15 Chernow, Washington, ch. 13.
16 Alan M. Fusonie and Donna Jean Fusonie, George Washington: Pioneer Farmer (Mount Vernon, VA: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Assoc., 1998).
17 Office of the Surgeon General, Borden Institute, and the Department of Defense, Textbooks of Military Medicine: Recruit Medicine, ed. Col. Martha K. Lenart et al. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office), 208–9; Shachtman, Gentlemen Scientists; Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (New York: Macmillan, 2002).
18 Madison to Jefferson, April 27, 1785, in Writings of James Madison, vol. 2. 134–35; see also Alec Foege, The Tinkerers: The Amateurs, DIYers, and Inventors Who Make America Great (New York: Basic Books, 2013), 19.
19 Madison to Jefferson, ibid.; Gaillard Hunt, The Life of James Madison (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1902), 97.
20 See generally Chernow, Alexander Hamilton.
21 Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Willard, March 24, 1789, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 7, ed. Andrew Lipscomb and Albert Burgh (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1903), 327–28. See generally Moncure Daniel Conway and William Cobbett, The Life of Thomas Paine: With a History of His Literary, Political, and Religious Career in America, France, and England, vol. 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s 1892), 241.
22 Shachtman, Gentlemen Scientists, xi, 131.
23 Ibid., 40–47, 71–89, 130–42.
24 US Const. art. 1, § 8, cl. 8.
25 Hamilton, Federalist, no. 9.
26 Madison to John G. Jackson, December 27, 1821, in Writings of James Madison, vol. 9, 76.
27 “This constitution was formed when we were new and unexperienced in the science of government.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, query 13, in Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 4, 17.
28 “Politicks are the divine science, after all…. The divine science of politicks is at length in Europe reduced to a mechanical system.” John Adams to James Warren, June 17, 1782, in The Adams Papers: Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert Joseph Taylor (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2006), vol. 13, 128. See also Adams, “Against a Government in a Single Assembly,” in A Defence of the Constitutions of Government, 299. (“They all had experience in public affairs, and ample information respecting the nature of man, the necessities of society, and the science of government.”)
29 John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, January 8, 1776, in Adams Papers, vol. 3, 1979, 397–99.
30 John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive.
31 Madison to John G. Jackson, December 27, 1821, in Writings of James Madison, vol. 9, 72. (“In the eyes of all the best friends of liberty a crisis had arrived which was to decide whether the Amn. [American] Experiment was to be a blessing to the world, or to blast forever the hopes which the republican cause had inspired.”)
32 Franklin to Jonathan Shipley, February 24, 1786, in Works of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 11, 232–33.
33 Franklin, who proposed the prayer, wrote in his notes for that day: “The Convention, except three or four persons, thought Prayers unnecessary.” Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Farrand, vol. 1, 452, n. 15.
34 John Adams to Richard Price April 19, 1790, FO-NA (“The Constitution is but an experiment, and must and will be altered”); John Adams to Jefferson, July 16, 1814, FO-NA (“The vast variety of experiments which have been made of the constitutions in America, in France, [etc.] can never be forgotten.”)
35 John Adams to the Comte de Sarsfield, February 3, 1786, in Works of John Adams, vol. 9, 546.
36 Ibid.
37 John Adams, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797, in Works of John Adams, vol. 9, 106.
38 Jefferson, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, in Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 9, 196.
39 Madison to unknown recipient, March 1836, in Writings of James Madison, vol. 9, 607–10 at 610.
40 See, e.g., Hamilton and Madison, Federalist, no. 18 (“Very different, nevertheless, was the experiment [of the Greek Amphictyonic council] from the theory…. It is much to be regretted that such imperfect monuments remain of this curious political fabric. Could its interior structure and regular operation be ascertained, it is probable that more light would be thrown by it on the science of federal government, than by any of the like experiments with which we are acquainted”); Madison, Federalist, no. 14 (“But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new?”); Hamilton, Federalist, no. 16 (“The tendency of the principle of legislation for States, or communities, in their political capacities, as it has been exemplified by the experiment we have made of it, is equally attested by the events which have befallen all other governments of the confederate kind”); Madison, Federalist, no. 37.
41 Madison, Federalist, no. 39.
42 George Mason to George Mason Jr., June 1, 1787, Philadelphia in Records of the Federal Convention, ed. Farrand, vol. 3, 32–33.
43 Ibid., 33.
Chapter 12 • A Monarchy and “the morrow” or a Republic and “our posterity”
1 Records of the Federal Convention, ed. Farrand, vol. 3, 85.
2 Ibid., vol. 2, 125.
3 Ibid., vol. 1, 413.
4 Ibid., 422, 431.
5 Ibid., vol. 2, 452.
6 Matt. 6:26–6:34 (KJV).
7 Matt. 24:34.
8 Matt. 16:28.
9 Matt. 10:23.
10 See, e.g., Rev. 1:1–2, 22:12, 22:20, which are not cited for the truth of the proposition but to show that Christians writing during the first century believed the claims.
11 Pew Research Center, “Life in 2050: Amazing Science, Familiar Threats,” June 22, 2010, 10, https://perma.cc/KP39-ST8D. Another international survey was completed by Ipsos Global Public Affairs, “One in Seven (14%) Global Citizens Believe End of the World is Coming in Their Lifetime,” May 1, 2012, https://perma.cc/64QG-2KK8.
12 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence Klein (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999), 46–47.
13 Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960; repr. ed. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1988), 61.
14 Eccles. 8:2.
15 Gen. 17:6; 35:11.
16 Deut. 17:14–15.
17 1 Tim. 6:15.
18 Luke 1:32.
19 1 Cor. 15:24.
20 1 Sam. 8:19–22.
21 See, e.g., 1 Macc. 1:10–15.
22 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, query 14 (1785) in Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 4, 270. Jefferson was in Paris during the Convention, though he and Madison communicated about the proceedings extensively.
23 Arthur Henry Walker, A Primer of Greek Constitutional History (Oxford, UK: B. H. Blackwell, 1902), 11.
24 BibleGateway.com offers excellent resources for searching most English language versions of the bible.
25 Walker, Primer of Greek Constitutional History, 11.
26 John Adams, “Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law,” in Works of John Adams, vol. 3, 445.
27 In fact, Adams was pretty upset with religion and the power it had over the centuries. He vilified tyrants and despots of all kinds, including religious ones. In a July 9, 1813, letter to Jefferson in Works of John Adams, vol. 10, 50–51, he summed it up: “If you ask my opinion, who has committed all the havoc? I will answer you candidly. Ecclesiastical and imperial despotisms have done it to conceal their frauds.”
28 Records of the Federal Convention, ed. Farrand, vol. 3, 85.
29 In Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. As discussed in n. 62 to chapter 3, Lincoln may have been borrowing from Wycliffe’s first English translation of the bible, or possibly from Theodore Parker, an abolitionist minister. As discussed in chapter 3, using religious language does not necessarily indicate religious influence.
30 Madison, Federalist, no. 19.
31 “Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage, were all republics; two
of them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind.” Hamilton, Federalist, no. 6; see also Madison, Federalist, nos. 18, 63 (several references to Sparta, and “Sparta, Rome, and Carthage”).
32 “Minos, we learn, was the primitive founder of the government of Crete…Theseus first, and after him Draco and Solon, instituted the government of Athens. Lycurgus was the lawgiver of Sparta. The foundation of the original government of Rome was laid by Romulus; and the work completed by two of his elective successors, Numa, and Tullus Hostilius.” Madison, Federalist, no. 38
33 Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966, 1986 ed. with Warren Burger foreword), 143; see also Mathew R. Sgan, The Boston Book of Sports: From Puritans to Professionals (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2009), 9.
34 Thomas Cuming Hall, The Religious Background of American Culture (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930), 184–86.
35 Ruth Hurmence Green, in ed. Annie Laurie Gaylor, Women without Superstition: No Gods—No Masters (Madison, WI: Freedom From Religion Foundation, 1997), 469.
PART III: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS V. THE CONSTITUTION
1 Robert Ingersoll, About the Holy Bible: A Lecture (New York: C. P. Farrell, 1894), 17–18.
2 Cato’s letter no. 31, May 27, 1721, “Considerations on the Weakness and Inconsistencies of human Nature,” in John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato’s Letters, or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects, ed. and ann. Ronald Hamowy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1995), vol. 1.
3 Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670) (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958), polemical fragment #894, 265.
Chapter 13 • Which Ten?
4 Mel Brooks, History of the World: Part I, directed by Mel Brooks (1981; Los Angeles: Brooksfilms).
5 Rick Perry, interview by Jennifer Wishon, Christian Broadcasting Network, posted August 5, 2011, https://goo.gl/5ocEgB.
6 Gen. 9:21–27.
7 I am not entirely satisfied that this is an original Mencken. But see H. L. Mencken, A Little Book in C Major, pt. 2 § 20 (New York: John Lane, 1916), 33.
8 The commandments are orally given to Moses in Exod. 20:2–17; Moses communicates them to the Israelites and assembles the stone tablets in 24:3–8. The stone is inscribed in 31:18.
9 Three months, Exod. 19:1; manna, Exod. 16; water from rocks, Exod. 17; camped, Exod. 19:2; climbing and hearing a voice, Exod. 19:3.
10 Exod. 32:16 (“The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God”).
11 Exod. 32:19 (“Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain”).
12 Exod. 32:27.
13 Exod. 32:28.
14 Exod. 32:27.
15 Exod. 34:1; Exod. 34:10–28.
16 Exod. 34:10–11.
17 Exod. 34:10–11.
18 Exod. 34:19–20.
19 The NRSV Bible does not capitalize Sabbath and, in recognition of its accuracy, I follow suit.
20 Exod. 34:26.
21 Exod. 34:1.
22 Deut. 5:6–21.
23 Deut. 27:1–2, 10–26.
24 Deut. 27:15–16.
25 Deut. 27:20–23.
26 Chart adapted from New Oxford Annotated Bible, 110 and 260.
27 Deut. 27:23.
28 New Oxford Annotated Bible, 110, n. for Exod. 20:1–17.
29 Exod. 20:7.
30 Exod. 20:7 (KJV).
31 Exod. 20:4.
32 Exod. 20:4 (KJV).
33 Exod. 20:13 (KJV)
34 E.g., Exod. 20:13 (NIV).
35 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (New York: Viking, 2009), 442–56.
36 Catholic Canon Law, Can. 752, http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P2H.HTM#G8.
37 MacCulloch, Christianity, 545.
38 Ibid.
39 Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 74.
40 Ibid.
41 Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance,” 83.
42 Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, query 17, in Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 4, 295.
43 Chart adapted from the New Oxford Annotated Bible at 110 and 260.
44 MacCulloch, Christianity, 442–45.
45 Deut. 17:19–20.
46 Deut. 28:58–59.
47 Deut. 32:46.
48 Deut. 16:22.
49 Lev. 19:31.
50 Deut. 18:10.
51 Lev. 19:28.
52 Lev. 19:19.
53 Lev 19:27; Det. 22:11.
54 Matt. 5:17–19 (emph. added).
55 See Edward Countryman, “In Texas Textbooks, Moses Is a Founding Father,” Daily Beast, September 22, 2014, https://perma.cc/348D-754V. Article based on his report: “Complying with, Getting Around, and Bypassing the TEKS History Standards: A Review of Proposed Texas, U.S. and World History Textbooks in Texas,” commissioned by the Texas Freedom Network Educ. Fund, September 2014, https://goo.gl/zYmnqQ.
56 Circuit Court Judge of Covington County Ashley McKathan. See “Judge’s Robe Bears Ten Commandments,” Fox News, December 15, 2004, https://www.foxnews.com/story/judges-robe-bears-ten-commandments
57 James Fenton, “Federal Judge Rules Ten Commandments monument in front of Bloomfield City Hall violates First Amendment,” Farmington Daily Times (NM), August 4, 2014, https://perma.cc/8WT2-NUWM.
58 Hannah Grover, “N.M. city may go online to help raise $700K for legal fees in Ten Commandments case,” Farmington Daily Times (NM) (February 15, 2018), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/02/15/legal-fees-ten-commandments-case/343987002/.
59 See, e.g., William J. Federer, The Ten Commandments & Their Influence on American Law: A Study in History (Fort Myers, FL: Amerisearch, 2002); Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution, discussing “covenant theology” and influence of commandments; Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia v. Chester County, 334 F.3d 247, 267-8 (3rd. Cir. 2003) (“The Ten Commandments have an independent secular meaning in our society because they are regarded as a significant basis of American law and the American polity, including the prohibitions against murder and blasphemy”) and collecting precedent (see, e.g., Bertera’s Hopewell Foodland, Inc. v. Masters, 428 Pa. 20, 236 A.2d 197, 200-01 (1967) (noting that the Sunday closing laws “trace an ancestry back to the Ten Commandments fulminated from the smoking top of Mt. Sinai…. This divine pronouncement became part of the Common Law”); Anderson v. Maddox, 65 So.2d 299, 301-302 (Fla.1953) (“Thou shalt not steal’ and ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’ are just as new as they were when Moses brought them down from the Mountain”) (Terrell, J., concurring specially); State v. Gamble Skogmo, Inc., 144 N.W.2d 749, 768 (N.D.1966)(“Thus, for temporal purposes, murder is illegal. And the fact that this agrees with the dictates of the Judaeo-Christian religions while it may disagree with others does not invalidate the regulation. So too with the questions of adultery and polygamy. The same could be said of theft, fraud, etc. because those offenses were also proscribed in the Decalogue”) (internal citations omitted).
60 McCreary, 545 U.S. 844, n. 12.
61 Bosley Crowther, “The Good Book Is a Great Script,” New York Times Magazine, December 31, 1961, 10.
62 Ibid.
63 2012 marked the first year that Protestants were not the majority at 48 percent of the population. Pew Research Center, “‘Nones’ on the Rise: One-in-Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation,” October 9, 2012, http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/.
Chapter 14 • The Threat Display: The First Commandment
1 Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors encyclical (December 8, 1864), in Religion from Tolstoy to Camus, ed. Walter Kaufmann (1961; repr. ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1961), 163; see also https://perma.cc/D2V6-9DR7.
2 Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance,” ¶ 4.
3 Willi
am Jennings Bryan, The First Commandment (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1917), 7.
4 US Const. amend. I.
5 Justice Thomas Clark, speech at the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, August 3, 1962, in Chicago Daily Law Bulletin (August 17, 1962), 3. See also Bernard Schwartz, Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court—A Judicial Biography (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1983), 441–42.
6 John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings, ed. and with an introduction by Mark Goldie, 22–23 (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010).
7 Ibid.
8 Robert G. Ingersoll, Trial of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy, at Morristown, N.J., May 1877: Defence (New York: C. P. Farrell, 1888).
9 Thomas Fitzsimmons of Pennsylvania being the other.
10 Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 1st Sess., August 15, 1789, 757.
11 “Since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes” (emph. in orig.), John Adams, “Discourses on Davila: A Series of Papers on Political History,” Gazette of the United States, no. 31 (1790–91) in Works of John Adams, vol, 6, 517.
12 Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance,” ¶ 11. The “torrents of blood” language was probably influenced by theist and encyclopedist Baron D’Holbach, who 13 years earlier wrote, “In all parts of our globe, fanatics have cut each other’s throats, publicly burnt each other, committed without a scruple and even as a duty, the greatest crimes, and shed torrents of blood. For what?” in his preface to Le bons-sens, ou idées naturelles opposées aux idées surnaturelles (1772). See Paul Henri Thiry Baron d’Holbach, Good Sense, or, Natural Ideas Opposed to Supernatural… (New York: Wright and Owen, 1831), viii.
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