by David Barton
[T]his is a religious people. This is historically true…. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people…. These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.190 (emphasis added)
No other conclusion is possible after an honest examination of America’s history. Nonetheless, revisionist historians and many contemporary courts have been effective in portraying a different view of American history. They overtly claim that both our heritage and the religious beliefs of our Founding Fathers mandate a religion-free public arena; that claim is clearly refuted by the facts.
† Nearly a year after his prayer, it did not appear as if it would be answered. Following a series of American defeats, British troops invaded and seized Philadelphia. In the midst of the gloomy outlook, Rev. Duché then wrote George Washington a letter predicting defeat for the Americans and urging Washington to retract the Declaration of Independence. Washington forwarded the report to Congress who declared Duché a traitor. Under that stigma, Duché promptly fled to Great Britain. Late in his life, after requesting permission from President Washington, Duché returned to America where he spent his remaining years.
† The exploits of many of these clergy-patriots are recorded in several older historical works, including The Pulpit of the American Revolution – 1860;118 Chaplains and Clergy of the Revolution – 1861;119 and The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution – 1860.120
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The Religious Nature of the Founding Fathers
If the Founders were generally men of faith, then it is illogical to believe that they would establish public policies either to prohibit or to inhibit expressions of the faith they cherished. On the other hand, if the contemporary portrayal is correct, and if (as many now claim) the Founders were by and large a collective group of atheists, agnostics, and deists, then it is logical that they would not want religious activities as a part of official public life. Therefore, a vital question to be answered in the current debate over the historical and constitutional role of public religious expressions is, “What was the overall religious disposition of the Founding Fathers?”
Before delving into an investigation of their religious nature, it is important first to establish what constitutes a “Founding Father.” As previously noted in the preface, for the purpose of this work, a “Founding Father” is one who exerted significant influence in, provided prominent leadership for, or had a substantial impact upon the birth, development, and establishment of America as an independent, self-governing nation.
This obviously includes the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as the fourteen different Presidents who governed America from 1774 to 1789. (Under America’s unicameral system prior to the Constitution, the President of the Continental Congress essentially served as the President of America.) Additionally, the handful of significant military leaders who provided leadership for, fought for, and secured our independence must be included. In other words, without the work of the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration, the fourteen Presidents of America who led the Continental Congress, or the three-dozen or so prominent military leaders, America as we know it undoubtedly would not exist today.
Included next are the fifty-five men at the Constitutional Convention as well as the major leaders responsible for the ratification of the Constitution (on many occasions, these were the State Governors – without whose efforts there would have been no United States of America). Therefore, without the work of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention and the leaders of the ratification movement, America would not have the form of government it has now enjoyed for over two centuries.
Following the ratification of the Constitution, the prognosis for a stable American government was uncertain until the end of Washington’s administration, and probably that of Adams. Therefore, the final group of Founding Fathers includes those responsible for taking the vision written down in our Founding documents, working out the logistics of that vision, and then turning it into tangible reality. This group includes the ninety members of the First Congress (they created the Bill of Rights – an important part of the Constitution since it defines the scope of Constitutional powers), the earliest U. S. Supreme Court members who guided the development of the Judiciary, and the small group of men who served in Washington’s cabinet during his administration. Without these groups, it is likely that the American experiment would have failed.
How many, then, may actually be counted as Founding Fathers? Even if one accounts for the fact that there is some overlap among the members of the groups outlined above (for example, six of the men who signed the Declaration also signed the Constitution), there still can be no exact number. The reason? There were many who, while they do not fit into any specific group, were nevertheless important leaders.
For example, Patrick Henry signed no document nor was he part of any of the outlined groups, but his leadership unquestionably contributed much to the success of the American Revolution. Similarly, Noah Webster, while fitting into no specific group, was among the first to call for the Constitutional Convention,1 the man who contributed the copyright protection clause found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, and the man to whom many delegates in the Constitutional Convention turned to help lead the ratification efforts for the Constitution.2 Therefore, allowing for overlap and the inclusion of leaders like Henry and Webster, approximately two-hundred-and-fifty individuals are considered here as “Founding Fathers.”
To determine whether these “Founding Fathers” were generally atheists, agnostics, and deists, one must first define those terms. An “atheist” is one who professes to believe that there is no God;3 an “agnostic” is one who professes that nothing can be known beyond what is visible and tangible;4 and a “deist” is one who believes in an impersonal God Who is no longer involved with mankind. (In other words, a “deist” embraces the “clockmaker theory”5 that there was a God Who made the universe and wound it up like a clock; however, it now runs of its own volition; the Clockmaker is gone and therefore does not respond to man.)
Today the terms “atheist,” “agnostic,” and “deist” have been used together so often that their meanings have almost become synonymous. In fact, many dictionaries list these words as synonyms.6
Those who advance the notion that this was the belief system of the Founders often publish information attempting to prove that the Founders were irreligious.7 Some of the quotes they set forth include:
This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it. JOHN ADAMS
The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion. GEORGE WASHINGTON
I disbelieve all holy men and holy books. THOMAS PAINE
Are these statements accurate? Did these prominent Founders truly repudiate religion? An answer will be found by an examination of the sources of the above statements.
The John Adams’ quote is taken from a letter he wrote to Thomas Jefferson on April 19, 1817, in which Adams illustrated the intolerance often manifested between Christians in their denominational disputes. Adams recounted a conversation between two ministers he had known:
[S]eventy years ago…. Lemuel Bryant was my parish priest, and Joseph Cleverly my Latin schoolmaster. Lemuel was a jocular [humorous] and liberal scholar and divine. Joseph a scholar and a gentleman …. The parson and the pedagogue lived much together, but were eternally disputing about government and religion. One day when the schoolmaster [Joseph Cleverly] had been more than commonly fanatical and declared “if he were a monarch, he would have but one religion in his dominions;” the parson [Lemuel Bryant] coolly replied, “Cleverly! you would be the best man in the world if you had no religion.”8
Lamenting these types of petty disputes, Adams declared to Jefferson:
Twenty times in the cour
se of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!” But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.9
In reality, Adams’ position on religion was exactly the opposite of what is put forth by many groups. Adams believed that it would be “fanatical” to desire a world without religion, for such a world would be “hell.” Jefferson wrote back and declared that he agreed.10
Amazingly, while the assertion concerning Adams was completely inaccurate, the words attributed to Washington are totally false (“The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion”). The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli is the source of Washington’s supposed statement.
That treaty, one of several with Tripoli, was negotiated during the “Barbary Powers Conflict,” which began shortly after the Revolutionary War and continued through the Presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.11 The Muslim Barbary Powers (Tunis, Morocco, Algiers, and Tripoli) were warring against what they claimed to be the “Christian” nations (England, France, Spain, Denmark, and the United States). In 1801, Tripoli even declared war against the United States,12 thus constituting America’s first official war as an established independent nation.
Throughout this long conflict, the four Barbary Powers regularly attacked undefended American merchant ships. Not only were their cargoes easy prey but the Barbary Powers were also capturing and enslaving “Christian” seamen13 in retaliation for what had been done to them by the “Christians” of previous centuries (e.g., the Crusades and Ferdinand and Isabella’s expulsion of Muslims from Granada14).
In an attempt to secure a release of captured seamen and a guarantee of unmolested shipping in the Mediterranean, President Washington dispatched envoys to negotiate treaties with the Barbary nations.15 (Concurrently, he encouraged the construction of American naval warships16 to defend the shipping and confront the Barbary “pirates” – a plan not seriously pursued until President John Adams created a separate Department of the Navy in 1798.) The American envoys negotiated numerous treaties of “Peace and Amity”17 with the Muslim Barbary nations to ensure “protection” of American commercial ships sailing in the Mediterranean.18 However, the terms of the treaty frequently were unfavorable to America, either requiring her to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of “tribute” (i.e., official extortion) to each country to receive a “guarantee” of safety or to offer other “considerations” (e.g., providing a warship as a “gift” to Tripoli,19 a “gift” frigate to Algiers,20 paying $525,000 to ransom captured American seamen from Algiers,21 etc.).
The 1797 treaty with Tripoli was one of the many treaties in which each country officially recognized the religion of the other in an attempt to prevent further escalation of a “Holy War” between Christians and Muslims.22 Consequently, Article XI of that treaty stated:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion as it has in itself no character of enmity [hatred] against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] and as the said States [America] have never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.23
This article may be read in two manners. It may, as its critics do, be concluded after the clause “Christian religion”; or it may be read in its entirety and concluded when the punctuation so indicates. But even if shortened and cut abruptly (“the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion”), this is not an untrue statement since it is referring to the federal government.
Recall that while the Founders themselves openly described America as a Christian nation (demonstrated in chapter 2), they did include a constitutional prohibition against a federal establishment; religion was a matter left solely to the individual States. Therefore, if the article is read as a declaration that the federal government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, such a statement is not a repudiation of the fact that America was considered a Christian nation.
Reading the clause of the treaty in its entirety also fails to weaken this fact. Article XI simply distinguished America from those historical strains of European Christianity which held an inherent hatred of Muslims; it simply assured the Muslims that the United States was not a Christian nation like those of previous centuries (with whose practices the Muslims were very familiar) and thus would not undertake a religious holy war against them.
This latter reading is, in fact, supported by the attitude prevalent among numerous American leaders. The Christianity practiced in America was described by John Jay as “wise and virtuous,”24 by John Quincy Adams as “civilized,”25 and by John Adams as “rational.”26 A clear distinction was drawn between American Christianity and that of Europe in earlier centuries. As Noah Webster explained:
The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.27
Daniel Webster† similarly explained that American Christianity was:
Christianity to which the sword and the fagot [burning stake or hot branding iron] are unknown – general tolerant Christianity is the law of the land!28
Those who attribute the Treaty of Tripoli quote to George Washington make two mistakes. The first is that no statement in it can be attributed to Washington (the treaty did not arrive in America until months after he left office); Washington never saw the treaty; it was not his work; no statement in it can be ascribed to him. The second mistake is to divorce a single clause of the treaty from the remainder which provides its context.
It would also be absurd to suggest that President Adams (under whom the treaty was ratified in 1797) would have endorsed or assented to any provision which repudiated Christianity. In fact, while discussing the Barbary conflict with Jefferson, Adams declared:
The policy of Christendom has made cowards of all their sailors before the standard of Mahomet. It would be heroical and glorious in us to restore courage to ours.29
Furthermore, it was Adams who declared:
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were…. the general principles of Christianity…. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature.30
Adams’ own words confirm that he rejected any notion that America was less than a Christian nation.
Additionally, the writings of General William Eaton, a major figure in the Barbary Powers conflict, provide even more irrefutable testimony of how the conflict was viewed at that time. Eaton was first appointed by President John Adams as “Consul to Tunis,” and President Thomas Jefferson later advanced him to the position of “U. S. Naval Agent to the Barbary States,” authorizing him to lead a military expedition against Tripoli. Eaton’s official correspondence during his service confirms that the conflict was a Muslim war against a Christian America.
For example, when writing to Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, Eaton apprised him of why the Muslims would be such dedicated foes in any conflict against America:
Taught by revelation that war with the Christians will guarantee the salvation of their souls, and finding so great secular advantages in the observance of this religious duty [the secular advantage of keeping captured cargoes], their [the Muslims’] inducements to desperate fighting are very powerful.31
Because America had taken no military action in response to the terrorist depredations and had instead adopted a policy of appeasement, the Barbary Powers viewed America as weak. In fact, Eaton repo
rted that “an opinion long since conceived and never fairly controverted among the Tunisians [is] that the Americans are a feeble sect of Christians”32 (emphasis added). And in a later letter to Pickering, he again reaffirmed the Muslims’ view of Christian America when he reported how pleased one Barbary ruler had been when he received the extortion compensations from America which had been promised him in one of the treaties:
He said, “To speak truly and candidly …. we must acknowledge to you that we have never received articles of the kind of so excellent a quality from any Christian nation.”33 (emphasis added)
When John Marshall became the new Secretary of State, Eaton informed him:
It is a maxim of the Barbary States, that “The Christians who would be on good terms with them must fight well or pay well.”34
And when General Eaton finally commenced his military action against Tripoli, his personal journal noted:
April 8th. We find it almost impossible to inspire these wild bigots with confidence in us or to persuade them that, being Christians, we can be otherwise than enemies to Musselmen. We have a difficult undertaking!35
May 23rd. Hassien Bey, the commander in chief of the enemy’s forces, has offered by private insinuation for my head six thousand dollars and double the sum for me a prisoner; and $30 per head for Christians. Why don’t he come and take it?36
Shortly after the military excursion against Tripoli was successfully terminated, its account was written and published. Even the title of the book bears witness to the nature of the conflict:
