Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion

by David Barton

  As George Washington had noted, the fingerprints of God in America’s behalf were often evident throughout the struggle; and in September of 1780, they were again manifested in the discovery of the plot by Benedict Arnold to betray American forces. In General Nathanael Greene’s report to his troops and to the Congress on September 26, 1780, he reported:

  Treason of the blackest dye was yesterday discovered! General Arnold who commanded at Westpoint, lost to every sentiment of honor, of public and private obligation, was about to deliver up that important post into the hands of the enemy. Such an event must have given the American cause a deadly wound if not a fatal stab. Happily the treason has been timely discovered to prevent the fatal misfortune. The Providential train of circumstances which led to it affords the most convincing proof that the liberties of America are the object of Divine protection.124

  When Congress learned of the Providential exposure of Arnold’s intricately laid scheme, it promptly appointed Samuel Adams, William Houston, and Frederic Muhlenberg to draft a proclamation for a national day of prayer and thanksgiving.125 On October 18, 1780, Congress approved the wording and distributed the proclamation throughout the Colonies:

  Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, amidst the vicissitudes [changes] and calamities of war, to bestow blessings on the people of these States which call for their devout and thankful acknowledgments, more especially in the late remarkable interposition of his watchful providence in rescuing the person of our Commander-in-Chief and the army from imminent dangers at the moment when treason was ripened for execution…. It is therefore recommended to the several States … a day of public thanksgiving and prayer; that all the people may assemble on that day to celebrate the praises of our Divine Benefactor; to confess our unworthiness of the least of his favors, and to offer our fervent supplications to the God of all grace … to cause the knowledge of Christianity to spread over all the earth.126

  That same year (1780), Samuel Adams reminded the troops:

  May every citizen in the army and in the country have a proper sense of the Deity upon his mind and an impression of the declaration recorded in the Bible, “Him that honoreth Me I will honor, but he that despiseth Me shall be lightly esteemed” [I SAMUEL 2:30].127

  As the war prolonged, the shortage of Bibles remained a problem. Consequently, Robert Aitken, publisher of The Pennsylvania Magazine, petitioned Congress on January 21, 1781, for permission to print the Bibles on his presses here in America rather than import them. He pointed out to Congress that his Bible would be “a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools.”128 Congress approved his request and appointed a committee of James Duane, Thomas McKean, and John Witherspoon to oversee the project.129

  In October 1781, amidst the work on the Bible, the Americans won the Battle of Yorktown and the British troops laid down their arms. The British press reported the activities surrounding the surrender:

  It was on the 19th of October that lord Cornwallis surrendered himself and his whole army…. Two days after the capitulation took place, Divine service was performed in all the different brigades and divisions of the American army in order to return thanks to the Almighty for this great event; and it was recommended by General Washington to all the troops that were not upon duty, in his general orders, that they would assist at Divine service “with a serious deportment and with that sensibility of heart which the recollection of the surprising and particular interposition of Providence in their favor claimed.”130

  On October 24, 1781, Congress, too, set aside a time to honor God for this victory and:

  Resolved, That Congress will at two o’clock this day go in procession to the Dutch Lutheran Church and return thanks to Almighty God for crowning the allied arms of the United States and France with success by the surrender of the whole British Army under the command of the Earl Cornwallis.131

  Despite the victory, work on the new Bible continued. As it neared its final stage of readiness in late summer 1782, James Duane, chairman of the Congressional committee, reported to Congress:

  He [Mr. Aitken] undertook this expensive work at a time when from the circumstances of the war an English edition of the Bible could not be imported, nor any opinion formed how long the obstruction might continue. On this account particularly he deserves applause and encouragement.132

  On September 12, 1782, the full Congress approved that Bible133 which soon began rolling off the presses. Printed in the front of that Bible (the first English-language Bible ever printed in America) was the Congressional endorsement:

  Whereupon, Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled … recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States.134

  Of this event, one early historian observed:

  Who, in view of this fact, will call in question the assertion that this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to religion when the first Congress of the States assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!135

  A year after this Bible, and almost two years after the British had laid down their arms at Yorktown, there still was no treaty, and thus no official guarantee that the hostilities would not resume. Yet, since there had been no further fighting, and the prospect of a lasting peace appeared to be growing, George Washington began to anticipate his return to private life. In contemplation of this, on June 3, 1783, he explained:

  Before I retire from public life, I shall with the greatest freedom give my sentiments to the States on several political subjects.136

  Consequently, five days later on June 8, Washington issued a circular letter to the Governors of all the States in which he told them:

  I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the State over which you preside in His holy protection … that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all 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, without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.137

  Three months later, on September 8, 1783, the formal peace treaty with Great Britain was signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay. Like so many of the other official records of the Revolution, that document, too, openly acknowledged God. The opening line of the peace treaty declared:

  In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.138

  When word reached America that the peace was now official, there was first a time of great celebration; and then on October 13, 1783, Congress appointed James Duane, Samuel Huntington, and Samuel Holten to prepare a proclamation for a day of prayer and thanksgiving.139 Congress approved that proclamation on October 18, 1783, and distributed it among the States, announcing:

  Whereas it hath pleased the Supreme Ruler of all human events to dispose the hearts of the late belligerent powers to put a period to the effusion of human blood by proclaiming a cessation of all hostilities by sea and land, and these United States are not only happily rescued from the dangers and calamities to which they have been so long exposed, but their freedom, sovereignty and independence ultimately acknowledged. And whereas in the progress of a contest on which the most essential rights of human nature depended, the interposition of Divine Providence in our favor hath been most abundantly and most graciously manifested, and the citizens of these United States have every reason for praise and gratitude to the God of their salvation. Impressed, therefore, with an exalted sense of the blessings by which we are surrounded, and of our entire dependence on that Almighty Being from whose goodness and bounty they are derived, the United States in Congress assembled, do recommend it to the several States … a day of public thanksgiving that all the people may then assemble to celebrate with grateful hearts and united voices the praises of their Supreme and all bountiful Benefactor for his numberless
favors and mercies…. and above all that he hath been pleased to continue to us the light of the blessed Gospel and secured to us in the fullest extent the rights of conscience in faith and worship.140

  Many of the State Governors also issued their own individual proclamations for days of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving, including John Hancock of Massachusetts,141 William Livingston of New Jersey,142 John Dickinson of Pennsylvania,143 and others. This type of open acknowledgment of and reliance on God by our civic leaders was common practice. In addition to the fifteen national Congressional proclamations issued throughout the Revolution,144 literally scores of similar proclamations – often strongly and openly Christian – were issued by individual Governors for their States.

  Establishing a Stronger Government

  With independence now a reality, the national legislators turned their full attention toward permanently securing America’s newly gained liberty. To this end, delegates from each State were sent to Philadelphia in May 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation (the document under which the national government had functioned during the Revolution). It soon became evident that revising the Articles was insufficient; a new government pact was needed. While the delegates had not originally convened to write a constitution, their work ultimately produced an entirely new document – the United States Constitution. Therefore, that Philadelphia gathering is now referred to as the “Constitutional Convention.”

  One of the longest speeches in the Convention was delivered by its elder statesman, Benjamin Franklin. James Madison, who kept fastidious personal records of the Convention’s events and debates, recorded the stirring speech delivered by the 81 year-old statesman on June 28, 1787. Addressing George Washington, President of the Convention, Franklin declared:

  Mr. President:

  The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasonings with each other – our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom since we have been running about in search of it….

  In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights, to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

  I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

  I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.145

  (This is a striking speech since it reflects the sentiments of one who is admittedly one of the least religious of the Founders.)

  Roger Sherman of Connecticut seconded Franklin’s motion for prayer,146 but some opposed it, pointing out that since the Convention had no funds it could not pay for a chaplain.147 Franklin’s motion was therefore tabled.148 (However, some accounts indicated that prayer did later occur as a result of Franklin’s request.149) Delegate Edmund Jennings Randolph of Virginia also proposed:

  [T]hat a sermon be preached at the request of the Convention on the Fourth of July.150

  To accommodate that proposal, on Monday, July 2, the Convention adjourned until Thursday, July 5, so that, as James Madison explained, “time might be given … to such as chose to attend to the celebrations on the anniversary of independence.”151 On July 4, many delegates attended that special service. For example, George Washington noted in his diary:

  [W]ent to hear [at the Calvinist Church] an oration on the anniversary of independence.152

  After the oration (delivered by a young law student), the Rev. William Rogers, minister of the Calvinist Church, concluded with this prayer:

  [W]e fervently recommend to thy fatherly notice … our federal convention…. [F]avor them, from day to day, with thy immediate presence; be thou their wisdom and their strength! Enable them to devise such measures as may prove happily instrumental for healing all divisions and promoting the good of the great whole; … that the United States of America may furnish the world with one example of a free and permanent government…. May we … continue, under the influence of republican virtue, to partake of all the blessings of cultivated and civilized society.153

  When the Constitutional Convention finally concluded, some delegates opposed the final document. However, perhaps Benjamin Franklin summed up the sense of the thirty-nine who signed it when he declared:

  I beg I may not be understood to infer that our general Convention was Divinely inspired when it formed the new federal Constitution … yet I must own I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance to the welfare of millions now existing (and to exist in the posterity of a great nation) should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live, and move, and have their being.154

  As the above examples indicate, the men who formed the Constitution neither precluded nor limited public or official religious acknowledgments. In fact, George Washington, President of the Convention, later told the Baptists of Virginia that:

  If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention where I had the honor to preside might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it.155

  However, not only did religious activities accompany the drafting of the federal Constitution, they also accompanied its ratification. This was evident throughout the various State conventions which gathered to approve that document. For example:

  On motion of the Hon. Mr. [John] Adams, Voted, That the Convention will attend morning prayers daily, and that the gentlemen of the clergy, of every denomination, be requested to officiate in turn.156 MASSACHUSETTS

  After appointing the proper subordinate officers, and having ordered that the doors should be kept open … the business of the Convention opened every morning with prayer.157 NEW YORK

  On the recommendation of Mr. Paul Carrington, the Rev. Abner Waugh was unanimously elected chaplain, to attend every morning to read prayers immediately after the bell shall be rung for calling the Convention.158 VIRGINIA

  Furthermore, in some States the ratification convention was held in a church.159 Clearly, the proceedings of both the Constitutional Convention and the ratification conventions provide further or
ganic utterances that the Framers not only supported, but even participated in both public religious activities and public endorsements of religion.

  Under the Constitution

  Practices of the Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary

  On April 6, 1789, following the ratification of the Constitution, George Washington was selected President; he accepted the position on April 14, 1789; and his inauguration was scheduled in New York City (the nation’s capital) for April 30, 1789. The April 23 New York Daily Advertiser reported on the planned inaugural activities:

  [O]n the morning of the day on which our illustrious President will be invested with his office, the bells will ring at nine o’clock, when the people may go up to the house of God and in a solemn manner commit the new government, with its important train of consequences, to the holy protection and blessing of the Most high. An early hour is prudently fixed for this peculiar act of devotion and … is designed wholly for prayer.160

  On April 27, three days before the inauguration, the Senate:

  Resolved, That after the oath shall have been administered to the President, he, attended by the Vice President and members of the Senate and House of Representatives, proceed to St. Paul’s Chapel, to hear Divine service.161