One often refers to Thomas Jefferson as the “principal author” or sometimes even less accurately as simply the “author” of the Declaration of Independence. In fact, the Declaration was the work of the entire Second Continental Congress; it formed a committee which then gave the first draft to Jefferson.
Thanks to modern technology, it is now a trivial exercise to visually compare Jefferson’s first draft of the document with what finally came out. It is a more inductive and inexact process to evaluate what those revisions reflect. They tell us something about what was in Jefferson’s mind, and they tell us something about what was in the mind of the assembled fifty-six delegates collectively — to the extent that collective intent in a deliberative political body can ever be ascertained at all, a questionable proposition right out of the starting gate.
This is an inherently inexact and speculative process. I’ve tried to approach it with the goal of intellectual honesty in mind – maybe the revisions would lead me to a place I didn’t like, but if that’s what the evidence shows, better to deal with it honestly than to pretend it’s something that it isn’t. What I think I’ve found is Congress inserting into Jefferson’s work a dose of very ambiguous theism, toning down the most incendiary parts, and basically writing for itself the operative language effecting the political split with Britain.
But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself after the jump.
AIn CONGRESS, July 4, 1776,
The unanimous Declaration
By the Representativesof theUnited Statesthirteen united STATES ofAmerica, in General Congress Assembled.AMERICA,
What kind of a new polity is this? Is it thirteen allied but independent nations? Is it thirteen provinces of a single nation? There was probably some thought about the Netherlands or Switzerland. The best I can figure out here is that something was intended as more than an alliance, but the exact relationship between the states and the national government would not get worked out until – well, I was going to say not until 1868, but the fact is we’re still working that out even today, aren’t we?
When in the
courseCourse of human events, it becomes necessary foraone people toadvance from that subordination indissolve the political bands whichtheyhavehitherto remainedconnected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equaland independentstation to which thelawsLaws ofnatureNature and ofnature’s godNature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to thechangeseparation.
Everyone wants to point to this phrase “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and try and read into that phrase some guidance about the role of religion in the government. I’ve got my opinions about both what they wanted and what they created. But while I admit that I have a more secularist bias, this phrase itself seems so ambiguous to me that it is probably best written off as one of those ambiguous phrases constructed to appeal to many different interests at once, and thus of very limited probative value into that controversial question.
The next sentence is more interesting on that subject:
We hold these truths to be self-evident
;, that all men are created equaland independent;, thatfromthey are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, thatequal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable,amongwhich are the preservation of life, and libertythese are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness; thatHappiness.
Jefferson was not the author of the phrase “endowed by their Creator.” It appears that this language came out of the committee charged with drafting the Declaration, which means the language came from one of the other committee members – John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, or Robert Livingston. Franklin’s religiosity was as malleable over time as Jefferson’s seems to have been, and it remains unclear if Franklin was in 1776 a devout believer or a skeptic. But Adams, Livingston, and Sherman were all devout Christians of some kind or another, and it would have been in character for any of them to have wanted a more explicit reference to the divine as moral justification for what, had they failed, would have been treason.
Still, I note that the word “Creator” rather than “God” was chosen even in a committee and likely a Congress dominated by men who took pride and derived their identities and egos in no small part from their Christianity. There were no Muslims, no Jews, no Hindus, and indeed only two Catholics in the whole committee. It’s very unclear how many of the delegates flirted with or embraced Deism at the time. So again, I think the safe interpretation of collective intent here is that the phrase was chosen for its ambiguity rather than for its clarity.
Especially interesting in these quarters, owing to the deep analysis of libertarian philosophical texts recently, is the striking of the reference to all men being created “independent.”
That to secure these
ends, governmentsrights, Governments are instituted amongmenMen, deriving their justpowerpowers from the consent of the governed; that. That whenever anyformForm ofgovernment shall becomeGovernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is therightRight of thepeoplePeople to alter or to abolish it, and to institute newgovernmentGovernment, layingit’sits foundation on such principles and organizingit’s powerits powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect theirsafetySafety andhappinessHappiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate thatgovernmentsGovernments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes:; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,begun at a distinguished period, andpursuing invariably the same object,evinces a design to reduce themto arbitrary powerunder absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off suchgovernmentGovernment, and to provide newguardsGuards for their future security.
As a theoretical matter, notice the appeal to natural law as a justification both moral and legal for declaring independence. Libertarians in particular will also notice the reference to the formation of a voluntary mutual governmental association as the legitimate foundation of government, and can credibly argue that this document represents an example of that happening in reality rather than as a theoretical construct.
Such has been the patient
sufferingssufferance ofthe coloniesthese Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them toexpungealter their formersystemsSystems ofgovernment. theGovernment. The history ofhisthe presentmajestyKing of Great Britain [George III] is a history ofunremittingrepeated injuries and usurpations,among which no one fact stands single or solitary to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest,allof which havehaving in direct object the establishment of an absolutetyrannyTyranny over thesestatesStates. To prove this, letfactsFacts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
If anything, Jefferson’s original language here is milder than what was eventually adopted. Contrast this with the peroration, infra. Congress makes a more strongly-worded attack on the King. Congress also seemed to really like Using Capital Letters As A Form Of Emphasis As Though They Lacked The Ability To Italicize:
He has refused his
assentAssent tolawsLaws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good:.He has forbidden his
governorsGovernors to passlawsLaws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till hisassentAssent should be obtained;, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglectedutterlyto attend to them.He has refused to pass other
lawsLaws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right ofrepresentationRepresentation in thelegislatureLegislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only:.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
This addition to Jefferson’s draft is a reference to the dissolution of the government of Boston in the wake of the Boston Tea Party. The colonial government was re-seated at Salem by orders of General Gage; Gage kept the colonial archives in Boston, however, which meant that if the delegates of the local legislature had wanted to consult the laws on the books, they would have had to have sent a messenger to Boston to do the research and report back what was discovered. This would have been a means of emasculating the legislature in Salem, effectively placing power to control local governments in the hands of Massachusetts’ military governor.
The committee draft of this language seems to be in Jefferson’s handwriting. The best guess here is that Jefferson simply passed over this issue in his first run-through and that he agreed later that it needed to be included as one of George’s offenses. After all, the list of grievances concerning the ability of the colonists to form local governments for themselves goes on at some length:
He has dissolved
Representatives housesRepresentative Houses repeatedlyand continually, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people:.He has refused for a long
space oftime, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected,; whereby thelegislativeLegislative powers, incapable ofannihilationAnnihilation, have returned to thepeoplePeople at large for their exercise,; thestateState remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within:.He has
endeavoredendeavoured to prevent the population of thesestatesStates; for that purpose obstructing thelawsLaws fornaturalization for foreignersNaturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither;, and raising the conditions of newappropriationsAppropriations oflands:Lands.
Then we get into the longest list of grievances, those relating to the courts and the hands-on administration of law:
He has
sufferedobstructed theadministrationAdministration ofjustice totally to cease in some of these colonies,Justice, by refusing hisassentAssent tolawsLaws for establishingjudiciary powers:Judiciary Powers.He has made
our judgesJudges dependent on hiswillWill alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries:.He has erected a multitude of
new offices by a self-assumed powerNew Offices, and sent hither swarms ofofficersOfficers to harass our people, and eat out their substance:.He has kept among us, in times of peace
standing armies and ships of war:, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the
military,Military independent of and superior to thecivilCivil power:.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitutionsconstitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving hisassentAssent to their Acts of pretendedacts of legislation, forLegislation:For quartering large bodies of armed troops
amongamoung us;For protecting them by a mock
-trialTrial from punishment for anymurdersMurders which they should commit on thein habitantsInhabitants of thesestates;States:For cutting off our
tradeTrade with all parts of the world;For imposing
taxesTaxes on us without ourconsent;Consent:For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of
trialTrial byjury;Jury:For transporting us beyond
seasSeas to be tried for pretendedoffenses;offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
It’s always struck me as interesting that the Founders would have looked to Quebec this way – colonists Quebec had expressed little interest in joining the independence effort although, to be fair, they had little opportunity since that colony was under direct military governance with no local legislature at all. There was never a serious consideration of including Quebec in the breakaway nation and the issue seemed to come up as a matter of example – “this is what we fear will happen to us.”
As with the Salem Legislature passage above, it seems fair to say that Jefferson simply forgot the Quebec issue in his initial draft, which may well have been somewhat hurried.
For taking away our
charters,Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally theformsForms of ourgovernments;Governments:For suspending our own
legislaturesLegislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever:.He has abdicated
governmentGovernment here, withdrawing his governors, andby declaring us out of hisallegianceProtection andprotection:waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our
coastsCoasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people:.He is at this time transporting large
armiesArmies of foreignmercenariesMercenaries tocompleatcomplete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy theheadHead of acivilizecivilized nation:.He has
endeavoredconstrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
Impressment into the Royal Navy was going to be an issue again in 1812. Sometimes, war doesn’t settle things right away, especially when one side only needs to fight to a draw.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian
savagesSavages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes,and conditionsof existence:
It’s worth remembering that Indian tribes were, in relative terms, reasonably prosperous and reasonably able to mount war efforts. Machinations between tribes had been manipulated by English, Dutch, French, and Spanish colonists for over 150 years and many times the Europeans were the catspaws of the tribes, not the other way around. By 1776, it was clear that, at least east of the Appalachians, the English were dominant, but the various tribes could still put up a good fight and they had been important players in the North American theater of the Seven Years’ War (which we Americans still call the French and Indian war, named after Britain’s opponents in that part of the world). So this charge about using alliances with the Indian tribes as a means of rule by terror was serious business.
So far, Jefferson’s language has done pretty well. But from this point forward, we see some substantial deviance from what Jefferson initially proposed:
He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property:
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidels powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.In every stage of these
oppressions weOppressions We havepetitionedPetitioned forredressRedress in the most humble terms; our. Our repeatedpetitionsPetitions have been answered only by repeated injury. AprincePrince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define atyrantTyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of apeople who mean to befree. Future ages will scarce believe that the hardiness of one man, adventured within the short compass of twelve years only, on so many acts of tyranny without a mask, over a people fostered and fixed in principles of libertypeople.Nor have
weWe been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extendaan unwarrantable jurisdiction overthese our states.us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected at the expense of our own blood and treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league and amity with them: but that submission to their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited: and we. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity,as well as toand we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, whichwere likely towould inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondenceand connection.. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity, and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have by their free election re-established them in power. At this very time too they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries to invade and deluge us in blood. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren.. We mustendeavor to forget our former love for them, and to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of grandeur and of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it; the road to happiness and to glory is open to all of us too; we will climb it apart from them, and, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces oureternal separation!Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
Jefferson’s first two sentences of the getting-down-to-business part of the document made it through pretty much intact. But the “blood and treasure” line (did that phrase originate with Jefferson?) got stricken, probably because in fact a disproportionate part of the price in blood and treasure paid for the Seven Years’ War really was paid by the mother country. Nor would it have been strictly true to say that the colonies were founded without financial, military, or other assistance from the Crown. Jefferson is similarly guilty of glossing over his history, and his law, by saying that the colonies had never submitted to Parliament.
The next portion, referring to the presence of the active-duty army in the colonies, I’m willing to bet got stricken because the rest of Congress wanted to eventually make peace with Britain and thought that Jefferson’s language was a bit too accusatory, too florid, and too undiplomatic. They need not have been thus concerned; much worse was said in wars between European powers, but the point is still correct – after making the case that the colonies were revolting against England to preserve their rights as Englishmen, it would have been unseemly to condemn Englishmen.
We, therefore, the
representativesRepresentatives of the United States of America, in General Congressassembled, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in thenameName, and by the authority of the goodpeoplePeople of thesestates, rejectColonies, solemnly publish andrenounce all allegiancedeclare.
Here, we see Congress adding in a reference to the divine again, where initially Jefferson had left it out. Once again, the identity of the divinity is left obscured – the “Supreme Judge of the world” invokes the role of the Christian deity’s role as judge of the moral worth of the living and the dead; but it is ambiguous enough that any theist would see in that phrase their own god, and notions of “Providence” and “Justice” as abstract concepts could, without too great a stretch, be read into that phrase.
That these United Colonies are, and
subjectionof Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to thekings of Great Britain and all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolveBritish Crown, andbreak offthat all political connectionwhich may have heretofore subsistedbetweenusthem and thepeople or parliamentState of Great Britain;is andfinally we do assert and declare these coloniesought to befreetotally dissolved; and that as Free andindependent statesIndependent States, theyshall hereafterhave fullpowerPower to levywarWar, concludepeacePeace, contractalliancesAlliances, establishcommerceCommerce, and to do all otheractsActs andthingsThings whichindependent statesIndependent States may of right do.
These last, and the only politically operative, clauses took heavy revision. I think these clauses benefitted substantially from it, too. The finalized version is shorter, more direct, less legal and more political, and reconciles the claim of moral and legal right in a way that Jefferson did not (or that he thought he had done enough of elsewhere in the document).
And for the support of this
declaration weDeclaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other ourlivesLives, ourfortunesFortunes, and our sacredhonourHonor.
Once again, Congress adds in “Divine Providence” where Jefferson had completely omitted it.
To the extent the Declaration is cited as evidence of Jefferson’s religiosity, then, the redlining significantly detracts from that. Jefferson the man went to some length to obscure his religiosity anyway, so this should not be a gigantic surprise. To the extent the Declaration reveals the religiosity of Congress as a whole, its uses the phrases “god of nature and nature’s god,” “divine providence,” and “supreme judge of the world.” These are phrases with particular meanings in historical context and they are not explicitly “God” – they could refer to the Christian God, but they could refer to something else, too.
To the extent the Declaration is credited to Jefferson, moreover, the redlining demonstrates that while he clearly played an important role in the document, it should not be credited to Jefferson alone. Some other people, both at the committee and at the whole Congress level, made substantial contributions to it. This is not surprising, given that Jefferson probably put less than a day’s worth of writing into his original draft. Which, in turn, was a pretty remarakble feat, notwithstanding the later editing by committe and further editing by Congress.
Humanizing the work of the Founders takes them out of the realm of myth and legend, and grounds them in human and political reality. But this does not make them any less heroes, in my mind. It enhances their status as heroes. If they really were the demigods legend makes them out to be, it would be harder to relate to them. Jefferson’s genius with words and ideas is much more admirable and interesting because he was a human being with limitations and frailties and weaknesses and contradictions, the greatest of which was his inability to personally actualize his moral abhorrence of slavery. If he were endowed with supernatural genius rather than the more human kind, he is separated from us and becomes an ideal instead of a person we can understand and realte to, an exemplar susceptible of emulation. That is why I look at the Declaration as a human act, a political act, every year. It does honor to the Founders and it fulfills their wishes that we consider them in a light of this nature. Too many people don’t consider them at all; too many of the ones who do cannot distance themselves from the legendary thinking and ground the Founders’ actions in reality. They would profit from doing so.
To non-U.S. Readers, you’re always welcome to join in our festivities. Including any Brits – this was, after all, more than two centuries ago, and we meant it then when we said that we should be “in Peace, Friends.” Allow me to propose that peoples of all the world will benefit from reading the Declaration; it purports to describe natural and universal rights and the circumstances under which honor and justice allow, and indeed demand, that a free people fight for these things.
To my U.S. Readers, have a happy and safe Fourth of July and thanks for taking a moment to reflect on what the holiday is really all about. It’s easy to enjoy the day off work, the good food and relaxing times with friends and family – but it’s valuable and important to remember why w have a holiday today. Our Founders were facing some serious problems, and had to take among the gravest of actions to solve them. An important political step along that difficult road was the creation of the document I analyze after the jump.
Nor would it have been strictly true to say that the colonies were founded without financial, military, or other assistance from the Crown
“There is the aqueduct”.
Yes, yes, of course the aqueduct, that goes without saying. But what else?
It was the position of the colonies that their deal was with the Crown: Their crown charters predated Britain’s 1688 Glorious Revolution, which gave primacy to parliament. See also Hamilton’s “The Farmer Refuted.”
This is why “taxation without representation,” a rather meaningless rubric in our educations, was key. Without colonial representation, Parliament had no consent of the governed and never did.
So then the only problem was dispensing with the Crown.
He has abdicated governmentGovernment here, withdrawing his governors, and by declaring us out of his allegianceProtection and protection:waging War against us.
This was the same solution Britain itself came up with in 1688, that Catholic King James II had “abdicated.” [Leaving the door open for Protestants William & Mary.]
Done. Happy Independence Day.
______________
As for “nature and nature’s God” as the source of natural rights, one of my faves, James Otis, presages the formulation in 1764:
“Government is founded not on force, as was the theory of Hobbes; nor on compact, as was the theory of Locke and of the revolution of 1688; nor on property, as was the assertion of Harrington. It springs from the necessities of our nature, and has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God.”
Thanks for this interesting dissection, Burt. Have a great Fourth!
Thanks for this, Burt. I had never before seen how much of the Slave Trade Jefferson wished to include in his indictment. Fascinating. One of history’s more elusive and confusing characters.
Not to be offensive or contrarian, this would be a good read.
http://unqualifiedreservations.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/why-i-am-not-a-libertarian/
especially look at this:
Note how gracefully Bailyn skates over the fact that (indisputably) no such conspiracy existed. In other words, our Founding Fathers were more or less the Troofers of their day. Or, to put it differently, America obtained its independence because of a war that was started by people who were genuinely terrified of the 18th-century equivalent of black helicopters.
Yeah, something we don’t acknowledge in the States very often is how hysterical and overdramatic the indictment of George III looks from today’s perspective. But I suppose the fact that the Colonists’ grievances were so much less profound than were, say, those in Ancien Regime France might explain why their revolution was comparatively so much less bloody and grueling.
“Not to be offensive or contrarian?” This is. Can you fellas state your positions and arguments in yr own words? Pointing behind the curtain of a link and then nodding and winking to each other in agreement is simply antithetical to what a forum is about.
It’s true that I meself make certain propositions via links that I invite the contrarian to investigate for hisself so I don’t have to listen to broadband fucking noise.
But I have never talked behind either of yr backs or behind the back of anyone who disagreed with me in order to nod and wink with those who agree with me.
Can you feel me on this?
Tom, are you willing to say that there are two sides to the narrative of the Civil War and painting it as The Side Of Noblilty, Truth, and Freedom vs. The Side of Slavery, Racism, and Long Vowels is to distort what really happened to the benefit of the folks who primarily identify with the North?
This essay is an essay that looks at the Revolutionary War with a deliberate attempt to not swallow the narrative that has been spoon fed each of us for hundreds of years.
That’s it.
All right, you want it straight? here goes.
Mencius, Moldbug, that proudly self-identified reactionary is of the view that there are other, better forms of government than democracy (direct or representative, constitutional or otherwise). I also happen to agree with him htat democracy is pernicious.
In fact, America’s birth as a democracy seems to have made american’s unduly sympathetic to so-called “humanitarian” interventions to promote democracy and topple dictators.
In fact, even american paleo-onservatives who are usually in favour of respecting sovereigntys, not interfering in other countries’ internal politics and condemning rebellions make an exception when they talk about America’s own rebellion.
Moldbug’s post, which you should read for yourself, basically takes a look at a number of promary and revisionist secondary sources to argue that the American founding fathers were nuckinng futs.
damn spelling errors. This is what happens when you try to type early in the morning without your glasses.
Yeah, but other kinds of government suck, too. The question is whether democracy sucks less than, say, autocracy, oligarchy, etc.
The Founders were radical, stipulated. Willing to use the truth, like politicians always do, in a slanted way so as to advance their own agendas? Stipulated again.
Nucking futs? No way. 8,000 words of four-year-old internet screed aren’t going to get me to sign off on that. Whether one lives under martial or civil law is important. Due process of law is important. Meaningful ability to participate in selecting one’s own leaders who, in turn, have the ability to meaningfully govern is important.
That’s a theory, Mr. Isquith.
why their revolution was comparatively so much less bloody and grueling
There’s a much simper explanation, I think. The colonies had a society that they liked; the goal of the revolution [1] was to continue it with no changes other than removing the British from their position as its absentee overlords. The colonial governments became state governments with little change; the British were replaced with as weak a central government as could be devised.
The French Revolution wanted to remove a local and genuinely powerful ruling class and replace it with something else, that is, to remake society. That’s much harder and almost guaranteed to result in chaos and bloodshed.
1. A better word, I think, would be revolt.
Good points. One was a conservative revolution, the other radical in the truest sense.
Elias, I thought of you today when reading through Mr. Lincoln’s words in the “Cooper Hall Address.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union_speech
Fighting the Southerners for the right to call yourself “conservative.” It takes my breath away, Elias, and hope all of ours. Feb 1860, Lincoln nominated and elected in the months following after. Respectfully offered for yr consideration.
“But you say you are conservative – eminently conservative – while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;” while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the “gur-reat pur-rinciple” that “if one man would enslave another, no third man should object,” fantastically called “Popular Sovereignty”; but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.” Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.
Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling – that sentiment – by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel?
When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.”
“the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”
You’ve made a slight error. The capitalization of proper and improper nouns was done by the printer, not by the convention. That stylization was common for printing official documents and declarations, but it does not reflect any intent to instantiate the words (ie: nature’s god is not the same as Nature’s God).
Note that there was no religious meaning to a “god of nature” or the generic “creator” invoked by Jefferson. Most of the Founders were deists, not theists … which is certainly not Christian, nor even an Abrahamic position.
“Most of the Founders were deists” is an error, worse than any of Glenn Beck’s. Come up and see me sometime, Mr. Westmiller.
[Altho you’re technically correct about the capitalization issue. However, it doesn’t reflect the Founders’ actual beliefs. Jefferson and Paine are the only authentic deists; Franklin was a theist in the least. The rest, unitarian in the least and even they believed Jesus was the Messiah and Savior.]
He is the power! He is the truth! Speak!
“I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
Why are ye troubled?
And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
Behold my hands and my feet,
that is I myself: handle me, and see;
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
I am the resurrection and the life:
he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live.”
Thus spaketh our Lord, Savior, and God Incarnate.
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Jaybird–your scenario brings back memories. As in, Gerard Finneran. You remember him I’m sure. This extremely drunken investment banker got a bit miffed that he was being shut off of all liquor (can’t imagine why) so it took it upon himself to become the new bartender. Yeah, pulled the usual, guzzling down any and all booze he could find. When the flight attendants try to restrain him, he went on a rage, knocking passengers and crew onto the ground and into seats, and decided he’d have better luck charming the 1st class passengers so he pulled the old, dump on the food cart trick–yes, dump, defecate, shit–of course, this was 1st class so he was using linen napkins for toilet paper. When they forced him off the cart, he smeared his feces all over himself as well as intentionally stepping in it and tracking it throughout the plane. I would be hilarious to hear his “side” of the story.
Oh well, just another day in the life of Gerard Finneran. And who hasn’t seen that kind of behavior before….or done that kind of thing before?
Not true. Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography:
“I soon became a thorough Deist.”
http://tinyurl.com/29f5h9s
It is true that many Founders attended one church or another, at some time in their lives, so there’s a presumption of “affiliation”. However, it isn’t correct to describe Unitarianism as Christian, since they show as much respect for Buddhism or any other religion, declining to take a position on which God is correct.
http://tinyurl.com/3edpt2r
George Washington, who used a lot of Christian rhetoric in his speechs, attended Catholic Church only to accompany his mother. When the preacher demanded that he set an example by taking Communion, he refused and simply stopped attending.
http://tinyurl.com/42hn6tx
We can quibble about the “affiliation” and beliefs of the other Founders, but all of them credited the Enlightenment, not the Bible, for their political ideals.
Mr. Westmiller, each point is incorrect.
a) Franklin continues after saying he became a deist:
“My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph; but, each of them having afterwards wrong’d me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith’s conduct towards me (who was another freethinker), and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, tho’ it might be true, was not very useful.”
More here by moi:
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/11/ben-franklin-was-not-deist-ok.html
Also, Franklin called for prayer at the Constitutional convention:
“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 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…”
Was Franklin a classic Christian? No. But more than a hollow deist like Paine, very much a theist, as I wrote.
b) I think you’re confusing modern Unitarian Universalist with the “Unitarian Christians” of the Founding era. The Unitarian Christians believed the Bible was divinely inspired and that Jesus was the Messiah or Savior.
Unitarianism eventually abandoned these beliefs in the mid-1800s, and eventually merged with the Universalist Church in 1961, iirc.
More here, research from the original texts, by moi:
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-were-unitarians.html
c) Washington did stay away from communion. There are many theories why. If you examine his diary, he attended church or chapel often, sometimes several times a week, as president. But I agree there are conflicting accounts of just what Christian dogmas Washington accepted, for he did not write or speak atall on his personal beliefs.
However, many Christians stayed away from communion, for various reasons [see “fencing the Lord’s table”], and Washington skipping it isn’t a definitive window into his faith.
d) As for the Enlightenment, of course the deist-leaning Jefferson [although he believed in Providence and prayer to God] elides his Christian sources. However Calvinist “resistance theory” predates the Enlightenment and is quite prominent in the Founding. John Adams writes of A Short Treatise on Political Power by John Ponet, D.D. (1556) as containing ” “all the essential principles of liberty, which were afterward dilated on by Sidney and Locke.”
The reason we don’t know about these things and stuff like the Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (1579) is precisely because the modern academic narrative is to cut out the religious sources and pump the Enlightenment instead. But what’s credited to the Enlightenment was well underway in “Christian thought.”
Cheers. I don’t mean to fight with you, but I’m quite confident in this thesis, and it’s gaining traction [for good reason] in the mainstream academic world. I realize there are those on the right who are making a hash of America’s religious history, but it’s in reaction to the non-religious left burying a lot of it in the 20th century.
If we’re going to say that history has any value for study at all, if we’re going to say that Franklin’s religious experiences were anything other than irrelevant, then we need to search for the truth rather than to embark on quote-mining.
A significant element of that truth is inescapably that Franklin and his colleagues were living, flawed, intellectually-hungry human beings, whose beliefs and opinions proved malleable over time — and whose actions may not always have been in congruity with their own highest ideals for any number of reasons.
Another significant element of that truth is that they were politicians. Their overriding objective when creating the United States and refining its form of government was the creation of a viable polity — a polity they knew would have to embrace a multiplicity of different religious creeds and sects. As politicians, they were willing to use expedient if ambiguous phrases to gloss over any number of differences, because they didn’t see themselves as being there to resolve questions of doctrine and orthodoxy.
As I’ve written elsewhere many times, the Founders did not do the colossal things they did in order for us to emulate their religiosity. They did not fight a war so their society could adopt their vision of the appropriate form of man’s relationship to the divine. They did those things so we would have the freedom to decide for ourselves what we would believe, so we would have the ability to make policy decisions for ourselves in response to circumstances that they did not presume to anticipate, so we could worship, or not, as our own individual consciences guided us. We honor them not by attaching labels to their religiosity but rather by eschewing them; they wanted to be known as “Americans” first and foremost and they wanted us to resolve issues of the day for ourselves.
With all that said, a claim by Franklin that “this doctrine [Deism], tho’ it might be true, was not very useful” does not sound to me like he is refuting Deism. It looks to me like he is moving beyond Deism and deciding that whether it is true or not, he wants to focus on other things like morality because “God is the now-passive former Creator of the universe” doesn’t do much to tell us how to live our lives. I read this passage of Franklin’s autobiography as indicating that at this point in his life, he thought the Bible not all that historically accurate, but nevertheless a good source of moral instruction. I read Franklin’s later statements as suggesting but not proving that he changed his way of thinking about God’s relationship to the world later in life — a process many people go through even to this day.
a) I’ll concur with Mr. Likko: Franklin was merely observing that Deism wasn’t very useful, given his poor relations with other Deists. His flat statement makes it perfectly clear that he was not a Christian. Saying he was “Christian-y” because he found some value in the words of Christ is an evasion.
b) Unitarians have never believed that Christ was God. Last I checked, that was fairly important to Christians. Attending the prolific churches of the colonial Unitarians was as much political as it was religious.
c) That Washington refused to participate in the central, most important, sacrament of the Catholic Church doesn’t say anything about his beliefs? He never attended any other church for any reason, so there are no grounds for designating him as being a Christian.
d) Granted, “Christian Thought” was influenced by the Enlightenment, but there is nothing in any chuch’s doctrinal texts about individual rights, limited government, representative democracy, or private enterprise. Claiming that the principles of the Declaration were products of Christian beliefs is false.
I’ll conclude by agreeing with Mr. Likko again:
“… the Founders did not do the colossal things they did in order for us to emulate their religiosity.”
… and their political principles did not eminate from any of their religious beliefs … certainly not from any Christian beliefs.
Bad facts.
a) Franklin was a theist. He disapproved of his own behavior under the influence of deism.
b) True, unitarians rejected Jesus’ divinity. That’s what made them unitarians. Duh, stipulated and explicated.
Jesus was Messiah, the Bible Holy Writ. Christianity was not interchangable with other religions, Buddhism, etc.
c) Washington was Anglican [Episcopalian], not Catholic. Again, his absence from communion was neither rare nor fully explainable. Stipulated and explicated.
d) The Enlightenment does not explain Calvinist “resistance theory,” which predates the Enlightenment. Calvinist resistance theory vitiated the Puritan revolution of 1642, before Locke was even published. [Locke’s father fought on the side of Cromwell.]
Clearly your mind is closed, and you wish to continue arguing points that have already been refuted. I don’t mind disagreement, but clearly the facts you base your argument upon are not in order, and are completely ignorant of the counterfactuals presented here. Peace.
I’ll let the reader decide whether Franklin’s words are more accurate than your characterization of his actions; whether Washington’s actions are more relevant than your apologetics; or whether Unitarians know what they believe about Christ. Facts are facts.
Because the Calvinist “puritan reformation” opposed the King does not mean that all those opposing kings are Calvinists. Simple logic.
I’m only asserting facts and logic, not rhetorical apologetics. All the evidence indicates that Christianity had little or nothing to do with the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. I suppose we can agree to disagree.
Yes, I trust the gentle readers as well. I submit your disagreement is based on lack of background facts, not mere humbug. But Washington’s mother a Catholic and such a complete misunderstanding of Founding-era unitarianism? Our history teachers should be sued for malpractice.
I’m still a bit confused about the Washington/Catholic comment. Is Westminster actually saying that his refusal to accept Catholic communion is indicative of his not being an Anglican(/Episcopalian)? I’m an Episcopalian(/Anglican), and I don’t take communion at a Catholic church. I’m not supposed to. Or did Westminster merely say Catholic when he meant to say Anglican?
WT, since Mr. Westmiller’s thesis runs one factoid deep on every point, the gentle reader can have no idea what he’s talking about. Since I’m acquainted with his factoids and the hash he hath made of them, I am obliged to remediate:
George Washington had no connection whatsoever with Roman Catholicism. Anglicanism [Church of England, now Episcopalianism in the US] also has communion. Washington was often observed to not take communion. Fact is, it wasn’t rare—many who attended services simply left when communion was given. There are any number of reasons why one would do that: if one is in the state of mortal sin, he shouldn’t take communion. Anglicans also had a mechanism called “fencing the Lord’s table” where you had to prove your worthiness to the pastor first, which some found offensive.
Washington could have fit either of these cases, or perhaps he simply didn’t believe Christ is in the Eucharist. Point is, nobody knows, because he didn’t say.
There are some accounts of his taking communion, like from Mrs. Alexander Hamilton and from one of the preachers during the war, but historians are not inclined to accept them as fact. There are numerous accounts of Washington declining communion, and at least one of his pastors gave him heck about it. [There’s a whole explanation of the mechanism in the Book of Common prayer.]
Anyway, Washington declining communion is one of those factoids grabbed by the bunch who want to bleach religion out of the Founding. Point is, Washington and communion is like a 1/2 on a 10-scale of importance. Better to look at his First Inaugural Address where he thanks the Almighty for the birthing of the nation as his “first official act.”
I’m not a total evangelical Christian nation freak. Not evangelical or Protestant atall, my BG is Catholic. However, my own studies of the Founding have found lots of religion, and indeed, “Calvinist resistance theory” is the biggest surprise. Even King George III said
“I fix all the blame for these extraordinary proceedings upon the Presbyterians. They have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchial spirit which has always distinguished them everywhere.”
and MP Horace Walpole said, “There is no good crying about the matter, Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson, and that is the end of it.”
Them Calvinists was crazy dudes, man. Even John Locke hung out with them in Holland when he fled from Britain. It’s the Untold Story of the Founding. As you can see, King George didn’t blame all them new-fangled ideas of the Enlightenment. The [Calvinist] Presbyterians had been at the revolution thing against the crown for over 100 years.
http://www.davekopel.com/Religion/Religious-Roots.htm
I did make one error. The church Washington attended was “orthodox Trinitarian”, evident from the reference link I provided. There was no doubt that he was worthy of taking communion, he simply refused.
The name is Westmiller, not Westminster.
FYI: I attended a Jesuit Seminary and received very good instruction, thank you.
Mr. Westmiller, the Jesuits should ask you for their money back. Your arguments aren’t even wiki-deep. Sorry.
I’m a lover, not a fighter. You want to fight, well I guess you should have become a Jesuit afterall. I say this with love, charity and a bit of a wink.
Baptists and many other sects don’t accept the Real Presence of Christ in Holy Communion. One need not accept the Eucharist to be Christian, which is why yr objection registers .5 on the meter.
I’ve given this much study, since “rights” is the essential question of our day, and the American founding was ground zero. We can begin the trace with Aquinas, the dignity of the human person, and by what right one man rules another. Then through Jesuits Suarez and Bellarmine. I din’t even open the book back that far, as it was pointless in this grenade toss. I don’t come to the table with empty hands, or my dick in one.
This is fascinating stuff, and quite elegant and beautiful in its way. By contrast, the French revolution was ugly, and became ugliness incarnate.
Although a notorious agnostic on Christian doctrine, Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts on God and His Divine Plan for man on this earth and his thoughts on heaven itself are the wisest of the wise and obvious to the merest child.
I hope to intrigue you, or failing that, to intrigue the gentle reader. I have no wish to fight. This ain’t about that, brother.
Westmiller (sorry for getting your name wrong),
I did make one error. The church Washington attended was “orthodox Trinitarian”,
By which you either mean “Anglican/Episcopalian” (as we said) or you are digging yourself deeper into a hole.
This is as good a place as any to pick up a thread we left dangling in our meatworld conversation last week, TVD.
Now, when I’m talking “Enlightenment” here, I’m thinking of concepts like the natural rights of man, delineation and ultimately division of powers within government, legitimacy of government through consent of the governed, identity of the nation-state as an entity with an identiy distinct from its sovereign, the value of individual choice, and the use of observation and reason to form the basis of individual and collective decision-making.
As we spoke over what must have been the third round of beers, I concurred with you that Enlightenment liberalism did not emerge sui generis. We can see precursors — some weak and some strong — going back to the seventeenth century with guys like Descartes and the sixteenth with guys like Martin Luther.
But isn’t it really the case that we can trace the evolution of these ideas back further than Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, et al.? If we choose to, and we take care to understand how ideas are molded and evolve over time, we will be able to trace back to pre-Christian Classical times if we try hard enough. We will also find some thinking that is not explicitly religious along the way, and other thinking that make religious leaders very, very nervous (I’m looking Rene Descartes in particular here).
Eventually, all these roads will lead us back to the Athens of Plato and Aristotle.
Analogies are only going to take us so far. Still, music historians assure us that without Bach you don’t get Hayden and without Hayden you don’t get Mozart and without Mozart you don’t get Beethoven. But that doesn’t mean that Bach gets credit for the Eroica Symphony.
The “current academic narrative” is likely guilty of not meaningfully exploring the origins of the Enlightenment, but that does not mean that the work of guys like Locke, Kant, Voltaire, and Montesquieu can be dismissed as mere permutations on themes that had previously been explored by theologians of the previous century. It may well be true that Calvinist Resistance Theory is one of several ancestors of Enlightenment liberalism, and academics prefer to ignore it, but it is not itself the suite of liberal ideas which the “current academic narrative” credits with the American Revolution, nor is it the only such intellectual ancestor. Cartesian rationalism surely plays in that mix, as does the development of the scientific method incorrectly personified in the figure of Isaac Newton and more correctly attributed to Galileo (a devout Catholic) and Copernicus (a priest).
So while it is likely the case that modern academia would prefer to ignore religious thought rather than grappling with it as one of the elements of the intellectual stew from which emerged the American Revolution (and the French), can’t we nevertheless properly say that Enlightenment liberalism was, in fact, a development in western thought in its own right?
No we can’t, Likko. 😉
Actually, the first question is Which Enlightenment. The Scottish Common Sense Enlightenment is the American one, very sympathetic to religion, and a direct offshoot of Scholasticism [Thomism, as in Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274], and its concept of “natural law.” Rights as derived in the D of I as “endowed by the creator” are a development via natural law.
Yes, we go further back than Luther and Zwingli.
The Continental Enlightenment spawned modernity, and of course the French Revolution. Ick. This is where Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau come in, all of them ignored by the Americans. And for the record, Kant is invisible in the American Founding era as well, as is Hume exc for some notions on the “science” of gov’t along the lines of Montesquieu.
The question of Locke is paramount then, and it’s certainly that he didn’t drop in from Mars one day with the Enlightenment. He didn’t even publish the Second Treatise until 1698, after the smoke was clear on Britain’s Glorious Revolution, and even then, anonymously!
So, Calvinist resistance theory is particularly germane because it was front & center during the English Civil wars of the 1600s, where parliament [the people] became sovereign and the Divine Right of Kings was sent to the scrap pile. This was the warmup for the American Revolution, and indeed ours went much more smoothly.
One overlooked influence on the American revolution is a Brit they mention often, Algernon Sidney, who was executed by the crown in 1683. Sidney:
Tho the Schoolmen were corrupt, they were neither stupid nor unlearned: They could not but see that which all men saw, nor lay more approved foundations, than, that man is naturally free; that he cannot justly be deprived of that liberty without cause, and that he doth not resign it, or any part of it, unless it be in consideration of a greater good, which he proposes to himself. [1680]
“The Schoolmen” are the Scholastics, the Thomists—the Jesuits Suarez and Bellarmine in particular. They got there first. On a paralell line, so did Calvinism.
The problem is the undifferentiated Enlightenment stew, which claims all good things on behalf or reason. But Christian thought was quite reasonable, and Locke in particular fits comfortably in it.
The core question is of course natural rights, which take form in political rights, and today are known as human rights. They’re similar but not the same. Hence much of today’s Babel. Modernity has cast out “natural law,” but that is the basis of the American scheme. “Social contract” in the end is rights we wrest from each other or from the government.
Thus the nature of where I’m coming from, religion qua religion not being at the heart of it, “Judeo”-Christianity being more functional than Christianity [Is Jesus God, died for our sins, present in the Eucharist, etc.] itself.
Actually, serious consideration *was* given to Quebec. The Articles of Confederation (which admittedly came a few years later) actually pre-approved “Canada” (i.e. Quebec and Ontario) for membership. And the big hope of the various Quebec campaigns during the revolutionary war was to wrestle the territory from the British, hoping that an American invasion would cause the Canadians to rise up against the Brits.
When Benjamin Franklin travelled to Montreal to try to convince Canadians to join the revolution, one of the main reasons for refusal was that the Canadian business elites and Catholic clergy had been granted special privileges by the British (through the Act of Quebec) and did not want to jeopardize their advantageous position, and they worked to suppress any desire for an uprising among Quebec residents. Had the clergy been out of the picture, history might have unfolded differently.
Yeah, maybe the Pilgrims would never have bothered leaving England in order to have more religious freedom.
They say that the pilgrims left England in search for the new world so that they would be free to practice their own religion… and make you free to practice their religion too.
If only our ancestors had been more okay with the status quo…
Except, of course, for the bad stuff. It’s good that they fought against that.
Mark Twain said:
Later ancestors of mine were the Quakers William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, et al. Your tribe chased them out of the country for their religion’s sake; promised them death if they came back; for your ancestors had forsaken the homes they loved, and braved the perils of the sea, the implacable climate, and the savage wilderness, to acquire that highest and most precious of boons, freedom for every man on this broad continent to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience — and they were not going to allow a lot of pestiferous Quakers to interfere with it. Your ancestors broke forever the chains of political slavery, and gave the vote to every man in this wide land, excluding none! — none except those who did not belong to the orthodox church. Your ancestors — yes, they were a hard lot; but, nevertheless, they gave us religious liberty to worship as they required us to worship, and political liberty to vote as the church required; and so I the bereft one, I the forlorn one, am here to do my best to help you celebrate them right.