted into presidential tradition that one commentator has argued, somewhat fancifully, that “in a real sense, then we have a religious oath of office as a result of a constitutional amendment adopted through the precedent-setting action of the first chief executive.” (See James E. Pfander, 1999, pg 551; also Espinosa, 2009, pg 57.)

The difference between Pfander and Dreisbach is that Pfander, back in 1999, could unwittingly claim “'So help me God' has become a regular feature of the event ever since” [Washington’s first inauguration], and Pfander, therefore, had no qualms about introducing the notion that this supposed regular occurrence had, in effect, produced a “constitutional amendment.”

In contrast, Dreisbach (2017) is quite aware that “in recent years, commentators have questioned whether Washington, in fact, uttered the phrase So help me God, or whether the words are erroneously attributed to the first president long after the event,” [since] “ this part of the narrative lacks contemporaneous confirmation.” Nonetheless, Dreisbach, even if somewhat fancifully, has no problem giving bandwidth to a religiously framed "So  help me God" constitutional amendment.

Addendum: Mark Hall in the Conclusion section (page 152) of his myth busting book (hard bound edition), goes even further than Pfander’s understanding of SHMG having been a “regular feature” during the presidential oath, where he plugs the fanciful notion that “from an originalist perspective, the Establishment Clause provides no bar to exempting religious minorities from general laws, including “so help me God” [my italics] in the Pledge of Allegiance.”

A New Book-oath on ‘A People’s History’ Has Come to Town

Thanks to a January 6, 2020, The American Spectator article, The Zinn Education Project: Teaching Trump-Hate and Other Dogma - A decade after his death Howard Zinn lives on, propagandizing America’s youth, by Mary Grabar, I’ve learned that two recently elected officials at the very local level have had the audacity to replace the customary Bible with Howard Zinn’s, A People’s History of theUnited States.

Here’s the scoop:

Zinn’s book has attained the status of a holy book. In April [9, 2019] JoBeth Hamon used it in place of the customary Bible in her swearing-in to the Oklahoma City Council. 

In Fairfax County, Virginia, a wealthy D.C. suburb and one of the largest school districts in the nation, “Rachna Sizemore Heizer … swore the oath of office while holding a copy of . . . Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States,” according to a December 20 [2019 Fairfax County Times] article celebrating the new “historically diverse” school board, part of the transformation of this community and 32 others toward racial “equity” through groups funded by Soros, and others.

Not surprisingly, Fairfax County students will soon have one day off for protesting. The Zinn Education Project will provide plenty of resources, from abolishing Columbus Day to protesting climate change.

Mary Grabar made a special effort to scold JoBeth Hamon in the 9/17/20119 Epoch Times article, Bible Replaced by Marxist Book in Taking Oath of Office. Here’s a snippet from the beginning of her commentary:

When Oklahoma City Council member Jobeth Hamon was sworn in early this year [April 9,2019 to take her seat], she chose to use a copy of Howard Zinn’s “A People’ History of the United States,”

While there’s no law or  policy that requires the use of a Bible for swearing-in ceremonies, Hamon upset traditions going back to ninth-century England.

Mary Grabar is right about mandatory Bible (loyalty test) oaths having a long tradition going back to ninth-century England, but she should take into consideration what Tucker Lieberman explained in his 1/11/2017 blog post, The long and misguided history of swearing in on Bibles:

When England was a Catholic country, swearing oaths on physical copies of the Bible held a prominent place in the culture. A religious movement whose adherents were known as Lollards opposed this practice in the early 15th century, as did Quakers in the 17th century. Lollards were willing to swear verbally by God, but were burned at the stake for being unwilling to swear on the Bible. Quakers would not swear at all, which meant that they couldn't take oaths of allegiance and couldn't testify in court. [Melissa] Mohr writes, "A good technique for getting rid of a Quaker you didn't like was to accuse him of doing something illegal. Whether or not he was guilty, when he refused to take an oath his property would be confiscated and he would be thrown in jail for contempt of court."

Aware of this religious history in England, the American founding fathers aimed for a more secular start to the nation in the 18th century. The U.S. Constitution prescribes this presidential oath of office: "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." This secular statement avoids the difficulties that presented themselves in England. Article VI of the Constitution additionally clarifies: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

So despite Mary Grabar's lamentations, and by virtue of the Constitution, there's apparently no guarantee that the long established tradition built on the Bible will be sufficient to discourage further encounters with a Marxist book, "A People's History of the United States."

Mark Hall Singles Out Michael Meyerson as a Separationist

Earlier this year Jon Rowe told American Creation readers that Mark Hall has written a new book,  "Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth." After some delay, I have started reading Mark’s book that attempts to separate “modern myth from historical truth.”

When reading page 111, I found this line, “ Separationaists often think it significant that there is no contemporary account of Washington saying ‘So help me God’ when he took the oath of office. <71>  

By flipping to page 199 I learned that Mark has singled out Michael Meyerson as a separationist:  <71> See, for instance, Michael I. Meyerson, Endowed by Our Creator: The Birth of Religious Liberty in America . . . , 181-82.

I went ahead and tried to find out why Mark Hall has thought it necessary to single out Meyerson as a “separationist.” When I read the designated pages the only answer I could come up with is that Meyerson is similarly trying to separate modern myth from historical truth, much like Peter Henriques has done in his 1/11/2009 HNN article, So Help Me God”: A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded.

I don’t know why Meyerson is being identified as a separationist by Mark Hall, but the following snippet taken from a 4/14/2014 Baptist Standard article, Revisionists get church & state wrong, law professor (Michael Meyerson) says, by Ken Camp & Daniel Wallace, should shed some light on the issue:

Equilibrium to avoid partisanship

The founders sought to strike equilibrium on the issue and compromised to produce a solution that avoided partisanship.

“They understood the complexity of this issue better than we do,” Meyerson said. “They understood the solution had to be nuanced and had to be complicated—not beyond understanding, but not a simple ‘never or always.’ And that’s what they worked on—that compromise.”

Founders of the nation agreed on a respectful vision that religion is scarred with unbelievable evil, yet also graced with equally unbelievable good, he noted. Their goal was to formulate a standard on the issue of church and state relations that united the nation, rather than creating a mandate that brought division.

“They wanted to separate church and state but not necessarily God and state,” he said. “They were most afraid of sectarianism, but they never intended to eliminate all discussion of God and religion from the public sphere.”

Thomas Kidd Likes Rhodehamel's New Book, But . . .

In Thomas Kidd’s recent book review, A Secular Biography of George Washington, the author expresses a liking for John Rhodehamel’s new book, George Washington: The Wonder of the Age.”   He says it's a "model biography in many ways, but “[m]y primary complaint with Rhodehamel is that he gives short shrift to Washington and religion.”

Here’s a sample objection:

In some cases, Rhodehamel is determined to downplay or obfuscate religion in Washington’s life. For example, he spends considerable time dismissing (again, probably rightly) the idea that Washington ended his presidential oath with “So help me God.” Washington was too much a constitutional “literalist” to have done so. But Rhodehamel fails to mention that Washington placed his hand on a Bible (on loan from a Masonic Lodge!) when he swore the oath. That’s not prescribed by the Constitution, either, but it was probably of more significance than whether he said “so help me God.” At least Rhodehamel concedes that church bells rang once the oath was taken, and quotes (again without comment) Washington’s invocation of the “sacred fire of liberty” in his inaugural address.

Here, Kidd admits that Rhodehamel’s dismissive notion that Washington ended his presidential oath with “So help me God,” is “probably right.” However, then Kidd continues with “[b]ut Rhodehamel fails to mention that Washington placed his hand on a Bible,” which he feels “was probably of more significance than whether he said “so help me God.” But, the problem here is that no knows exactly why a Bible was included as part of the inaugural ceremony as conducted by New York Chancellor Robert R. Livingston. Using the Bible is definitely not prescribed by the United States Constitution, but including a Bible in a sworn oath as administered by Livingston was definitely in keeping with New York State legislation as spelled out by the “usual mode of administering oaths.” 

Furthermore, when it came to Washington’s second inauguration, and for all of the following presidential inaugurations, with the exception of Andrew Jackson, up to James Polk the significance of the Bible doesn’t show itself. But Kidd gives short shrift to that part of our inaugural history.

A Return Visit to NPS Federal Hall

Three years ago on President's Day, February 17, 2014, I posted a President's Say Special - New Mental Gymnastics Camp Opens at NPS Federal Hall. This President's Day provides a good time for a return visit.

The reason for my return visit is an online copy of a 7/17/2014 letter from Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), Staff Attorney, Andrew L. Seidel to  Superintendent, Federal Hall Memorial, Shirley McKinney (see here).

In the letter Andrew Seidel describes a trip to lower Manhattan during which time he visited Federal Hall along with several other historic sites. At this point in his letter, he comments, "I was surprised to see painted on one wall a transcript of Washington's presidential oath featuring the words "So help me God" below the date, April 30, 1789. (In the letter, Page 5, shows a picture of the Washington Inaugural Exhibit.)

Here's another view - source: Art Institute of Chicago.)

Seidel's letter continues by stating his objections regarding the Washington's alleged use of a non-constitutional religious phrase. 

On 1/30/2015 NPS Shirley McKinney responded with a letter. Here's a major portion:

It is clear that there is some question whether Washington added "So Help Me God" to the inaugural oath prescribed in the Constitution.  The few written eyewitness accounts do not mention it. However the phrase "So Help Me God" was included when swearing oaths required in the courts, the military, and other public offices and was an accepted part of such solemn commitments at the time. Indeed, since it was in widespread use it may have passed without comment by eyewitnesses.

dot - dot - dot 

President Washington is known to have taken the inaugural oath with his hand upon a Bible, and kissed it afterward. It seems likely as not that he added the phrase "So Help Me God." However, it also appears that there is no conclusive evidence available at this time to settle the question of his use of the phrase at this inauguration.

Now, while McKinney prefers to say, "there is no conclusive evidence ... to settle the question," the fundamental problem for those who visit Federal Hall is they are not made aware that the Washington Inaugural Exhibit is just another display of mental gymnastics.

Update:

On Feb 21, 2017, at 8:46 AM, [NPS Superintendent] McKinney, Shirley  wrote: 

Dear Mr. Soller, 

Please accept my sincere apology for not responding to your February 16, 2017 inquiry sooner.  The National Park Service takes pride in offering factual and historic interpretive information to our constituents and I thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.   

I've attached the National Park Service's January 17, 2014 response to your similiar inquiry related to information on our Federal Hall website.  In our response to you we agreed to delete the erroneous statement.  Unfortunately, back in 2014, after Mr. Laise retired, park staff failed to make the connection to the exhibit and and did not correct it as well.  However, we are in the process of replacing the exhibit panel and a temporary disclaimer sign has been installed to inform our visitors of this error until the updated exhibit panel is refabricated and installed.  

Thank you again for your interest in the National Park Service, specifically Federal Hall National Memorial.  

Update:

On March 26, 2025, at 3:14 P.M., [Chief of Staff NPS Chief of Staff] Kimtonia McClean wrote:

Good morning Mr. Soller,

On behalf of Superintendent McKinney we apologize. Although the disclaimer was created in 2017, we discovered it was not in position next to the panel. We have corrected that and ... it is now in place (see photo). Though the disclaimer was created, the exhibit panel was not updated due to lack of funds.

In regard [to the concerns you have raised], a thorough review was conducted of interpretive information presented by park rangers to ensure that accurate information is shared with park visitors.

Thank you for your interest in Federal Hall and the National Park Service. Should you have additional concerns please free to reach out directly to me.

Noah Feldman Responds to a Ray Soller E-mail

This is the September 6, 2015 e-mail Ray Soller sent to BloombergView columnist, Noah Feldman, to which he referred in his 9/11/2015 column, What ‘So Help Me God’ Meant to George Washington.

Dear Prof. Feldman,

 In your 9/3/2015 BlombergView article [What the Oath of Office Means to a Kentucky Clerk] you wrote:

Of course, the oath of office prescribed by the U.S. Constitution doesn’t include those words [So help me God]. George Washington famously added them after taking the oath of office as president, and  tradition has maintained them.

 dot - dot - dot

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with doing like Washington and adding God to the oath. But the key point is that doing so is a personal decision -- not an official or professional one. And the consequence of that distinction is all-important.

 It would have been a big help to your article, if you had been aware that GW did not add a religious tagline to the end of his presidential oath. Please check out the article, “So help Me God”: A George Washington Myth That Should be Discarded, by Peter Henriques. 

Chester A. Arthur is the first president who is reliably known to have inflated his oath of office by the four extra-constitutional, non-biblical  words, “So help me God.” Herbert Hoover is the last president who is known not to have uttered them. It’s only since FDR’s 1933 inauguration  that tradition has maintained them as a part of each following inaugural ceremony.

Even when it comes to whether Washington swore his oath on a Bible as a matter of personal choice that can’t be ascertained with any assurance, because no one knows exactly why a Bible was included as part of our first president’s inaugural ceremony on April 30, 1789. We do know that Chancellor Robert Livingston administered Washington’s oath of office in a manner that was completely consistent with the New York State Usual Mode of Administering an Oath. (In contrast, from what we know, a Bible was neither planned for nor included at GW’s second inauguration.)

At first Noah Feldman responded with an ever-so-short message that said, “Thank you for this reference. – NRF”

Soon after, on 9/11/2015, NRF posted another column to the internet that led off with the ambitious title, What ‘So Help Me God’ Meant to George Washington. The first paragraph mentions my 9/6/2015 e-mail and gets to the point by saying:

Did George Washington add the words “so help me God” to the constitutionally prescribed oath of office when he was sworn in as president on April 30, 1789? I’ve always thought so, and when discussing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis’s misinterpretation of her oath of office last week, I wrote that the U.S. Constitution doesn't include the words but that Washington “famously added them.” Immediately I received an e-mail [from American Creation blogger, Ray Soller,] citing an essay [by Peter Henriques] that claims this widely held view was in fact a myth, unsubstantiated by contemporary historical evidence and derived from a doubtful childhood memory by Washington Irving. I read the essay, and then found counterarguments [mainly by David Barton] on the web and in a good old-fashioned book [by Forrest Church].

For those who care to look at a critique of the David Barton argument see here, and for those who care to pursue an examination of the old-fashioned “book,” So help me God, The First Great Battle - Appendix by Forrest Church see here.

NRF then, very lawyer like, cherry-picks through the internet to answer the question, So what is the truth?, regarding whether GW said SHMG. To no surprise NRF comes up with this meandering conclusion:

Given this context [concerning how oaths were presumably administered during Washington’s lifetime], it seems more likely than not both that Washington, who was no Quaker, and swore rather than affirming, would have added the words in his oath, and that the fact wouldn't have been especially noteworthy. Conceivably, however, he didn’t say them -- although given the 18th century context, you’d think that the omission would have been noteworthy as well.

There are, unfortunately, two serious gaffs that occur in the effort to support his conclusion, mainly:

·      The statement, “Such a kiss [as occurred at GW’s 1^st inaugural ceremony] was a ritual that at the time generally accompanied the saying of ‘so help me God,’” is unsubstantiated. Outside of references to English coronation ceremonies, and Masonic ritual, I am not aware of any state that administered an oath of office to a public official by having the oath-taker both kiss the Bible and pronounce the words “So help me God.” In the particular case of New York State statute, there was only one of two possibilities, where 1) a person would swear (there was no affirm option) by the usual “book-oath” method, that is by placing one’s hand on the Bible and kissing it at the conclusion of the oath, or, 2) provided the oath-taker was a person who held “conscientious scruples,” that person could, with uplifted hand, “swear by the everliving God.” The notion that so help me God  “generally accompanied” a book-oath does not hold up.

·      In the way of an afterthought, NRF quotes a line from Washington’s Farewell Address as saying, “Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths”? This line, as presented, has been edited without any notice to the reader. Instead, the quote, as cited, should be completed to include the clause, “which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice.” In this instance, President Washington is not trying to promote a comprehensive endorsement of  a religious codicil. He is, however, validating his signature of the Judiciary Act of 1789 on September 24, which contrasted with “The First Act of the First Congress” --signed into law by him on June 1, 1789— where the congressional oath, without a religious codicil, simply reads: “I, A.B. do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”

Most seriously, NRF is asking the wrong question. He, instead, should be asking, “What the presidential oath of office meant to George Washington”? That question can be answered succinctly by reading Washington’s second inaugural address.

Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.

New Jersey Judge Cites Bogus History

On February 7, 2016, a day after New Jersey Superior Court Judge David F. Bauman dismissed the case against using the words “under God” as part of schoolchildren reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, a Forbes sponsored article, Judge Refuses to Kick God Out of Public Schools, by Maureen Sullivan appeared online.

There, in Sullivan’s article, the author quotes Judge Bauman as having written the following [see here for his complete ruling] :

As a matter of historical tradition, the words “under God” can be no more be expunged from the national consciousness than the words “In God We Trust” from every coin in the land, than the words “so help me God” from every presidential oath since 1789, or than prayer that has opened every congressional session of legislative business since 1787.

This statement shows that Judge Bauman is not a competent scholar of our national “historical tradition.” In particular, his reference to “so help me God,” is simply not supported by the historical record.

Consider, less than ten days later, the History News Network posted an article, ”So Help Me God” and the Presidential Oath, by Kennesaw State University History Professor David B. Parker. In contrast to the relatively uninformed New Jersey Superior Court Judge, Professor Parker wrote:

Recently, we’ve seen another version of the “So help me God” story: not just that George Washington said it in 1789, but that every president added it to the oath of office. We know that the claim for Washington is problematic, and as it turns out, we have no convincing contemporary evidence that any president said “so help me God” until September 1881, when Chester A. Arthur took the oath after the death of James Garfield. William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Roosevelt said “so help me God,” as has every president since then. But before 1933, we have good evidence for only four (of thirty-one). So the assertion that every president said “so help me God” might be generously described as “unproven.”

The fact is that starting with George Washington most presidents are not reliably known to have added a religious codicil to the presidential oath as prescribed by the Constitution, Article II, Section 1.8. Furthermore, it’s only since March 4, 1933, the date FDR’s first inauguration, that every president has inflated the presidential oath by four words.

Judge Bauman should wake up and realize that when it comes to expunging “so help me God” from the national consciousness, it’s more a matter of separating national folklore from historical fact. And even when it comes to the appearance of “In God We Trust” “on every coin in the land” (read here for the full story), or “prayer that has opened every congressional session of legislative business since 1787” (read here for the full story of what happened at the 1787 Constitutional Convention), he still doesn’t get all of his facts straight.

David Parker Conducts a Case Study in American Myth-making

The Fall-2014 issue of Common Place, the online journal of the American Antiquarian Society, has posted an interesting piece with the title, In Griswold We Trust, by Kennesaw State University History Professor David Parker.  

Here is how the article starts off:

On April 30, 1789, George Washington was inaugurated as the nation's first president. According to the traditional story, he added "so help me God" to the words of the oath prescribed by the Constitution. However, that "traditional story" goes back only to 1854, when Rufus Griswold included it in a book titled The Republican Court. Griswold's story caught on, and by the 1860s, "so help me God" had appeared in dozens of other biographies of Washington and was well on its way to becoming the accepted account. Until the last decade or so, Washington's "so help me God" was as true as anything else in our history.

 This essay is not another tirade in what sometimes threatens to become a tedious debate over "Did he say it?" Rather, it simply describes how a story first told sixty-five years after the fact became entrenched in America's public memory; it uses "so help me God" as a case study of American myth-making.

Continue reading here.

A 2/15/2016 follow-up article can be seen here.

"So Help Me God" Has a Complicated History in Military Oaths

Earlier this month, over at the Americans United website, Simon Brown wrote an article, Oath Offense? The Long Complicated History of SHMG In The Military. It’s basically a good article except for one missing detail, where the author simply writes:

That same month [of 1778, on 3 February] , the Continental Congress  [repealed the previous oath of 21 Oct. 1776, and] once again made minor changes to the oath for officers – but kept “so help me God.”

To see more about these “minor changes,”  here is the Oath of Allegiance, as presented by the U.S. Army Center of Military History website, Oaths of Enlistment and Oaths of Office,  to which the author, and many others, most commonly refer:

The revised version, voted 3 February 1778, read "I, _____ do acknowledge the United States of America to be free, independent and sovereign states, and declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obedience, to George the third, king of Great Britain; and I renounce, refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him: and I do swear (or affirm) that I will, to the utmost of my power, support, maintain and defend the said United States, against the said king George the third and his heirs and successors, and his and their abettors, assistants and adherents, and will serve the said United States in the office of _____ which I now hold, with fidelity, according to the best of my skill and understanding. So help me God."

The missing detail, I’m talking about, is the fact that the religious codicil, so help me God, which appeared in the original version, does not  fall within the delimiting pair of quote marks. It actually followed the last quote mark. The U.S. Army Center of Military History website got it wrong.

 A copy of the original legislation can be seen  here, and here. Another instance, written in longhand, can be seen at  the Public Papers of George Clinton, First Governor of New York, 1777-1795, 1801 ..., pgs, 703-707.

If this pair of quixotic quote marks was all there was to notice, this rarely noticed detail could easily be overlooked, There is, however, much more to the story that needs to be told, because three months later the Continental Army under the Command of General Washington, without any explanation, left out the so-help-me-God tagline from the Officers' Oath. This can be seen by referring to the General Orders of General Washington of May 7, 1778, and the oath certificates that were distributed to the field. Another reference can be seen at the National Archives - Founder Online webpage - Lieutenant Colonel and his Aide De Camp to His Excellency The Commander in Chief (see handwritten version by clicking on IMAGES).

And here, to add a note of emphasis, is the image of the May 12th, 1778, oath certificate as signed by George Washington where the So-help-me-God tagline is absent:

Sidebar: The Feb. 3rd, 1778 Loyalty Oath and Veteran benefits:

Harold M. Hyman - To Try Men's Souls, Loyalty Tests in American History 

Ch. III - Insurrection Becomes Independence, pgs 82 - 83

Early in February, 1778, [the Continental] Congress agreed to a new loyalty test for all federal civil and military officers to swear:

"I --------- do acknowledge the United States of America to be free, independent and sovereign states, [dot – dot – dot].”

Since Congress particularly feared treason in high military office (eleven of the twelve generals had formerly held royal commissions, and three were English-born Royal Army veterans) it required that nonjurors be cashiered, forfeit two months' pay, and face perpetual exclusion from government service. Optimistically, Congress required all officers to subscribe the new test within twenty days of its proclamation. Washington had more pressing martial duties. Only after repeated importunities from Congress, and the threat of restricting post-war pensions  to those who signed immediately, did Washington finally sign the new oath himself and arranged for his subordinate officers to affirm their loyalty. Washington assembled his generals and all signed except the unpredictable Charles Lee, who hesitated at renouncing the Prince of Wales. Lee finally signed. Benedict Arnold was absent, but signed later.

The spring months of 1778 witnessed successive swearing ceremonies at Washington's belated but urgent orders impelled subordinate officers to repeat the new formula of loyalty. In fact, the process went too quickly, and supplies of the oath forms ran out. Special messengers hurried new stocks to Washington's headquarters a half-dozen times and still could not keep up with the demand. Other administrative complications ensued because of deficient camp communications to men on leave, in scattered outposts, or in hospitals. Washington appointed special officers in his provost corps to travel from Canada to Georgia administering the oaths, so none of his officers should incur the financial penalties of innocent nonjuring. The momentous events then occurring made loyalty-testing a requirement a vexatious, time-consuming detail.