A Voice.—It is not true.
Mr. DOUGLASS.—Not true! is it not? (Immense cheers.) Hear the following advertisement:—“Field Negroes, by Thomas Gadsden.” I read now from The American Churches, the Bulwarks of American Slavery; by an American, or by J. G. Birney. This has been before the public in this country and the United States for the last six years; not a fact nor a statement in it has been called in question. (Cheers.) The following is taken from the Charleston Courier of Feb. 12, 1835:—“Field Negroes, by Thomas Gadsden. On Tuesday, the 17th inst., will be sold at the north of the Exchange, at 10 o’clock, a prime gang of ten negroes, accustomed to the culture of cotton and provisions, belonging to the Independent Church, in Christ Church parish.” (Loud cheers.) I could read other testimony on this point, but is it necessary? (Cries of “No,” and “One more.”)
Some Christian sects advocated abolition—the Quakers before almost everyone else—but most took a while to come around. Christianity’s switch to pro-abolition may have been driven by secular forces. “On a profound moral dilemma like slavery, one might expect people to derive their views from their religion,” writes Professor Mark Smith. While counter-examples can be found, “the more common pattern over hundreds of years shows the tail wagging the dog,” that is, secularism drove religion to abolition.42 Smith has pointed out that “Christian resistance” to slavery “was nowhere to be found” when the colonies instituted slavery in the 1600s and that the “timing of Northern emancipation suggests that secular rather than religious forces were the primary causes.”43 Secular forces drove religious sects to reexamine their collective consciences or, as Smith puts it, “Religious advocacy trailed behind the path secular ideas had already laid.”44 Even if secular culture did not primarily liberalize religion, it is clear that religion justified slavery for centuries and that the chief moral justifications for American slavery were religious.
Again, Christianity may not have caused slavery. Slavery predates Christianity and factors other than religion, such as economics, play a role. But in America, Christianity and the bible justified slavery and allowed otherwise moral people to assuage their consciences by telling themselves that they were acting in accord with their god’s law. That divine sanction was critical. “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law,” wrote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.45 Whatever factors caused slavery, Christianity helped make its patent immorality palatable to believers. Both sides had religious arguments to buttress their position. The idea that “God is on our side” breeds a certainty that no logic, reason, or fact can shake. Thomas Jefferson was right to “tremble” for his country after poetically reflecting that god’s “justice cannot sleep for ever”46 (see page 83). Religious fervor brought god’s war to America, and we bled for it.
AS THE WAR PROGRESSED, the piety on both sides began to subside. “The randomness of death regardless of piety and the general horror of war transformed the soldiers’ faith,” according to Goldfield.47 Herman Melville captured the general disillusionment with the war in his haunting poem Shiloh, a requiem (April 1862), which tells of a church filled with dead and dying soldiers from both sides uttering their “natural prayers.” Melville asks, “What like a bullet can undeceive”?48
The realities of war shattered the deception of faith. As commanders have for millennia, Civil War generals and preachers stoked soldiers’ piety, recognizing religion’s usefulness in convincing men and boys to march to their death without fear because god is on their side. Margaret Mitchell commented on this phenomenon in Gone with the Wind. Rhett Butler dryly asks, “If the people who started wars didn’t make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight?”49
The soldiers recorded their disenchantment. Major Abner Small of the 16th Maine Volunteers attended his brigade chaplains’ service before the Battle of Chancellorsville (the fourth bloodiest battle of the war, also fought in 1863). The chaplains “besought us all to stand firm, to be brave; God being our shield, we had nothing to fear,” recalled Small. But when a Confederate bombardment hit camp during the service, “the explosions of shells, the screams of the horses, and the shouted commands of officers were almost drowned out by the yells and laughter of the men as the brave chaplains, hatless and bookless, their coat-tails streaming in the wind, fled madly to the rear over stoned walls and hedges and ditches, followed by [the soldiers’] gleefully shouted counsel: ‘Stand firm, put your trust in the Lord!’”50
Confederate captain Alexander Hunter observed that “devotional exercises languished, except in a few favored localities. It is hard to retain religion on an empty stomach; a famine-stricken man gains consolation from no creed.”51 Soldiers “had gone through so much that many of them honestly thought, as one ragged sinner profanely put it, ‘they had such a hell of a time in this country that the good Lord would not see them damned in the next.’”52 Soldiers began to throw away their bibles, over the chaplain’s protests, because “Bibles and blisters didn’t go well together,” said Hunter.53
Open contempt of ministers followed. Massachusetts soldier Theodore Lyman, General Meade’s aide-de-camp, recorded his views on one chaplain: “He was like all of the class, patriotic, one-sided, attributing to the Southerners every fiendish passion; in support of which he had accumulated all the horrible accounts of treatment of prisoners, slaves, etc., etc., and had worked himself into a great state.”54
Colonel Richard Hinton wrote an account of his recovery in the Union’s Armory Square Hospital in Washington, DC, for the Cincinnati Commercial. He had plenty of visitors, who packed his meager personal space “full of tracts and testaments.” “Every Sunday,” about six preachers “would come into my ward and preach and pray and sing to us, while we were swearing to ourselves all the time and wishing the blamed old fools would go away.” Hinton preferred the visits from the freethinking Walt Whitman; the “old heathen” whose “funny stories, and his pipes and tobacco were worth more than all the preachers and tracts in Christendom.”55
The ebb of religion in the ranks as the conflict dragged on is well documented by the soldiers themselves. Before the disillusioning bullets extinguished the pious fervor, the Christian god was placed on American coinage.
At the end of 1861, Mark Watkinson—the preacher in our tale of Christian nationalism—wrote a letter to the secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Chase, proposing godly language for American coinage.56 Watkinson raised what he believed was a “seriously overlooked” issue—“the recognition of the Almighty God in some form in our coins.” Watkinson did not know Salmon Chase personally, but presumptuously began his letter, “You are probably a Christian.” After noting that they were both members of that club, Watkinson moved to fear-mongering, asking, “What if our Republic were now shattered beyond reconstruction?” If that were to happen, Watkinson argued, posterity would look at America’s coinage and “rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation.” Watkinson proposed removing that heathen, “the Goddess of Liberty,” and putting on a new motto, words such as “God, liberty, law.” With the sense of entitlement typical of a religious majoritarian, Watkinson claimed that “no possible citizen could object” to such language. The change, Watkinson concluded, “would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the divine protection we have personally claimed. From my heart I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters. To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.”57
As a self-styled “Minister of the Gospel,”58 Watkinson had time to consider such minutiae and how he could best impose his religion on a population distracted by a bloody war. Other preachers, such as the Reverend Henry A. Boardman of Philadelphia, joined his fight.59 What better way to spread their version of the Good Word than by putting it on currency everyone has to use? In fact, that was one reason Congress added the phrase to paper currency during the Red Scare of
the 1950s, to spread the gospel “behind the Iron Curtain,” as one congressman put it.60 In a 1907 congressional debate on the phrase—after Teddy Roosevelt refused to include it on $10 and $20 gold coins because doing so was irreverent and bordering on sacrilege61—Rep. Ollie James declared:
we are…sending to foreign countries and to distant people our missionaries to preach the religions of Jesus Christ, and…when this gold…is held in the hands of those who do not know of the existence of the Saviour of the world, we can say: “Here are the dollars of the greatest nation on earth, one that does not put its trust in floating navies or in marching armies, but places its trust in God.”62
US currency would effectively become a Christian missionary, and it began with this preacher and secretary.
Chase took Watkinson’s suggestion seriously and wrote the director of the Mint, James Pollock, discussing how a nation becomes strong enough to win a war: “No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.”63
Pollock must have been overjoyed to read Chase’s suggestion. He would go on to be the vice president of the National Convention to Secure the Religious Amendment of the Constitution of the United States—a group dedicated to injecting god into America’s godless Constitution (as the South had done in its constitution).64 Similar efforts had failed repeatedly since almost immediately after the Constitution was first proposed. Failing to impose his religion by amending one government instrument did not stop him from using his government office to do so.
Pollock believed that because the United States is “a Christian Nation…the time for the introduction of this or a similar motto, is propitious and appropriate. ’Tis an hour of National peril and danger—an hour when man’s strength is weakness—when our strength and our nation’s salvation, must be in the God of Battles.”65 Pollock could not have been more explicit about desiring to take advantage of the nation’s fear. He went so far as to declare the war lucky, “propitious.” Fear is a friend to those who would violate inalienable rights, including the right to a secular government.
On December 9, 1863, Secretary Chase approved the final language: “In God We Trust.”66 Congress made the change official a few months later when it passed a new coinage bill, though it did not actually vote on the new language—it simply gave the Mint director, Pollock, the power to fix the shape, motto, and devices of the coins, with the approval of the Treasury secretary.67
So, at the advice of a proselytizing preacher, two government officials—one with a religious agenda so all-consuming he was trying to amend the Constitution to honor his god—deliberately used the time of “national peril and danger,” when people were too busy dying for the Constitution to protect it from a rear-guard assault, to promote their personal religion. Even if this addition were not decades after the founding, it’s hard to see how three men betraying a founding principle—keeping state and church separate—is itself a founding principle. Watkinson, Pollock, and Chase took advantage of a fearful, distracted nation and abused their government offices to impose their personal religious beliefs on all citizens.
THERE IS A PERVERSE IRONY IN THREE MEN choosing to promote the world’s most divisive force, religion, when fighting a war to preserve a national union. To choose something so quintessentially divisive to replace a unifying sentiment in the middle of a war that actually sundered the nation shows hubris typical of religious privilege. The three imagined that the fate of our nation hinged not on reunification or full equality for black Americans, but on placing a reference to the Christian god on coins, which, luckily, could be done, given the nation’s fear. One would think that this idea would not appeal to those who think highly of their god: “Those great philosophers who formed the Constitution had a higher idea of the perfection of that INFINITE MIND which governs all worlds than to suppose they could add to his honor or glory, or that He would be pleased with such low familiarity or vulgar flattery.”68 That author, writing in 1788, was discussing objections to the godlessness of the American Constitution during the ratification debates, but the point is apt.
The founding generation adopted very different language for US coinage. The Continental Congress, on April 21, 1787, just before the Constitutional Convention met, resolved to create a new copper cent.69 On July 6, they selected a design by Benjamin Franklin. On one side it was inscribed “FUGIO. MIND YOUR BUSINESS” with a sun and sundial. Fugio (“I fly”) and the sundial together mean time flies.70 The other side contained a unifying message: thirteen interlocking rings around the perimeter, one for each state, made a chain. Within the chain was a smaller circle with the words “UNITED STATES” circumscribed. Within that circle were the words “WE ARE ONE.”71
These two designs appeared on earlier paper Continental currency, dating to February 1776, before the Declaration of Independence. These paper notes, fractional bills as they are known, had the same thirteen interlocking rings forming a strong chain and the inner circle with “We are one.” 72 Ben Franklin designed this early unifying theme, something he had a talent for, if his “Join, or Die” snake print is any indication.73
The US Congress, following Alexander Hamilton’s advice, established the US Mint in 1792. It decreed that coins should have “an impression emblematic of liberty” and the word “Liberty” on one side and an eagle with “United States of America” on the other side.74
Front and back of 1787 Franklin-designed copper coin.
Another early coin was inscribed “Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry.” The only deity that used to appear on US coins was the metaphorical goddess Liberty.
The original maxim that appeared on many American coins and still appears on US currency also had unifying language: E pluribus unum or “from many, one.”75 On the day the Second Continental Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence, it also appointed the same three men responsible for the Declaration—Jefferson, Franklin, and John Adams—to a committee to recommend the Great Seal, which would appear on American currency.76 (Ben Franklin actually proposed a national seal featuring imagery from the Exodus myth, as did Jefferson, but the proposals, like Franklin’s proposal for prayer at the Constitutional Convention, were rejected.77 Those rejections, perhaps because of their religious nature (though that is unclear), say more about the propriety of a secular republic adopting religious imagery than about the initial proposals. Many variations and new committees dealt with the issue for more than eight years, but those three drafters, with help from French émigré Pierre Eugene du Simitiere, decided on the unifying motto E pluribus unum.78 The three fearmongers of the 1860s sought to undo the work of these great men. The original idea expresses the belief that people or states with differences can come together to form a great country. The religious motto expresses an inherently divisive religious belief and applies to only a portion of the population. That language would not only trump the unifying sentiment on our coins, but also officially become America’s national motto during another time of great fear—the Red Scare of the 1950s.
An 1856 interpretation of the early Great Seal design of 1776, with the the unifying motto E pluribus unum.
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“One nation under God”: The Divisive Motto
“We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities…. [McCarthy] didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it—and rather successfully. Cassius was right. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’”
— Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, 19541
“In the context of the Pledge, the statement that the United States is a nation ‘under God’ is an endorsement of religion. It is a profession of a religious belief, namely, a belief in monotheism. The recitation that ours is a nation ‘under God’ is not a mere acknowledgment that many Americans believe in a deity…. To recit
e the Pledge is not to describe the United States; instead, it is to swear allegiance to the values for which the flag stands: unity, indivisibility, liberty, justice, and—since 1954—monotheism. The text of the official Pledge, codified in federal law, impermissibly takes a position with respect to the purely religious question of the existence and identity of God.”
— US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 20022
At the Freedom From Religion Foundation, we work to keep state and church separate. So when an FFRF member from a small town in Florida complained about prayers being held before every town meeting, I wrote to the mayor explaining that those prayers were legally problematic and alienated many citizens. The mayor’s response is reproduced without alteration here:
Mr. Seidel,
Thank you for your email, as a nation founded under god I am surprised by it. Our invocations are generic and no one is forced to participate much like the pledge of allegiance. One Nation under God by the way
Under the freedom of information act and Florida’s government in the sunshine laws please forward me copies of the complaints you have received or identify those that have complained. I am sure this information is readily available.
In case you are not familiar with Florida law any complaint made is public record and available for public review.
The Founding Myth Page 31