"Sedition and the End of America's First Political Party"

A few paragraphs from Craig Evan Klafter's essay at AmSpec. The full essay compares it to our current crisis, and is worth reading in context and in full.

Sedition first reared its head in American legislation in 1798. The Sedition Act (An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States; ch. 74, 1 Stat. 596) made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials. It was enacted July 14, 1798 by a Federalist controlled administration and Congress, with an expiration date of March 3, 1801 (the day before John Adams' presidential term was to end). The Democratic-Republican opposition, led by Vice President Thomas Jefferson, denounced the Act as contrary to the First and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, claiming that it was designed to stifle criticism of the administration and infringed on the right of the states to enact and enforce laws against defamation.

The Sedition Act was never appealed to the Supreme Court for review, although individual Supreme Court Justices, sitting in circuit, heard many of the cases prosecuting opponents of the Federalists. For example, Justice Samuel Chase (a staunch Federalist) heard a case against David Brown in 1798. Brown led a group in Dedham, Massachusetts, in constructing a "liberty pole" with the words, "No Stamp Act, No Sedition Act, No Alien Bills, No Land Tax, downfall to the Tyrants of America; peace and retirement to the President [Federalist John Adams]; Long Live the Vice President [Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson]." Brown was tried in Salem, Massachusetts, and attempted to plead guilty, but Justice Chase would not permit him, wanting him to name those who supported him. Brown refused, was fined $480, and sentenced to eighteen months in prison. In total, twenty-five people, primarily prominent newspaper editors, were arrested pursuant to the Act. Of them, ten were convicted of sedition, often in trials before openly partisan Federalist judges.

Although the Sedition Act expired (the day before the end of President Adams' term) before its constitutionality could be directly challenged, subsequent Supreme Court opinions have assumed its unconstitutionality.

...


Federalists hoped the Sedition Act would stifle political opposition, but many Democratic-Republicans still criticized the Federalists and made the Act a key election issue in 1800. That election resulted in the "Revolution of 1800" -- a landslide victory by Thomas Jefferson and in Federalists at all levels of government being turned out of office. The attempt to muffle criticism also later contributed to the demise of the Federalist Party. Congress repeatedly apologized for, and voted compensation to victims of, the enforcement of the Sedition Act. Thomas Jefferson pardoned all of those who had been so convicted.

---Craig Evan Klafter

Balkin @ Princeton

If I have time on Wed. maybe I can fit this into my very busy schedule.

...

Jack Balkin, creator of the well-known blog Balkinization (http://balkin.blogspot.com/), will speak on “Fidelity and Flux: How We Build Our Constitution” at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 28, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall, on the Princeton University campus.

The lecture, to be deliverd as the Sixth Annual Donald S. Bernstein '75 Lecture, is free and open to the public and is sponsored by Princeton University's Program in Law and Public Affairs.

“When we interpret the U.S. Constitution, the opposition between originalism and living constitutionalism is a false dichotomy; understanding why the best versions of these positions are compatible helps us understand how legitimate constitutional change occurs over time,” said Balkin, the Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. “Constitutional fidelity is grounded on faith: faith in the constitutional project, and faith that the constitutional system as a whole is worthy of our respect or will come to be so over time, even if important aspects today are imperfect and unjust. Interpretive fidelity requires faith in the redeemability of the Constitution over time.”

...

Dale Coulter on the Founders' Non-Sectarianism

He is a professor of divinity at Regent University. Yet, I have a hard time finding anything to disagree with in the following assertion of his:

At their best, the founders conceived of a separation in which no sectarian position gained the upper hand, and that is what has resulted. In a living, breathing body politic this means that all sectarian positions must have their say. The govt. does not endorse any single one because it implicitly endorses all of them, including the atheist, precisely by endorsing religious liberty or liberty of conscience, and grounding that liberty in human nature itself, which precedes any social compact. The atheist has to make room for a Muslim in the same way that a Baptist has to make room for a Catholic, etc. This means that the atheist must put up with religious language or activities as part of govt. events in the same way that Catholics have to put up with Baptists praying the inaugural prayer, etc., etc.

Competing Traditions & Abstract Ideals that Trump Dominant Historical Practice

"A federal judge in Wisconsin declared Thursday that the US law authorizing a National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional," the Christian Science Monitor reports. Eugene Volokh discussed it here. And Joe Carter/First Things discussed it here.

Francis Beckwith commented there:

... What is interesting about Crabb’s opinion is that it treats anti-establishment as a highly abstract principle about which history has no bearing. It would be like interpreting the public park prohibition–”No vehicles allowed”–as including Big Wheels and baby carriages without any reference to common practice or the meaning understood by the city council that passed the ordinance.

Ahistorical jurisprudence is an oxymoron.

Well, I don't quite see it that way. And I don't see the Michael Newdow types as flying in from Mars and arguing principles that have nothing to do with the Founding. To the contrary, Newdow quotes the Founders (accurately and in the proper spirit) quite a bit.

Bear with me one bit for why.

I noted in the comments sometimes the broadly abstracted ideals of the Founding era must trump dominant historical practice.

If we interpret what the Founders SAID in their broad rhetoric through what they DID, in practice, one could rightly argue what America was all about is granting equal liberty rights to white propertied Protestant males.

That's what Barry Shain (paleoconservative) argues along with the anti-American Left.

It's impossible for the American Founding to take the moral high ground if America was all about privileging white propertied Protestant males. And the only way out of that dilemma is to abstract ideals from the Founding that sometimes trump dominant historical practice.

Professor Dale Coulter interestingly noted there was much anti-slavery rhetoric during the American Founding and that anti-slavery sentiment and practice was a viable competing tradition, along with pro-slavery sentiment and practice.

Therefore we use our reason and other supplementary principles to decide among competing historical traditions.

Likewise with religion, there were competing traditions during the American Founding. One tradition held only certain kinds of belief are entitled to full liberty and equality rights (I'm hesitant to say "Protestant only" because each state had its own varied way of deciding who got what rights). The other held religious rights applied universally to all citizens.

That brings us to what Michael Newdow argues: “Hey we atheists are citizens too, entitled to equal respect.”

And I agree with them in that regard. However, I just don’t agree that government words really harm them in such a tangible way that it necessarily rises to the level of an individual constitutional right to be free from hearing or seeing government messages that make them feel like unequal citizens.

But without question, much of Newdow's rhetoric resonates with much of what was said during the Founding era, especially James Madison whom Newdow often quotes.

And I'm glad to see Professor Coulter agreed, in principle, with the latter, broader more generous tradition of the American Founding that holds everyone's conscience, including that of the atheist deserves equal respect.

The harder questions are how to get there in a 1) constitutional and 2) policy sense (the two aren't always supposed to be the same).

Do we need a naked public square where the state is always silent on religious beliefs? Or perhaps a more open pluralistic public square where the state, in its public supplications, sometimes says things that you or I agree with, sometimes not.

I'm willing to endorse the latter position as long as its understood that if the pious Christians get the state chaplain microphone, sometimes the Hindus and the atheists get it too.

And I think that pluralism perfectly "fits" with the ideals of the American Founding.

Top Four Founding Fathers

My own personal take on the question of who the greatest Founding Fathers were.  I'm not making any objective statement here, just expressing my own view -- although I do think that my view is right!  Anyway, here's the list, in order of importance:

1)  George Washington.  I know, I know, everybody lists Washington first.  But you know what, he should be at the top of everybody's list.  And for this reason:  he was the indispensable man from the beginning of the Revolution until his death.  From commanding the American army, to presiding over the Constitutional Convention, to being the first president under that Constitution, to stepping away from power when he did, Washington was the only man who could have done what he did.  As Franklin once commented, Washington was "always the tallest man in the room."  True, enough, both physically and in terms of character.

2)  John Adams.  Why is Adams this high on the list?  Is it because of his impassioned defense of American liberty during the run up to the American Revolution?  No.  Is it because of his efforts to secure recognition and financing for the young republic as a diplomat in Europe?  No.  It is because of his actions as the second president, showing that he would stand up to those within his own political party who sought to further narrow interests at the expense of the nation?  Close, but not quite.

Here's why he is the second most important Founder:  he lost his re-election bid for the presidency and (here's the important part) he went home.  He didn't try to fix the election.  He didn't try to throw it into the House of Representatives to damage his political opponents.  He didn't try to hold on to power at the expense of constitutional fidelity.

He went home.  Like Washington, his commitment to the republic transcended a desire for power.  Adams was a deeply flawed man, and his presidency was problematic in serious ways.  But in the end, he got the most important thing right:  service to the nation, rather than to himself.  For all his vanity and ambition, he got that right.  And he went home.  For that, he's the second most important Founding Father.

3)  Alexander Hamilton.  Gordon Wood to the contrary, Hamilton was a great man and it is thanks to him that the United States developed the governmental structures that enabled it to survive and thrive in a world where our future was far from secure.  In a world surrounded by old and established empires, far larger than the United States and ready to prey upon the new republic, Hamilton worked to establish the financial and political resources within the country to enable it to grow and prosper as an independent nation in the rapidly industrializing West.  Hamilton's life was ended early, but even with Aaron Burr's cowardly shot cutting him down before his time, Hamilton's efforts to stabilize the American republic earns him a spot in the pantheon of Founders.

It is to be hoped that some very talented and famous biographer will come along and do for Hamilton what David McCollough did for John Adams.

4)  Thomas Jefferson.  I don't like him.  I don't like reading things that he wrote.  I don't like how he lived his life.  I don't like how he treated his slaves.  I don't like his hypocrisy involving:   slavery, his affair with Sally Hemmings, his fulminations against debt while wallowing in financial insolvency, his devious and snarling animosity to Hamilton, Adams and even Washington.  I don't like his Francophilia, his anarchic Jacobinism, his embrace of the French Revolution while simultaneously defending the privileged position of the Southern squirarchy.  I don't like his rationalist deism, his cut and paste version of the New Testament, his anti-Catholicism, his impoverished understanding of the religious roots of Western civilization.  I.  Don't.  Like.  Him.

So, why is he on my list?  Simple.  He's the guy that made America a continental and global power.  Despite his own political rhetoric, his own animosity to Federalist policy, his own localist dogma, and his personal repulsiveness, he built on the legacies of Washington, Adams and Hamilton to build, in his own words, "an Empire of Liberty."

The Louisiana Purchase took the United States from a regional power, barely able to hold on to the Northwest Territory, and made it a solid continental player.  The Lewis and Clark Expedition archored this continental presence even more firmly into place, while at the same time fostering naturalist studies in the American West.  His determination to stand up to the Barbary Corsairs showed that the United States had the capacity for global power projection via its naval forces.   He shaped our nation in ways that fundamentally changed who we were and are.

But I still don't like him.

On the lighter side

President George Washington racks up $300,000 late fee for two Manhattan library books

BY Rich Schapiro
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, April 17th 2010, 4:00 AM

He may have never told a lie, but George Washington apparently had no problem stiffing a Manhattan library on two books.

Two centuries ago, the nation's first President borrowed two tomes from the New York Society Library on E. 79th St. and never returned them, racking up an inflation-adjusted $300,000 late fee.

But Washington can rest easy.

"We're not actively pursuing the overdue fines," quipped head librarian Mark Bartlett. "But we would be very happy if we were able to get the books back."

Washington's dastardly deed went unknown for almost 150 years.

Then in 1934, a dusty, beaten-up ledger was discovered in a trash heap in the library's basement.

On its tan pages were the names of all of the people who had borrowed books from the city's oldest library between July 1789 and April 1792.

At the time, the city was the nation's capital and the library - then located at Wall and Broad Sts. - was the only one in town.

Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay all borrowed books, the ledger shows.

They returned them, too.

The library's boldest bold-faced name wasn't as cooperative.

On Oct. 5, 1789, Washington borrowed the "Law of Nations," a treatise on international relations, and Vol. 12 of the "Commons Debates," which contained transcripts of debates from Britain's House of Commons.

Beside the names of the books, the librarian wrote on the ledger only, "President."

The entry, written with a quill pen, contains no return date.

The books were due by Nov. 2, 1789, and have been accruing a fine of a few pennies per day ever since.

This week, Bartlett and his staff became even more convinced the books were filched when librarian Matthew Haugen stumbled upon the long lost 14-volume collection of the "Commons Debates."

Sure enough, Vol. 12 was missing.

"It's hard to know what could have happened," Bartlett said. "There are as many questions for us as there are answers."

Jesus, Cato, & Caesar

Well, I've facilitated discussions on Romans 13 and the American Founding that have almost beaten the horse to death. I've little dealt with Mark 12:17, where Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. ..."

Let's do so now. The passage, like many of Jesus' sayings, has specific and broader meanings. In the specific sense, Jesus recognized Caesar's temporal governmental authority over Him and His followers. In a broader sense, believers are to be subject to the civil government, pay their taxes and so on. And because the civil government Jesus recognized was that of pagan imperial Rome, logic instructs Jesus advanced institutional separation of church and state, where Christians can live under a "state" that is a pagan and un-godly entity as was Caesar's.

This parallels Romans 13 as I understand it. Most biblical scholars agree that the higher power St. Paul instructed believers to submit to -- in the literal instance, the specific example ordained by God -- was the pagan psychopath Nero.

In a symbolic sense, that would set a very low standard for "rulers" to meet in order to properly maintain their Romans 13 power.

Now, I've heard some orthodox believers argue Paul really wasn't telling believers to submit to Nero but rather to some ideal "godly" government because he said "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil," and that they are "minister[s] of God to thee for good." As such, Nero or any tyrannical ruler wouldn't qualify.

But, when one puts Romans 13 together with Mark 12:17 that interpretation seems less biblically sound. In the latter, Jesus recognizes the civil legitimacy of an imperial pagan entity, arguably a tyranny. (By this time Rome ceased being a "republic" and was now an "empire.")

When the American Founders posited the notion "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," because they operated in a general Christian context, they had to deal with the Bible.

That notion is not "biblical." Whether it's "anti-biblical" (something the Bible forbids) or "a-biblical" (something the Bible doesn't teach, but doesn't necessarily forbid) is debatable. What's not debatable, in my very learned opinion, is the notion "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," however nice it sounds, is NOT what the Bible teaches.

With Romans 13, while most of the "key Founders" ignored it (it ended up, with all of Paul's words, on Jefferson's cutting room floor), to satisfy the public (who may have been more concerned with the Bible) ministers like Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel West offered "reasoned" explanations for why Romans 13, properly understood, didn't forbid revolt against tyranny.

But the Founders still had Jesus to deal with on government. And, unfortunately for them, Jesus' words offered no satisfaction for their plans on how to deal with tyrannical rulers. Indeed Gouvernor Morris lamented to George Washington the insufficiency of Jesus' words in this respect.

However, Jesus did inspire them. Whether they were orthodox Christians, Arians or Socinians, they thought Jesus the "best person," regardless of whether He (or he) was 2nd person in the Trinity or simply a man on a mission from God to save us through his (not His) perfect moral example. Jesus always did the right thing. So on how to conduct your personal affairs, follow Jesus.

George Washington's 1783 Circular to the States (not written by GW, but given under his imprimatur) "dispose[d] us ... to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."

But there was a figure (how much of his example was actual history, how much literary embellishment, I do not know) who, unlike Jesus, did rebel against tyranny. In fact, a contemporary of Jesus, he rebelled against the same tyranny to which Jesus submitted: Cato the Younger. He purportedly committed suicide (not a very Christian act) rather than submit to the tyranny of Caesar. He was, as it were, the last of the Roman republicans, after Rome transformed into an empire.

It was Joseph Addison's tragedy Cato that inspired the American Founders. Washington had this play performed for his "Christian" troops to inspire them.

Of course, if Jesus's words offered support for what Washington and the others did against the British they would have been used. But, alas, they didn't. So the Roman Stoic Cato filled in.

Everything old is new again, part 1

That phrase comes to mind when pondering this op-ed:  Congress Becomes Madison's "Overbearing Majority."  (Hat tip to Instapundit.)

Why This Site is So Important and Now is Our Time

I left the following comment at "Daily Paul" in response to this post. Some of this is my personal political views and not so germane to the vision of this site but please read through to see the overall point I make and how that point is germane. Here it is:

"The principle of federalism is what we are fighting to restore not "states rights" and certainly not the Confederacy. Madison spoke plainly in Federalist 28 that both state and national governments can usurp individual rights. Thus, one was to balance the other. State sovereignty is not and never was absolute. It was a check put into the system to protect individual liberty.

Statements such as the following puke all over an otherwise exciting post:

'Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again.'

I fully understand that Lincoln never intended to free the slaves and that the South had good reason to want to suceed from the North when the North's economy collapsed and it began more profitable for the southern states to trade with Europe. As they did this the North levied unjust tariffs. In reply the South left.

With that stated, the southern elite planting class stood to lose out if the abolitionists had their way. There was also ample motive to exaggerate things when John Brown tried to start an army to free the slaves and strike fear into south. Above all they wanted to keep the plantation system alive. Slavery was the way to do it.

In the end it was mostly a battle about economic philosophy that started with Hamilton and Jefferson. Hamilton was right about the coming Industrial Revolution and Jefferson was right about opposing Merchantilism. Both were wrong to in that Hamilton wanted to rig things for the British style merchantilist debtor economy and Jefferson ingnored the second wave Industrial age to our peril.

How about a progressive and modern view with respect for localism and free markets? Would that have been the answer? In the 1780's or 1860's? How about now?

The Tea Party worries me because Obama's vision of modernity has a lot of truth in it. His corporatist bent is what messes it up. But when we throw out the baby with the bathwater and ignore the nuances of history we do it to our own peril.

So not beat your chest about the "Constitution" unless you not only carry it around and read it but seek to understand the context in which it was written. It is also important to study the 500 years of the evolution of certain ideas that led to it.

As far as the Christian aspect I think many that spout off Confederate leanings ignore that Locke's basis for rights was for inalienable rights because man is valuable because he is made in the image of God. Love of neighbor and self out of reverance for the image of God. Slavery violated this and talk of the rising "south" and using Confederate money revives ideas that violate this principle.

Please heed this warning or Ron Paul's current dead tie with Obama for 2012 that was seen in the Rasmussen poll today will evaporate as he is called a racist and the charges of racist rantings under his newsletter come up again. When people come on sites like these it will be used for ammo and at times rightly so with comments like the one above."

I then summarized what we discuss here and linked our site.  I am not sure if we at American Creation realize the moment we are in where what we discuss here everyday has the potential to impact what seems to be a national dialogue about the founding, what it meant, and what is relevant for today?  No matter your political leanings this has to excite all involved here. Let's get out there and add to the discussion what we have learned here. Much of what I wrote above was birthed in our discussions here.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense, as heard by the American Colonists

by Tom Van Dyke

Our American Creation blog has entirely changed my viewpoint about religion and the Founding. I thought they were all deists or something, because that's how I was educated.

Reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense now, I'm simply amazed at how much religion is in it, and how much our discussions at American Creation have opened my ears to what he was actually saying, beginning to understand the language of the Founders as they heard it themselves. Thanks to all here gathered.

Without further ado-doo, ladies and gentlemen, excerpts from Thomas Paine's Common Sense with commentary, the short and full text available here:

HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision which the [British] constitution makes [empowering Parliament---TVD] supposes such a power to exist.

Not an argument that John Calvin would have liked, but clearly addressing in the negative the Divine Right of Kings and Romans 13 ["Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers"]. No argument for the Revolution could be made without addressing this great Biblical theological problem.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology there were no kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion...Antiquity favours the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first Patriarchs have a snappy something in them, which vanishes when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom...

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty as declared by Gideon, and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by Kings...

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to.

Before Paine attends to that, he makes a Biblical argument for a republic, the sort of thing you only hear from hardcore "Christian Nation" fundamentalists, but Paine doesn't miss a trick:

Near three thousand years passed away, from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of Republic, administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts.

Then Paine goes on [at great length] to explain that in the Book of Judges, how Gideon refuses the Israelites' offer of their crown after his great military victory [Judges 8, King James Version], replying [all CAPS are Paine's]:

"I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU." Words need not be more explicit: Gideon doth not decline the honour, but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive style of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sovereign, the King of Heaven.

and of the First Book of Samuel

"But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a King to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM."

As well as a VERY long account from 1 Samuel 8 of how the king will take their sons for war and their daughters for servitude, and take a tenth of everything and

"...your fields and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shell have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY."

All in all, a convincing argument against monarchy, not only Biblical but reality, a reality that's just dawned on the colonists...

Now we all know that Paine starts to show his anti-Biblical cards in 1794 with the first part of his The Age of Reason, and believes the Bible no more than Aesop's fables. But in 1776, he's not nearly done dealing from the bottom of the deck yet to get Christian America nodding in agreement at his "Common Sense":

If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. for as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from re-assuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonourable rank! inglorious connection! yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile.

Original sin! A doctrine doubted by even the early "unitarians" of the age, a doctrine Ben Franklin felt comfortable enough denying publicly. Surely, Paine would never subscribe to such nonsense! [Or did he?]

No matter, the Founding era did, at least to the degree that they distrusted man's reason as the final arbiter of all truth.

And Paine's citation of the Biblical Adam here is no small thing: it stands directly as a refutation of PATRIARCHA OR THE NATURAL POWER OF KINGS By THE LEARNED SIR ROBERT FILMER, BART. [1680][sic], the best known defense of the British monarchy before the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which traced King James' [yes, that King James] authority back to Adam himself!

What Paine writes of here isn't abstract theologico-political abstract stuff for an elite few---to his audience, the American colonists, the disputes are well known, and what Paine writes is clearly common sense!

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.

OK, this is a cheap argument by Paine going back to 1066, but his audience is already on his side. But the illegitimacy of government by a usurper goes all the way back to Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s! And N.B.---"usurp" is used TWICE in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Surely no coincidence: the illegitimacy of usurpation had 500 years to imbed itself into Christian thought and the Western mind, contra Romans 13. It was in the theologico-political air they breathed.

For us to understand what Jefferson called the "American mind"---what he claimed he was only setting down on paper in drafting the Declaration---we need to be familiar with the air they breathed. Probably a disappointing fraction of Americans today could even define "usurp," but the American Mind knew well what it meant in 1776, or Jefferson wouldn't have used it twice in the same paragraph, and neither would Paine have gone there.

The first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England are descendants from the same country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

That's a pretty funny reductio ad absurdum, and definitely kicks Filmer's Patriarcha to the curb. Couldn't resist giving Paine his props as a comedian here.

Well, this next one is Paine's greatest whopper, since no way he believes a word of it. [Does he?] But it does tell us a lot about his audience, which is our primary historical concern:

Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the one over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise at which the Continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled, encreases the force of it. The Reformation was preceded by the discovery of America: As if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

I mean, did you get that one? The Almighty is establishing America as a refuge not merely for religious freedom blahblahblah, but as a sanctuary for Protestantism! "Natural proof," at that!

Paine could push buttons, man. He'd have a talk show these days. What network, aw, I'll leave that aside.

Almost done here on Mr. Paine's Common Sense---if you've read this far, and I've written this far, let's do the entire thing. Paine's next appeal to the Divine is pretty straightforward:

But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING.

Again, the CAPS are Paine's. He's getting a little imprecise here, either tired or wasted or just trying to finish up. God is King of America, if "reigns above" means what it appears to mean. But THE LAW IS KING, too. And even if the colonists never actually read it, surely they'd heard the title of Samuel Rutherford's 1644 Calvinist tract, Lex, Rex and pretty much got the gist of it from the title. Not only isn't the King the law, but Rutherford's already on to the minimization of the leviathan of government.

Paine's appropriation of THE LAW IS KING likely carried to its audience more than just its rhetorical face value, it brought echoes upon echoes with it: Britain's Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, the better part of a century of political strife; the Calvinist theology that powered not only the Scottish Covenenters but the Presbyterians in America whom King George blamed for the revolution itself; the refutation of the Divine Right of Kings, as well as Rutherford's own thoughts on minimalist government itself.

"Lex, Rex" was a powerful term, and well-known; that's probably why Paine put its English translation of it in CAPS, confident his readers knew what he was talking about and its echoes too.

Hey, it's not as though ALL of Paine's arguments are theological. He abandons that tack at the 2/3 mark of "Common Sense," having established the righteousness of the cause, through reason and Bible. He closes with a generic call for liberty, and cites the rest of the world's [Africa and Asia's] rejection of Europe as oppressors and all-around nogoodniks.

In the last third, as a practical matter, Paine argues how and why the American revolution can succeed---and he was wrong about building an American navy, but right that the French would only help us if we split off from Britain and not reconcile with them, thereby weakening them. [And indeed it was the French navy, not an American one, that swung the showdown at Yorktown.]

Paine's "Common Sense" was a pamphlet, not a book, and can be read pretty quickly. The colonists did. And once you tune your ears to their ears, theologically and politically, it's even easier to hear. Everybody agreed, it was just common sense.

Movie review: The Crossing

Thanks to the wonders of Netflix, I just finished watching The Crossing, a dramatization of Washington's crossing of the Delaware River and attack on the Hessian troops at Trenton during the early months of the Revolutionary War.  Originally produced for television in 1999, The Crossing is a solid production.  While certainly not a movie at the same level as, for example, 1993's Gettysburg (Ted Turner's t.v. production about the epic Civil War battle), the movie was nicely paced and had a strong touch of realism to it. 

The hand-to-hand combat scenes were intense, so the movie may not be appropriate for children under the age of 13 or so.  The overall historical accuracy is very well done.  And the portrayal of Washington by the movie's star, Jeff Daniels, was extremely well done.  Daniel's portrayal of Washington demonstrated not only the general's remarkable leadership qualities, but his human qualities as well.  Daniels showed insecurity at times, defensiveness at times, grumpiness at times, and he portrayed Washington's well-known field humor quite well. The multifaceted character of Washington really shines through.

One point that the movie made plain was how young the leaders of the Revolution were.  We often think of the Founders according to their later work at the Constitutional Convention and in the politics of the early Republic, when these men were seasoned politicians and actors upon the national stage.  But during the Revolution, most of these men (with the exception of Franklin) were by modern standards young men in their 20's.  Washington himself was only 44 years old in 1776 -- something that puts the zap on my head now that I turned 40 this year!

The Crossing isn't a great movie, but it is a very good one, and it is a very accurate retelling on a critical early victory in our country's struggle for liberty.  It is well worth watching, and I think it would be an excellent movie to watch for educational purposes.  That is, so long at the viewers are at least over the age of 13.

Hail Columbia: America's Original National Anthem

And How it Illustrates the
Evolution of American Nationalism

I know I am going to catch a lot of crap for this but I'm going to say it anyway: I really don't like our national anthem that much. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty song and all and does invoke patriotism in the hearts of many. With that said, I simply dislike the fact that our nation's official anthem is nothing more than a poem commemorating a bombardment we barely survived, put to the tune of an old British drinking song. Hardly the inspiring anthem so many make it out to be! But hey, that's just me and I realize that many Americans love the song. So be it.

But whether you like "The Star-Spangled Banner" or not, everyone should recognize the fact that it doesn't have the patriotic history everyone assumes. In fact, the "original" national anthem of this fair land, which was in place from roughly the time of George Washington to FDR, was muscled out by Francis Scott Key's over-dramatic drinking song. That's right folks, the "Star-Spangled Banner" has a relatively recent history as America's national anthem; a history that illustrates the evolution of American nationalism.

Before Francis Francis Scott Key ever witnessed the "rockets' red glare" and the "bombs bursting in air" America (a name that you will see not everyone was sold on) marched to a different patriotic tune. It was "Hail Columbia" that initially served as America's unofficial but very popular anthem:

Hail Columbia, happy land!
Hail, ye heroes, heav'n-born band,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone
Enjoy'd the peace your valor won.
Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies.

Immortal patriots, rise once more,
Defend your rights, defend your shore!
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood, the well-earned prize,
While off'ring peace, sincere and just,
In Heaven's we place a manly trust,
That truth and justice will prevail,
And every scheme of bondage fail.

Behold the chief who now commands,
Once more to serve his country stands.
The rock on which the storm will break,
The rock on which the storm will break,
But armed in virtue, firm, and true,
His hopes are fixed on Heav'n and you.
When hope was sinking in dismay,
When glooms obscured Columbia's day,
His steady mind, from changes free,
Resolved on death or liberty.

Sound, sound the trump of fame,
Let Washington's great fame
Ring through the world with loud applause,
Ring through the world with loud applause,
Let ev'ry clime to freedom dear,
Listen with a joyful ear,
With equal skill, with God-like pow'r
He governs in the fearful hour
Of horrid war, or guides with ease
The happier time of honest peace.

Chorus
Firm, united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.

Now, it probably sounds strange to some when they discover that "Hail Columbia" was America's "original" anthem. After all, what does Columbia have to do with America?

Well, first off, we're not talking about the Columbia where all that lovely "mota" and cocaine come from. This Columbia is quite different. The Columbia of America's earliest generations was the female personification of her "discoverer," Christopher Columbus. Columbia's role as a symbol became obvious to all Americans. Whether she served as the title of a city, a river, a college or a monument, Columbia's role in American culture was ever-present. Much in the same way that Britannia became the female personification (and Roman goddess) of Britain, Columbia was the feminine guardian of the new American republic. In other words, she was sort of the Uncle Sam before Uncle Sam.

And Columbia's influence didn't stop with the founding. She can be seen throughout the course of America's history. From the very name of our capitol city (Washington, District of Columbia) to the very first space shuttle ever commissioned by NASA. She was present in American artwork like the one above depicting Columbia's divine protection to western settlers on their quest to secure the country's "Manifest Destiny," and she even graces the opening credits of several modern movies. Heck, many Americans have (incorrectly) suggested that she was even the inspiration for "Lady Liberty" herself. Bottom line, Columbia's role as a symbol in America's growth and development is as important (if not more so) as any other symbol of American providentialism.

Perhaps more importantly, Columbia illustrates just how complicated the concept of the American nation was for our founding generation. Contrary to what we are often let to believe, America's founding was far from a united effort where all parties saw eye-to-eye on the direction the country should go. In reality, it was a complicated mess of clashing ideas and beliefs. As historian Gordon Wood points out in his newest book Empire of Liberty, a book that is the surefire winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize (on a side note, it's worth mentioning that the Pulitzer Prize is awarded by none other than COLUMBIA University. The irony is striking):

Despite the ratification of the Constitution, most Americans knew that they were not yet a nation, at least not in the European sense of the term. At the end of the Declaration of Independence the members of the Continental Congress had been able only to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor." In 1776 there was nothing else but themselves that they could have dedicated themselves to -- no patria, no fatherland, no nation as yet.

[...]

The fact that most Americans were of British heritage and spoke the same language as the subjects of the former mother country created problems of national identity that troubled the new Republic over the next several decades. Indeed, almost to the movement of independence the colonists had continued to define themselves as British, and only reluctantly came to see themselves as a separate people called Americans. The colonists were well aware of the warning of John Dickinson, the most important pamphleteer in America before Thomas Paine, had given them on the eve of independence. "If we are separated from our mother country," he asked in 1768, "what new form of government shall we adopt, and where shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body, to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws, affection, relation, language and commerce we must bleed at every vein."

Could the colonists who had been British and who had celebrated their Britishness for generations become a truly independent people? How could one united people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, and professing the same Protestant religion differentiate themselves from the people of the mother country? These questions, perhaps more than any others, bedeviled the politics of the early decades of the new Republic's history.

If there were to be a single national people with a national character, Americans would have to invent themselves, and in some sense the whole of American history has been the story of that invention. At first, they struggled with a proper name for their country. On the tercentenary celebration of Columbus's discovery of America in 1792 one patriot suggested "The United States of Columbia" as a name for the new Republic. Poets, ranging from the female black slave Phillis Wheatley to the young Princeton graduate Phillip Freneau, saw the logic of the name and thus repeatedly referred to the nation as Columbia. With the same rhythm and number of syllables, Columbia could easily replace Britannia in new compositions set to the music of traditional English songs.

As illustrated above, early Columbians...er...Americans had a difficult time understanding what their new nation was supposed to look like. The pull of tradition from the Old World and the allure of new possibilities brought on by the Enlightenment, obscured America's sense of itself. This is the precise reason why Columbia became such a popular symbol. While so much was still up in the air, Columbia was, at the very least, the embodiment of what it truly meant to be American.

But alas, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. With the onset of nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, America's sense of itself began to change. And with that change, Columbia's presence in American culture began to fade. "Hail Columbia," which had never been made an official national anthem, found itself in a contest with other popular songs like, "My Country Tis of Thee," "America the Beautiful," and yes "The Star-Spangled Banner." Like most nations of this era, the creation of official anthems became an important component of surging nationalism, and in the United States, the "Star-Spangled Banner" was gaining ground. Thanks in large part to the attention given it a professional baseball games, the "Star-Spangled Banner" became a quasi-national tradition. Long story short, the song's popularity grew over the next thirty years, until finally in 1931 when President Hoover and Congress officially made "The Star-Spangled Banner" America's anthem. In addition, Key's suggestion that the national motto be changed from "E Pluribus Unum" (From Many, One) to "In God We Trust" (inspired from the 4th verse of his song/poem) was later accepted and made law in 1956. In short, the rise of nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries led to many of the changes we now accept as a part of the American culture.

But Columbia wasn't completely lost. Her presence, though very limited, is still around. All you have to do is look for her. And who knows, maybe she'll return one day! As for her song, "Hail Columbia," well, it went from being the unofficial anthem of a nation to the entrance song for the Vice President, in a similar fashion as "Hail to the Chief" is for the President.

And just in case you were curious, it's not that I hate "The Star-Spangled Banner." Rather, I simply believe there are better songs out there. For my money, "America the Beautiful" is the song I would select as our official anthem. Perhaps it is a personal bias, being that the song was written in my back yard, but I don't care. It simply sounds more "American" (or Columbian) than the rest. And to help prove my point I give you the one and only Ray Charles. Take us home, Ray:

Gay Species on Priestley

[I just found out that D. Stephen Heersink, aka "The Gay Species" passed away a few months ago. He was knowledgeable and spirited but also could be quite quarrelsome. I am reproducing a post of his to Positive Liberty from 2007 -- when he and PL were on better terms -- in his memory for American Creation readers.]

Gay Species tried to comment on this thread. But since Positive Liberty [had] problems with our comments section, it didn't go through. I have reproduced it here.

The Question

Unitarian or Trinitarian? Christ's Dual Natures? Is Priestly Corrupting Christianity?

The Sources of Revelation

Dei verbum: Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other . . . and make up a single deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church.

2 Th 2:15: So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.

Act 2:42: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

The Epiphany & Trinity

Matt 3:13-17: Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?' But Jesus answered him, 'Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.' Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.' (See also, Mark 1:9-11 & Luke 3:21-22)

Philippians 2:5-11:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The Logos

1 Jn 1:2-3: His life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ

Ephesians 2:18: for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Col 1:15: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;

Heb 1:1-4:Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

John 3:34: He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.

John 17:4: I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.

2 Cor 1:20: For in him every one of God's promises is a 'Yes.' For this reason it is through him that we say the 'Amen', to the glory of God.

2 Cor 3:17-18, 4:4-6: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. I n their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness', who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Ignatius of Antioch (112): There is one physican, fleshly and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, God in Man, true life in death, both of Mary and of God, first passable then impassible, Jesus Christ (Incarnation)

Processionism

Clement of Rome (100): The Apostles for our sakes received the gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent from God. Christ then is from God, and the Apostles from Christ . . . and through the Spirit they appointed their first fruits to be bishops and deacons [overseers and ministers] of them that should believe.

The Vincentian Canon (Catholicity)

Vincent of Lerins (434): Now, in the Catholic Church itself we take greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. One must compare the opinions of the Fathers and inquire of their meaning, provided always that, though they belonged to diverse times and places, they yet continued steadfast in the faith and communion of the one Catholic Church.

Conclusion

Priestly's work omits all these passages, in what can only be considered "selective" reading. The Baptism of Jesus is the Epiphany of his Divine-Human Sonship, testified by both the Father and the Holy Spirit, and becomes the Theophany of the Trinity. After Easter, the Feast of the Epiphany is the second oldest and most important feast of the Christian Church. As Jesus commands, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19). The Council of Chalcedon (451) defined de fide the dual natures of Jesus. In long, Priestly is the corruption.

Catholics, Perspectives & the Founding

Anti-Roman Catholic bigotry tied the "Protestant Christians" in America during the Founding era and for some time thereafter. This passage by the "Protestant Christian" Jonathan Mayhew in 1759 on Roman Catholicism & Quebec is instructive of the anti-Roman Catholic zeitgeist:

Dost thou not know, that those who fight for a Tyrant, will not fight like free-born Britons ? Perhaps thou thinketh thyself again at Ticonderoga—But dost thou not see, who it is at the head of that little veteran army, by his presence infusing courage enough into each breast, to make every man a hero ? Or, perhaps, thou thinkest thy relicks, thy crosses, and thy saints, either St. Peter, or thy great Lady, whom thou profanely stilest "The mother God," will now befriend, and make thee victorious. But remember, that little host now in array against thee, worship the God that made the heavens, earth, and seas, with all that they contain; the Lord of hosts is his name! His is the glory and the victory ; and know, that the event of this battle shall be accordingly! Cross thyself speedily, if thou thinkest it will be of any advantage to thee! Mercy to thy soul, notwithstanding violated faith at Lake George, once St. Sacrament! But alas! be assured, that yonder gloomy wood on thy right, affords not laurels, but cypress for thy brows!

I put "Protestant Christian" in quotation marks when describing Mayhew because he was a unitarian, that is someone who thought himself a "Christian" but was unorthodox.

It's ironic that orthodox Trinitarian Protestants might have found common ground with unitarians of the Founding era through anti-Roman Catholic bigotry. Given their shared common ground in historic orthodox Trinitarianism, arguably Trinitarian Protestants and Roman Catholics have more in common with one another, theologically, than either do with the "unitarianism" of Mayhew and many of America's key Founders and the other philosophers and divines who influenced them.

Yet, to many Catholics, Protestants like Mayhew and Trinitarian Calvinists are indeed in the same box: They are unorthodox heretics, deviating from the one true Church's official teachings.

In fact, I came across one such Roman Catholic, a very intelligent and accomplished American attorney, recently. He wrote:

For Catholic purposes, “orthodox” means accepting all of the Church’s teachings. One can accept the Nicene Creed but still be a heretic. ... But even assuming [Calvin accepted the Nicene Creed], it’s not enough, since he also (as I recall) denied the doctrine of free will, the communion of saints, and the sacrifice present in the Mass, which are fairly important doctrines. You and the modern theologians (whom I assume are Protestants) are free to use the term “orthodox Christianity” to include “views formally condemned by the Church as heretical and therefore not orthodox,” but that’s not the sense in which I’m using it.

Volokh on Republic v. Democracy

Eugene Volokh has an outstanding post that argues, correctly I might add, that the concepts of "republic" and "democracy" are not mutually exclusive. The United States, as founded, is aptly termed both a republic AND a democracy. It is not a "direct" or a "pure" democracy, rather a representative-democracy. Terms like that, representative-republic, democratic-republic, are six and one half dozen of the other.

Book Introduction, Pilgrims: New World Settlers & the Call of Home

Almost everyone knows the basic story of the Pilgrims, the Mayflower and the settlement of the "New World." This brave tale of pious Puritan paupers making a new home in a strange land is as American as apple pie.

But not everyone who came to the New World found happiness, as Susan Hardman Moore's newest book, Pilgrims: New World Settlers & the Call of Home points out. From Yale University Press:

This book uncovers what might seem to be a dark side of the American dream: the New World from the viewpoint of those who decided not to stay. At the core of the volume are the life histories of people who left New England during the British Civil Wars and Interregnum, 1640–1660. More than a third of the ministers who had stirred up emigration from England deserted their flocks to return home. The colonists’ stories challenge our perceptions of early settlement and the religious ideal of New England as a "City on a Hill." America was a stage in their journey, not an end in itself.

Susan Hardman Moore first explores the motives for migration to New England in the 1630s and the rhetoric that surrounded it. Then, drawing on extensive original research into the lives of hundreds of migrants, she outlines the complex reasons that spurred many to brave the Atlantic again, homeward bound. Her book ends with the fortunes of colonists back home and looks at the impact of their American experience.

Of exceptional value to studies of the connections between the Old and New Worlds, Pilgrims contributes to debates about the nature of the New England experiment and its significance for the tumults of revolutionary England.

Xenophanes and Madison

We know, certainly, how much the Greeks influenced the thinkers of the Revolutionary Era. The founders were perhaps among the last generations of the inheritors of the Renaissance of Greek knowledge that emerged after the "Dark Ages" and blossomed fully during the Humanism fostered by Erasmus, who taught himself Greek that he might go back to the Septuagint, or men like Thomas More who learned Greek partly to understand the Greek influence on Cicero. Erasmus was actually worried that concentrating on Greek culture too much would result in some kind of neo-pagan undercurrent to Orthodox Roman Catholicism.

Our founders, of course, we past all that--but with such a debt to the Greeks (even if it was by way of the Roman Greco-philes) is it possible that some of the founders may have been attracted to paganism? I don't mean to say that any of them actually worshiped Zeus or Mithras, but it is easy to suspect that some of the more tight-lipped Founders secretly modeled themselves after the Greek philosophers who payed lip service to the state religion, revered the mythology, and yet maintained a certain agnosticism.

One small example of this comes from James Madison. The quote I'm about to pull has been discussed here before, but in a different context.

Madison:

"The finiteness of the human understanding betrays itself on all subjects, but more especially when it contemplates such as involve infinity....The infinity of time and space forces itself on our conception, a limitation of either being inconceivable; that the mind prefers at once the idea of a self-existing cause to that of an infinite series of cause and effect, which arguments, instead of avoiding the difficulty; and that it finds more facility in assenting to the self-existence of the universe, visibly destitute of those attributes, and which may be the effect of them. In this comparative facility of conception and belief, all philosophical Reasoning on the subject must terminate."

This seems to be a more eloquent echo of something the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Xenophanes said many, many years earlier:

"The certain truth there is no man who knows, nor ever shall be, about the Gods and [other theological matters]. Yea, even if a man should chance to say something utterly right, still he himself knows it not--there is nowhere anything but guessing."

I'd like to explore the pre-Christian influences on the Founders a lot more.


Sources: The Madisons at Montpelier by Ketcham, The History of Western Philosophy by Russell, Ad Infinitum by Ostler.

Joseph Priestley Kills His Cat

PETA isn't going to like this one. Joseph Priestley experimented with, shocked and killed a cat, all for scientific progress:

... Since I wrote to him, I discharged 37 Square feet of coated glass through the head and tail of a CAT three or four years old. She was instantly seized with universal convulsions, then lay as dead a few seconds....

"I Am The Resurrection And The Life...": Washington's Very Christian Tomb

There has been considerable debate here at American Creation over whether George Washington was a genuine, authentic Christian -- a debate that is of course not limited to this site. Many claim Washington was a Deist. Some, while acknowledging "Deist" is a bit extreme, say Washington was only nominally a Christian, and that, in all likelihood, he never really embraced the deity of Jesus Christ or the orthodox tenets of the Christian faith.

One thing is certain, though: The tomb which currently contains the remains of George and Martha Washington is very Christian.

The Washington Family Tomb

When George Washington died in 1799, his remains were placed temporarily in a family burial vault that was in a state of disrepair. In his will, Washington directed that a new tomb be constructed "at the foot of what is commonly called the Vineyard Inclosure."

The project was delayed for several years, but in 1831, the remains of George and Martha Washington were finally moved to their new resting place. Work on the tomb, particularly its majestic brick enclosure, were concluded in 1835. Today, twenty-five Washington family members are at rest in the tomb.

The Washington Tomb's Christian Message

Visitors to Mount Vernon have the opportunity to look into the tomb containing the remains of George and Martha Washington, along with those of several other members of the Washington family. Standing just a few feet away from the actual remains of our nation's First Couple is something that's quite impressive to any true history buff.

And those who carefully study the back wall of the open vault will find an inscription that quotes some of Jesus' most famous words: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

This quote is taken from John 11:25-26, where Jesus tries to assure Lazarus' family that his earthly death is not the end.

The inclusion of John 11:25-26 unmistakably associates the Washington family, including George and Martha, with the promise of the resurrection of the dead, the central claim of Christianity.

Christianity's Resurrection Claim

Since this blog is read by people from many different faiths, it's not my intention to preach. And since it's more about the study of early American history, I won't provide any kind of detailed explanation of the Christian belief in resurrection. Nevertheless, in order to understand the rationale behind the inscription on the Washington tomb, some explanation is in order.

In I Corinthians 15, Paul emphasizes the promise of life after death, tying its credibility to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What's more, Paul makes clear that he's not offering some kind of poetic platitude designed to make people feel good. He truly believes in the reality of the Christian faith and elevates Christianity above any exercise in wishful thinking.

**See "Paul And The Deity of Jesus" over at Suite101 Protestantism

The fifteenth chapter of Paul's first letter to Corinth declares the resurrection of Jesus to be an actual event and claims that over five hundred people (many of whom still alive at the time of his writing) saw Jesus alive after his crucifixion. In between the lines, he is essentially daring those who are skeptical to seek out those eyewitnesses.

It's because of this resurrection, Paul writes, that Christians can believe in the "resurrection of the dead." And, says Paul, if somehow the resurrection didn't happen (if it was a hoax), then "our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (I Corinthians 15:12-14).

In his letter to Rome, Paul similarly writes that belief that "God raised [Jesus] from the dead" is essential to one's salvation (Romans 10:9-10).

It is this resurrection that Christians celebrate every Easter, and it's this resurreciton that gives Christians everywhere the assurance of their faith and validates the promises of eternity with God (John 3:16; Romans 3:22-26).

Washington's Christian Faith

Was the decision of Washington's family to put John 11:25-26 above his and Martha's remains reflective of the general's faith? Did George Washington believe in the "resurrection of the dead"? Did Washington believe in Jesus' resurrection?

Joseph Ellis, in his Washington biography His Excellency, concludes that based on the lack of clergy present and/or any recorded overt declarations of faith in Jesus, George Washington "died as a Roman Stoic rather than a Christian saint."

Of course, as Michael and Jana Novak point out in Washington's God, there is "not really a contradiction between being a Stoic and a Christian...regarding key virtues of daily living." Nevertheless, Ellis joins the ranks of many scholars and everyday Americans who argue that George Washington was not really a Christian.

It should also be noted that, one month after his husband's passing, Martha Washington wrote Jonathan Trumbull: "When the mind is deeply afflicted by those irreparable losses which are incident to humanity, the good Christian will submit without repining to the dispensations of divine Providence, and look for consolation to that Being who alone can pour balm into the bleeding heart, and who has promised to be the widow's God."

Martha's note reflects a biblical knowledge of God's promises regarding grief, widows, and sovereignty. She clearly casts herself as a Christian, striving to be a "good" one. Given Martha's use of the word "Providence" (her husband's favorite word for God) and the closeness of their marriage, is it too much to conclude that George and Martha Washington had more in common in their understanding of God and Christianity than not?

Nelly Custis-Lewis wrote that George and Martha Washington "were so perfectly united and happy that he must have been a Christian" and that Martha "had no doubts, no fears for him" as she "resigned him without a murmur into the arms of his Savior and his God, with the assured hope of his eternal felicity." Ms. Custis-Lee should know. She was Martha's granddaughter and adoptive daughter to both George and Martha, upon her father's untimely death. It should also be noted that Nelly was the wife of Lawrence Lewis, the Washington nephew who oversaw construction of the tomb.

It is true that George Washington made few public statements, verbally or in writing, in which he mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. This isn't to say that Washington never mentioned Jesus (as some who challenge Washington's Christian faith allege), but it's true that Washington kept public pronouncements about Jesus to a minimum. It's also true that Washington so frequently refused to partake of Communion that many biographers have concluded he rarely (if ever) took Communion.

John Marshall, a Washington friend and future Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, argued that this shouldn't be used as evidence against Washington's Christian beliefs. Marshall explained: "Without making ostentatious professions of religion, [George Washington] was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man."

Nineteenth century histian Jared Sparks bluntly declared: "To say that [George Washington] was not a Christian would be to impeach his sincerity and honesty."

Whatever the degree of George Washington's personal belief in Jesus Christ, the Washington tomb, completed in 1831, points to the central promise of Christianity - the one that hundreds of millions of people around the world celebrate each and every Easter, including this one:

"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

Happy Easter!

Fischer on America's non-Christian Founding

Claude S. Fischer, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley has a new book out where he makes his case for America's non-Christian Founding.

He writes a small post on his thesis at the Immanent Frame.

A taste:

The impression of great piety among the settlers is a common view of the past, probably rooted in the outsize role that the Puritans play in our mental pictures of Early America. The Puritans, however, were an odd lot in America—the exception, not the rule. (They are a prominent exception, thanks to the cultural power of their New England descendants and the voluminous records they left. One historian has complained that we “know more about the Puritans than any sane person should want to know.”)

Over the wider American landscape, however, colonists were notably “unchurched” and “un-Christian.” Scattered around in separate households (unlike the Puritans who concentrated in villages), most Americans had no church to go to and little connection to what we would call organized religion. Even where there were churches to attend, many went either irregularly or simply because the church was one of the rare places—along with the tavern—to see people in a sparsely-developed society.

Stepahnie Wolf, in her study of Revolutionary-era Germantown, Pennsylvania, estimated that only about half of the residents attended church, and that is probably a high watermark, since the community was urban and well-off, and the period was one of religious enthusiasm.

Such waves of enthusiasm (“Awakenings”) in some places and at some times rallied some people to faith, but the clergy generally despaired of the heathens who had settled the new continent. One minister trying to save souls in the American heartland in the early 1800s wrote that “. . . there are American families in this part of the country who never saw a bible, nor heard of Jesus Christ . . . the whole country, from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, is as the valley of the shadow of death.”

Most early Americans were not believers in the sense that affirming Christians are today. They were likelier to understand spells, potions, and omens than theological doctrines. Almanacs sold briskly in part because they provided guides to the occult. It took a lot of hard missionary work to displace magic with Christ.

As John Fea points out, his thesis isn't exactly novel.

Of course such an argument is not a new. Jon Butler made it in Awash in a Sea of Faith. Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and others have made it as well. The Founding was not a Christian event, but clearly America had become a "Christian nation" or "evangelical empire" or "a spiritual hothouse" by the early 19th century.

Regarding the argument, I'd like to see more sociological data and analysis on Church membership and attendance. It may well be that mid to late 18th Century Americans were a distinctly un-churched people, full of nominal Christians. Or, these figures may be lowballs.

I have concluded that the "Christian Nation" thesis as the evangelicals tend to promote it is bunk. Evangelicals have a tight definition for what it means to be a "Christian" (not just orthodox, but "born again," regenerate), and there is not a shred of evidence that virtually all of the Founders and populace save a handful were "Christians" in this sense. In fact, there's no evidence that a simple majority of the FFs or the populace were "Christians" in this sense. Plenty of orthodox Anglicans, for instance, would not meet this standard (neither would Roman Catholics, who are also orthodox, but much fewer in number than Anglicans in 18th Century America).

And evangelicals, especially, should understand this as they teach the narrow gate.

Were a majority of the population/FFs "orthodox" in a way that not just evangelicals, but also Roman Catholics, Anglicans could pass (for instance, following Gregg Frazer's 10 point test for late 18th Century Christianity, or perhaps an even broader sense that requires simple belief in Nicene orthodoxy, not necessarily in doctrines like original sin or eternal damnation)?

Perhaps. But there are still reasons to doubt. This kind of orthodoxy dominated religious institutions by tradition and entrenchment. But, as noted, a great deal of FFs and members of the populace were affiliated with said churches in a formal or nominal sense without believing in their official doctrines like the Trinity or that the biblical canon is the inerrant, infallible Word of God.