Madison’s and Washington’s Silence:
Jonathan Rowe on Sep 10th 2005 09:54 am |
I decided to do some research on James Huston after seeing him on Coral Ridge’s propaganda special. He’s actually a legitimate scholar (Kennedy’s special featured a few legitimate, well respected scholars like Daniel Dreisbach, along with hacks like David Barton and William Federer). On the special, Huston remarked that George Washington was a vestryman in the Anglican/Episcopalian Church (which proves nothing about Washington’s orthodox belief, because so was Jefferson) and the notion that virtually all of our founders were Deists is historically false (I agree with him there, though, so too is the notion that virtually all but a handful of founders were orthodox, Trinitarian Christians).
Huston works for the Library of Congress and wrote a good paper on James Madison and religion. You can see that he’s not a “Christian Nation” propagandist because he doesn’t try to claim Madison as an orthodox Christian (which they all do). He gets to the bottom of Madison’s religious belief or lack of evidence thereof:
Madison, on the other hand, defies definition or description. Seeking evidence of his faith quickly leads to the conclusion that there is, in the words of the poet, no there there, that in the mature Madison’s writings there is no trace, no clue as to his personal religious convictions.
Madison, like George Washington, was conspicuously silent about the specific details of his religious beliefs. Both men did however profess a belief in a Divine Providence. The question then is what are we to make of the silence of Washington and Madison?
As I have noted before, there is positive evidence that Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin were all deistic-unitarians, that is they followed a “natural” religion that profoundly broke with traditional Christian doctrines like the Trinity, eternal damnation, inerrancy of scripture, miracles and prophesies written in the Bible that seemed to contradict the laws of science and nature, etc.
(Note: When I use the term “natural” as I will many times in this essay, I mean, in the words of Forrest McDonald, what is “discoverable by reason as opposed to revealed by God.” Therefore, the “natural religion” or “natural law” is what we can know about God and His rules through “Reason” not “Revelation.”)
Washington and Madison, on the other hand, give little positive evidence that they were either orthodox-Bible believing Christians, or that they, like the other three mentioned, rejected such tenets. I think one could make a case that the silence of Madison and Washington points in the direction of unorthodox belief in the natural religion like Jefferson, et al. Putting things into historical perspective, churches and the forces of “religious correctness” had far greater social and legal power back then than they do today. One could not easily wear one’s religious unorthodoxy on one’s sleeve and get away with it. Thomas Paine did so and was absolutely personally ruined and died a pauper for his public thoughts on religion. Jefferson straddled the line with his public pronouncements and was vilified by more than a few orthodox Christians. And most of Jefferson’s and Adams’s explicit criticisms and rejections of orthodox Christianity were taken from their private correspondence — correspondence, by the way, which they knew they were writing for future generations to read and absorb.
To provide a useful anecdote: One letter from their correspondence which I am fond of quoting (one of Adams’s best) is an 1813 letter of Adams to Jefferson where Adams clearly reveals that he is a deistic-unitarian like Jefferson — he loathes Calvin; he denies the Trinity; he disbelieves in Eternal Damnation; he elevates Reason over Revelation…it’s all in there. The context of the letter is that England — which was socially, pretty similar to America — had just repealed a law making it a crime to publicly deny the Trinity!
In other words, whereas Madison and Washington couldn’t get in trouble by publicly affirming the tenets of orthodox Christianity, they likely would get in trouble for publicly denying those tenets. I know I have some bias in the matter, but I think that Madison’s and Washington’s silence on religious matters gives evidence of their deistic-unitarianism.
There is other secondary evidence as well that demonstrates the unorthodox beliefs of Washington and Madison. For instance, Washington was an Episcopalian and sometimes attended church. He, however, systematically refused to take communion (something orthodox members didn’t do) leading his own ministers to brand him a “Deist.” He was publicly excoriated in Church for doing this, not by name, but by example, by one of those ministers, after which Washington never again attended Church on communion day.
Huston’s paper unearths some interesting quotes from men whom were personally acquainted with Madison:
“To make his case, Brant relied on the testimony of Madison’s contemporaries, one of whom knew the fourth president well–the Reverend Alexander Balmaine, the husband of one of Madison’s favorite cousins and the Episcopal priest who officiated at his marriage to Dolly Paine Todd. Brant also used the testimony of the Episcopal Bishop of Virginia, William Meade, who claimed, on at least one occasion, to have talked religion with the former president. Balmaine’s account, as recorded by Meade, asserted that after returning to Montpelier from college Madison
“Offered for the Legislature, and it was objected to him, by his opponents, that he was better suited to the pulpit than to the legislative hall. His religious feeling, however, seems to have been short-lived. His political associations were those of infidel principles, of whom there were many in his day, if they did not actually change his creed, yet subjected him to a general suspicion of it
“According to Bishop Meade:
“I was never at Mr. Madison’s but once, and then our conversation took such a turn–though not designed on my part–as to call forth some expressions and arguments which left the impression on my mind that his creed was not strictly regulated by the Bible.
“Brant also cites a Bostonian’s account of an 1815 dinner table conversation with Madison:
“He talked of religious sects and parties and was curious to know how the cause of liberal Christianity stood with us, and if the Athanasian creed was well received by our Episcopalians. He pretty distinctly intimated to me his own regard for the Unitarian doctrines.”
Madison also, like Jefferson et al. believed that traditional religious beliefs must give way to the new discoveries of science and reason:
Perhaps a better clue to Madison’s outlook is a letter to Jefferson, December 31, 1824, in which he complained about Presbyterian “Sectarian Seminaries,” armed with charters of incorporation, disseminating obsolete religious doctrines, by which he clearly meant Calvinism.
Unassailable charters allowed a “creed however absurd or contrary to that of a more enlightened Age” to be perpetuated indefinitely. The Reformation itself, Madison continued, must be considered the “greatest of abuses,” if legal impediments could prevent its doctrines from being brought up to date. The idea that Madison was espousing, that religious truth must evolve to incorporate the discoveries of science and other branches of modern learning, was far from the theological orthodoxy of most 19th century American churches. It can be inferred that his own religious views had evolved from the verities he had learned at Princeton, but how and in what direction neither this nor other writings disclose.
Finally, the public acknowledgements of God made by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin, strikingly parallel one another. All of them made supplications to an interventionist Divine Providence, but none of them ever referred to God in explicitly orthodox-Trinitarian Christian terms or cited verses and chapters of Scripture in doing so.
This passage from James Madison’s Address to the People, Virginia General Assembly, January 23, 1799 is typical of such a supplication:
Pledged as we are, fellow-citizens, to these sacred engagements, we yet humbly, fervently implore the Almighty Disposer of events to avert from our land war and usurpation, the scourges of mankind; to permit our fields to be cultivated in peace; to instil into nations the love of friendly intercourse; to suffer our youth to be educated in virtue, and to preserve our morality from the pollution invariably incident to habits of war; to prevent the laborer and husbandman from being harassed by taxes and imposts; to remove from ambition the means of disturbing the commonwealth; to annihilate all pretexts for power afforded by war; to maintain the Constitution; and to bless our nation with tranquillity, under whose benign influence we may reach the summit of happiness and glory, to which we are destined by nature and nature’s God.
So we see Madison making a supplication, not to the God of the Bible, but rather to “Nature’s God,” meaning what man can know about God through his Reason. This is more evidence that Madison adhered not to conventional Christianity but to the “natural” deistic-unitarian religion. I know…these concepts are not mutually exclusive. It’s possible that “Nature’s God” and the God of the Bible are one and the same, that what we “discover” about God through Reason perfectly complements Revelation.
However, in those rare events when our Founders explicated Nature’s God’s specific attributes, often they described Him in ways not consistent with traditional teachings. For instance, back to Adam’s 1813 letter, “Reason” reveals Nature’s God to be theologically unitarian!
It’s true that when our Founders did invoke God, they spoke to a public comprised of many orthodox Christians, who would not have taken too kindly to their supplication of a God in which they didn’t believe. So this is why our Founders were purposefully vague when making their supplications. They drew a lowest-common-denominator. Justice Scalia, in fact, noted something similar in his dissent in McCreary but ultimately missed the point. He argued that our Founders drew a lowest-common-denominator between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. This is wrong because anyone with good historical knowledge of religion and the founding knows that Judaism and Islam were not socially respectable religions and tended to be placed in the same box with “Hindus, Pagans and Infidels.” What our Founders actually did was draw a lowest-common-denominator between orthodox Christianity on the one hand and the unorthodox deistic-unitarian religion to which they ascribed on the other.
But in any event, the “kernel of Truth” to the claim that “our Founders were Deists,” is that, even if they were a statistical minority, the key framers, indeed arguably the five most important Framers — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin — were not orthodox Christians but rather ascribed to an Enlightenment influenced “natural” religion.
Filed in Uncategorized
Moreover, as you know, many of the Founders would have stuck Catholics in with the pagan/infidel camp. “Orthodox Christianity” was rather emphatically Protestant Christianity…
Oh yes. In many states Catholics were denied the free exercise of religion and equal rights. Adams, Jefferson, et al. railed against the Catholic Church but nonetheless thought liberal democracy was compelled to grant Catholics (along with the Pagans and Infidels) the full “free and equal rights of conscience.”
Clear, concise and to the point. Wonderfully done. BW
Why was ‘England socially pretty similar to America’?
I don’t know, maybe because it was the Mother Country and we were a bunch of British Colonies. We spoke the same language and were governed at the local level by the same common law.
Were there any common intellectual currents? Were any of these religious ideas also discussed in England, or were they unique to the American colonies? Any population movement — ?
“Were any of these religious ideas also discussed in England, or were they unique to the American colonies?”
See John Locke and his Letter on Toleration. Locke’s teachings were accepted in England, then Jefferson and Madison built upon his foundation and extended it further. For instance, whereas Locke wouldn’t extend toleration to atheists or Catholics, Jefferson and Madison would (extend the full rights of conscience to all all religious beliefs no matter how unorthodox).
So where did the American colonists come from? Was the entire population native-born? — Locke wrote in late 17th century England; Madison et al wrote in late 18th century America. — Did English thinkers also go beyond Locke? What did Burke (for example) have to say? Was there any cross-communication of ideas in the 18th century across the Atlantic?
Shenoy: Entire books have been written to answer those questions. I could compile a list for you from various ideological sources if you’d like.
The hardest part of all this is the historical context. When to put things into historical context, when to take things out of context, how to view the context, etc. Depending on how you look at it, our Founders were either racist, sexist, slave-holding moral monsters, or the most progressive, liberal, enlightened egalitarians on the planet.
One of the most unsatisfying things I find about “Original Intent” conservatism, ala Robert Bork or on the blogsphere, Clayton Cramer, is the sort of glib, simplistic, analysis: Did the Founders or the populace think norm A applied to specific situation B, if not, then it’s not a proper application of the constitutional norm…all the states had sodomy laws, etc.
The problem is constitutional natural rights ideals need to be liberated 18th Century prejudices, if that can be done. Otherwise we truly were founded on slavery, racism, sexism, conquest of Indians, anti-Catholicism, and other sorts of religious bigotry. And who the fuck wants to be part of that system?
But that (surely) is the whole point of looking at the 18th century context: the quite dramatic changes in ideas as compared with earlier periods. While there were (for example) plenty of anti-Catholics (because of earlier political fears), there was also activity towards Catholic Emancipation (eg the Act of ?1778 which allowed Catholics into the Army, for instance.) And Burke (for example) wanted to extend religious freedom not only to Catholics & Dissenters, but even to ‘pagans’ & Muslims (because they were long-established religions.) Burke also opposed slavery; he inspired & was consulted by, the first abolitionist MPs. Ricardo spent his fortune on Catholic Emancipation. And so on. — The question surely is whether opinion in 18th-century America was monolithic or whether similar opinions to the above were also present; I suspect quite a bit of the latter.
It was also in the 18th century that equality under the common law became more clearly atrticulated & supported — hence too we find the first expressions of respect for individuals qua individuals, no matter how different. (There’s a nice letter in Adam Smith’s correspondence from an old servant on his experiences with American Indians. Only a very small token.) Again, I suspect that there was much of this to be found in America as well.
There’s no way that 18th century thinkers are ever going to be other than what they are: people of the 18th century. But there was a huge diversity of ideas. The really impt point is: where in this spectrum did the key American political figures fall? — & on which issues? This means they _cannot_ be treated as 20th century caricatures wearing 18th century costume. Both of the two extremes you refer to sound to me like the latter.
– It was also in the 18th century that equality under the common law became more clearly atrticulated & supported — hence too we find the first expressions of respect for individuals qua individuals, no matter how different. –
That’s true and we should be grateful for that development its eventual evolution to our present understanding of equality. However, if you freeze this view of equality in its 18th Century context and compare it to today’s understanding of equality, the 18th century view to which you refer appears to be an unenlightened Neanderthal view.
On a different note. I didn’t know that Burke was so tolerant.
[...] Back then one could not get in social or legal trouble for publicly affirming the tenets of orthodox Christianity, but one likely would get in trouble for publicly denying such tenets. We even see from the above passage that, if one was silent as to one’s religious beliefs, there was strong social pressure to affirm publicly one’s orthodoxy. And that’s something neither George Washington nor James Madison did. [...]
[...] See this post for the primary sources. [...]
[...] First, I assert that many of the Founding era elite-educated Virginia Anglicans/Episcopalians were, like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, not orthodox Christians but rather personally adhered to Deist-Unitarian or “Infidel” principles. Here is the testimony of an Episcopalian mister who knew James Madison personally, on the fact that many of the elites “Whigs” in Virginia were “Infidels.” Meade is speaking about how although Madison may have had a brief flirtation with orthodox Christianity early in life, the creed of his elite Whiggery was decidedly not orthodox Christianity. Meade stated about Madison: His religious feeling, however, seems to have been short-lived. His political associations were those of infidel principles, of whom there were many in his day, if they did not actually change his creed, yet subjected him to a general suspicion of it. [...]
[...] A while back I did a post on Madison where I noted that like Washington, he often spoke of a warm-intervening God, generically defined, but eschewed talking in Christian or Trinitarian terms, and otherwise was mum on the specific details of his creed. I linked to an excellent article by James H. Hutson on Madison’s religious beliefs which noted our fourth President’s conspicuous silence on the matter. Hutson does uncover a few clues as to what Madison believed. And those clues point us in the direction of not Madison’s belief in Christianity, but in Theistic Rationalism. First the words of Bishop Meade, a Founding era orthodox Christian who knew Madison personally: His religious feeling, however, seems to have been short-lived. His political associations were[with] those of infidel principles, of whom there were many in his day, if they did not actually change his creed, yet subjected him to a[the] general suspicion of it [...]
It is obvious John Adams despised the corruptions of the clergy and romanism in general, this is the context of the letter to Jefferson in 1813, as well as every letter he wrote on the subject. John Adam’s appeals to the trinity in his fast day proclamation on March 6th, 1799, as well as declaring the bible to be inspired, showing your faulty interpretation of the letter.
The definition of Unitarian is very different today than before 1835, 19th century unitarians believed in inerrancy of the bible, as well as the deity of Jesus Christ. Just because a Christian questions the bible doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe in it. Adam’s is correct that this nation was formed by reasoned men, not by miraculous devices of super human men, he despised the pagan rituals of romanism that had corrupted the true tenets of the bible just as I do.
In the end, John Adams was a born again Christian believing in the essentials of the Christian faith, just like his son John Q. Adams.
James,
John Adams was such a militant anti-Trinitarian that he argues in that letter had God Himself revealed the Trinity to Adams, he still wouldn’t have believed the doctrine because one is not three and three is not one period.
“The definition of Unitarian is very different today than before 1835, 19th century unitarians believed in inerrancy of the bible, as well as the deity of Jesus Christ.”
Some Unitarians may have believed the the Bible was inerrant. However, unitarianism by its very definition rejects the Trinity. There were two variants of unitarianism regarding who Jesus was: 1) Socinians, who believed that Jesus was a man and nothing more and 2) Arians, who believed Jesus was some kind of divine being separate from and inferior to God. The closest you got to a unitarian believing in the deity of Jesus is Arianism.
And those unitarians who believed the Bible was inerrant argued that the inerrant Bible teaches Jesus was not God.
You need to re-read Adams’s letter very carefully. And this time leave aside your erroneous presumptions.
And btw, even though some unitarians believed the Bible to be inerrant, John Adams wasn’t one. See this post where I note a letter by Adams where he doubts we have the right version of the Ten Commandments, suggests the right version may have been lost and calls it an “Error or Amendment” in the Bible. His words:
“When and where originated our Ten Commandments? The Tables and The Ark were lost. Authentic copies, in few, if any hands; the ten Precepts could not be observed, and were little remembered.
“If the Book of Deuteronomy was compiled, during of after the Babilonian Captivity, from Traditions, the Error or Amendment might come in there.”
In addition, you’ll see Adams asserting that Greek Paganism and Hinduism contain the same Truth as Christianity.
Adams’s religious beliefs were radically unorthodox, even by today’s standards.
You may be interested in a new book that has just been published in response to Sam Harris. It is entitled “Letter to a Christian Nation: Counter Point” by RC Metcalf. It is available through Amazon and B&N or through the author’s website at http://thinkagain.us. Please let others know about this important work!
I take back what I said about Adams, you are right, he was a unitarian but after I’ve learned more about the founding fathers I know you are wrong about a great many things regarding them.
You use one quote that is hearsay from a Bostonian giving his opinion about Madison which we cannot verify with other sources, and I just found a quote by Madison saying Christianity is the greatest religion. Since we have no reference of Madison denying the trinity, it is save to say Madison was a born again trinitarian Christian as at least the two hundred or so founders of our country. Only a handful of framer’s were Christian unitarians: Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin. A couple were deists, maybe Allen and Dearborn. They all believed in a Personal, Providential God.
Franklin was so confused, he didn’t know what he was. He called himself a deist and called for God’s intervention at the Constitutional Convention. He used the parting of the Red Sea I believe for the Seal of the USA. Franklin was like Jefferson, a Christian unitarian or even Jewish in his thinking. He believed Yahweh was God as did Jefferson.
Here is proof you are wrong not only about the (god of reason) being the law of nature, but this proves Jefferson believed Yahweh, the God of Israel was God. Jefferson was confused like Franklin was, calling himself a Christian but denying the revelation of Christianity.
“I reciprocate you kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the COMMON FATHER AND CREATOR OF MAN…assurances of my high respect and esteem.”
Jefferson, Writings, Vol. XVI, pp.281-282, to the Danbury Baptist Association on Jan. 1, 1802.
Who is the common creator to the Danbury Baptists? You got it, Yahweh, the God of Israel, more actually Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
And this proves the law of nature and of nature’s god is Yahweh as well. If you want to learn about the law of nature, read Blackstone, Locke, Montesquieu, and Aquinas, that’s where Jefferson and the framer’s got it from.
To bad John Hancock died early, he may have been President. Here are some born again Christian framers: Hancock, Hamilton, Mason, Dickinson, Iredell, Paterson, Wilson, Rush, Witherspoon, Madison, Sherman, John Q. Adams, Samuel Adams, Rutledge, Bassett, Henry, Chase, Swift, Ames, Webster, King, Mifflin, Marshall, Huntington, Johnston, and the rest, etc.
John Jay puzzles me, he put his name on the Treaty of Paris which says “In the name of the Indivisible Trinity” and never denied it, but didn’t believe it as far as I can tell. Can you find a reference for this?
February 18, 1822 letter to Samuel Miller: “For proof of [the Trinity] I searched the Scriptures diligently — but without Success. I therefore consider this Position of being at least of questionable Orthodoxy.”
Also, can you get any quotes on Joseph Story and his position on the trinity?
Here is Madison talking about Christianity:
“Waiving the rights of Conscience, not included in the surrender implied by the social State, and more or less invaded by all religious Establishments, the simple question to be decided is whether a support of the best & purest religion, the Xn religion itself ought, not so far at least as pecuniary means are involved, to be provided for by the Govt rather than be left to the voluntary provisions of those who profess it.”
[James Madison, in a letter to Rev Jasper Adams spring 1832, from James Madison on Religious Liberty, edited by Robert S. Alley, pp. 237-238]
Madison is claiming Christianity the best religion, of no doubt he subscribed. And this was at the end of his life, so he was in favor of leaving the Federal govt. from enforcing Christianity, he was wrong, not a very big deal, religion is left to the states as it should be. He didn’t understand that if Christianity is left alone, sin in man will always trample it underfoot.
Trust in Jesus Christ as God for the remission of sins, to escape the judgment to come. Be not deceived, the wicked will be judged.
James,
I am glad you are carefully examining the record. Though, I think it is wrong to conclude because almost all of these men were formally and nominally connected to churches which professed Trinitarian orthodoxy, “two hundred or so founders of our country” were “born again trinitarian Christian[s].” This misses the nuance that many men, back then as today, are nominally members of Christian churches but don’t believe everything, or many of the key things, which those churches preach. For instance, how many Catholics today really believe and/or practice the Church’s teachings on contraception?
Re Madison, if he made numerous statements affirming Trinitarian orthodoxy, I might dismiss the Bostonian’s account. But he didn’t. His public statements on God were invariably generic and philosophical, neither identifiably unitarian or Trinitarian, in a day and age when folks were expected to affirm Trinitarianism. The Bostonian’s account is evidence that Madison was a closet unitarian, which is consistent with his public generic supplications to God. The smoking gun evidence on Madison’s heterodoxy is his letter TO FREDERICK BEASLEY on Nov. 20, 1825.
http://www.churchstatelaw.com/historicalmaterials/8_7_16.asp
First, when it comes time to discuss God’s attributes, Madison does not, which it would seem he would do were he a Christian, turn to the Bible or the explicit creeds of the Episcopal Church to which he nominally belonged, but rather, he attemps to understand God’s attributes on rationalistic terms, through philosophical reasoning.
Second, the “Dr. Clarke” to whom Madison refers is “Dr. Samuel Clarke,” an Anglican minister, also a theological unitarian who was nearly defrocked for peddling his unitarian doctrines (he wasn’t defrocked because he promised to stop doing so). Indeed, in Gregg Frazer’s Ph.D. thesis, he notes that Clarke’s work was part of what the orthodox Christians of the day referred to as “Satan’s bookshelf” at Harvard, an institution which had orthodox Christian origins but during the Founding era was overtaken by Unitarians.
I don’t see how you can read that letter and still conclude that Madison was a “born again” Trinitarian Christian.
No doubt, many of the “Founding Fathers” were orthodox Trinitarian Christians. No one really knows what the breakdown is (perhaps they were a statistical majority). In order to so category any particular founder, a serious inquiry must be done. Otherwise, simply showing some formal connection to a Christian Church won’t cut it, and we must be agnostic on that particular Founder’s real beliefs.
Indeed, many of those you claim to be “born-again” Christians, my research shows, no, they were theological unitarians/theistic rationalists, just like Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison. I know Alexander Hamilton believed exactly like Jefferson and Franklin and did not become a “real Christian” until the end of his life, after he had done his work founding the nation. Likewise, James Wilson was not a Christian, but a “theistic rationalist.” At one point in his life JQ Adams did indeed convert to orthodox Trinitarian Christianity, but he may have switched back to Unitarianism before he died.
I’ll address the other stuff in a later comment.