Recently Sarah Palin fumbled a question about her favorite Founding Father. I read the suggestion that that was the kind of soft ball question, like which do you like better puppies or kittens? That the only bad answer to is, "All of them." Of course since I suspect that Sarah knows as much about the Founding Fathers as she knows about the Korean War, the country of Africa and the city of France, I thought I would help her out.
While there are several lists including all signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution I used About.com list of the top 10 Founding Fathers with the greatest impact: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris.
First they seem to be models of religious tolerance, George Washington when asked what kind of workmen he wanted hired for Mount Vernon said, "If they are good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa or Europe; they may be Mahaometans, Jews, Christians of any sect, or they may be Athiests...."
Washington told a Mennonite minister who sought refuge in the United States after the Revolution: "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong...."
Alexander Hamilton wrote about encouraging emigration saying, "Manufacturers, who (listening to the powerful invitations of a better price for their fabrics, or their labor, of greater cheapness of provisions and raw materials, of an exemption from the chief part of the taxes, burdens and restraints, which they endure in the old world, of greater personal independence and consequence, under the operation of a more equal government, and of, what is far more precious than mere religious toleration, a perfect equality of religious privileges) would probably flock from Europe to the United States to pursue their own trades or professions, if they were once made sensible of the advantages they would enjoy and were inspired with an assurance of encouragement and employment...."
Patrick Henry had a similar sentiment concluding that "A general toleration of Religion appears to me the best means of peopling our country, and enabling our people to procure those necessarys among themselves, the purchase of which from abroad has so nearly ruined a colony, enjoying, from nature and time, the means of becoming the most prosperous on the continent..."
James Madison noted,= "Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which pervades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest." Madison took this liberty seriously saying, "Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered."
John Adams was both aware of and wary of the risks, such as persecution of minorities and the temptation to wage holy wars, that an established religion poses. Nonetheless, he believed that religion, by uniting and morally guiding the people, had a role in public life.
Sam Adams wrote, "In regard to Religeon, mutual tolleration in the different professions thereof, is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced; and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind: And it is now generally agreed among christians that this spirit of toleration in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society "is the chief characteristical mark of the true church."
Jefferson thought that there should be no religious test for office or citizenship saying, "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
Likewise, Many of the Founding Fathers were suspicious of organized religion. Washington concluded that "The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest of purposes."
Madison, similarly wrote, "What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have bee seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, need them not."
Jefferson also noted, "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purposes."
Their answer to the problem of religion in society was to prohibit the establishment of a state religion. Jefferson supported the notion that religion as a matter was best left between humans and their God, "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
Jefferson wrote to a religious minority concerned about the dominant position of the Congregationalist church in Connecticut assuring them that their rights as a minority would be protected from federal interference, "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their "legislature" should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
Madison wrote of total separation of the church from the state. "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States, Practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States." Later Madison further expanded, "We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt."
It was during Adams' presidency that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli, which states in Article XI that: "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 against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arrising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. This treaty with the Islamic state of Tripoli had been written and concluded by Joel Barlow during Washington's Administration. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on June 7, 1797; President Adams signed it on June 10, 1797
Although there are quotes used by the "christian restorationists" from Jefferson and other Founding Fathers those who participated in the drafting of the Constitution never intended their use of religious illustrations in speeches as more than rhetoric. They knew the dangers of giving constitutional or legal sanction either to civil religion or to Christianity or to any denominational expression. They knew that religious liberty requires freedom from any identification of religion with state action. They were intent on avoiding more than 100 years of religious intolerance and persecution in American colonial history and an even longer heritage of church-state problems in Europe.The delegates to the Constitutional Convention took only two modest steps with respect to religion, both of these being designed to avert problems, not raise them. First, the delegates agreed that "no religious test" should ever be required of federal officeholders, and, second, that one could "affirm" rather than "swear" in taking the oath of office--a clear concession to the tender consciences of Quakers. Other than that, however, the Constitution was totally silent on the subject of religion: no national church, of course, but no national affirmations of faith, either, not even those of the most generalized sort. The Founding Fathers could be called religious only by a most generous definition of the term. Variously called deists, humanists, and rationalists, they accepted the existence of God so long as He kept His hands out of human affairs. Strongly anti-clerical, they were at best indifferent to organized religion. One indication of their influence on the course of American development is the fact that none of the first seven Presidents was at the time of his election a member of any church, and, perhaps even more important, that the two basic documents of American freedom, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, breathe the spirit of deistic humanism. Indeed not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian. At that time the American principle of separation of Church and State was indeed an audacious experiment. Never before had a national state been prepared to dispense with an official religion as a prop to its authority and never before had a church been set adrift without the support of the state. Throughout most of American history the doctrine has provided freedom for religious development while keeping politics free of religion. And that, apparently, had been the intention of the Founding Fathers.
Individually
John Adams was raised a Congregationalist, but ultimately rejected many fundamental doctrines of conventional Christianity, such as the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, becoming a Unitarian. In his youth, Adams' father wanted him to become a minister, but Adams refused, considering the practice of law to be a more noble calling. He realized that his independent opinions would create much difficulty. At the age of twenty-one, therefore, he resolved to become a lawyer, noting that in following law rather than divinity, "I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself." Although he once referred to himself as a "church going animal," Adams' view of religion overall was rather ambivalent: He recognized the abuses, large and small, that religious belief lends itself to, but he also believed that religion could be a force for good in individual lives and in society at large. His extensive reading (especially in the classics), led him to believe that this view applied not only to Christianity, but to all religions.
As President, Washington regularly attended Episcopal Christian services, and he was friendly in his attitude toward Christian values. However, he repeatedly declined the church's sacraments. Never did he take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary.... Even on his deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and expressed no wish to be attended by His representative. George Washington's practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian. In the enlightened tradition of his day, he was a devout Deist--just as many of the clergymen who knew him suspected. Washington never even got around to recording his belief that Christ was a great ethical teacher like Jefferson and Paine. Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence. But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear anywhere in his many letters to friends and associates throughout his life. Similarly in his first inaugural speech Washington did not mention Christ or even use the word "God" but followed the philosophical Deism he professed and referred to "the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men" and to "the benign parent of the human race."
Tom Paine attended the Congregationalist church but was a militant deist who wanted to, "Wither Christianity by ridicule or bludgeon it to death by argument." Clearly a liberal thinker he wrote, "The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the Divinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist." Not a fan of the Old Testament he wrote, "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."
Any perusal of the Jefferson writings will establish that the Sage of Monticello was a Deist who accepted the label Christian as he defined it. He did attend Episcopal services. To him Jesus was a moral man who based his ethics on the natural rights of human beings. Jefferson, as his writings make abundantly clear, had contempt for much of the Christian clergy, rejected John Calvin as a tritheist, and wrote his own bible that excluded all references to miracles, wonders, signs, virgin birth, resurrection, the god-head, and whatever else conflicted with his own religious thought. Explaining his reason for compiling the "Jefferson Bible" He stated, "My aim in that was, to justify the character of Jesus against the fictions of his pseudo-followers, which have exposed him to the inference of being an impostor. For if we could believe that he really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods and the charlatanisms which his biographers father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind, that he was an impostor. I give no credit to their falsifications of his actions and doctrines, and to rescue his character, the postulate in my letter asked only what is granted in reading every other historian.... That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore."
Jefferson's approach was to thinking was to, "Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences.... If it end in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others it will procure for you."
His positive view of humanity was expressed, "If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God."
Jefferson, clarifying his desire to strip away the myth introduced by the Gospel writers, as his motivation for constructing his "Bible said, "We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select even from the very words of Jesus, paring off the amphiboligisms into which they have been led by forgetting often or not understanding what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill." He hoped for, "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Strangely he did not consider this book to be a book on religion, writing the rector of his parish church, "Of publishing a book on religion, my dear sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. Of these there must be, at least, ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all wrong but his own." Thoroughly rejecting the supernatural, he wrote, "To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise ... without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence."
It must always be remembered that Jefferson was a product of the Enlightenment. The dominant spirit of the Enlightenment was one of skepticism towards all former truths and of free inquiry in the pursuit of knowledge. This philosophy did not reflect on this world or the hereafter, but stressed change. Reason and inquiry would lead toward those truths, laws, or spirit that cam from nature. Nature’s laws, designed by God, were universal, unchanging, and beneficial to man. These laws, almost given the status of a faith, were secular and utilitarian. They directed all aspects of life be it political, scientific or theological. Jefferson felt the purpose of the Enlightenment was to increase freedom and happiness. He saw the Enlightenment as an optimistic faith preaching the goodness of humanity, that the future would be better than the past, and that if nature’s laws were applied the advance of freedom was irreversible.
There was a neoclassical component to the Enlightenment. Its proponents studied ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and political structure. Jefferson admired many aspects of the ancient Greeks and Romans’ he could read and speak both languages. He agreed with many of their precepts, such as the Greek idea that man is measure of all things. This was the groundwork for his belief in humanism, which recognized no barriers to the use of the mind, and which sought to make all knowledge useful to man. Jefferson particularly admired the Greeks’ idea with respect to man’s relationship to himself.
Jefferson sometimes found his precepts at odds with those of Jesus and dubbed his own views “rational Christianity.” Jefferson explained his rationale: “I am a Materialist; he (Jesus) takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards the forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it, etc., etc. It is the innocence of his character, the purity and sublimity of his moral precepts, the eloquence of his inculcations, the beauty of his apologues in which he conveys them that I so much admire...”
Gouverneur Morris's expressed beliefs put him at odds with deism and Christianity but in line with theistic rationalism although he was Episcopalian. He relied heavily on the benevolence of the God that he recognized as being present and having great power and mercy.
Sam Adams although regarded as a Congregationalist clearly used the language of the Enlightened Deism of the day. "Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty" in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all Men are clearly entitled to, by the eternal and immutable laws Of God and nature, as well as by the law of Nations, & all well grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former." Also, "The natural liberty of Men by entring into society is abridg'd or restrained so far only as is necessary for the Great end of Society the best good of the whole--
Benjamin Franklin drank deep of the Episcopalian Protestant ethic and then, discomforted by church constraints, became a freethinker. All his life he kept Sundays free for reading, but would visit any church to hear a great speaker, no doubt recognizing a talent he himself did not possess. With typical honesty and humor he wrote out his creed in 1790, the year he died: "I believe in one God, Creator of the universe.... That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children.... As to Jesus ... I have ... some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble."
Patrick Henry was a devout Catholic and rather conservative saying, "The rising greatness of our country...is greatly tarnished by the general prevalence of deism, which, with me, is but another name for vice and depravity....I hear it is said by the deists that I am one of their number; and indeed that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory (being called a traitor), because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics....Being a Christian...is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast."
James Madison, attended the Episcopal church but generally refused to issue public prayers as President, despite importunings to do so. Under pressure, Madison relented in the War Of 1812, but held to his belief that chaplains shouldn't be appointed to the military or be allowed to open Congress.
Alexander Hamilton was raised Presbyterian although not deeply pious. During the Constitutional Convention he seemed to be completely indifferent to religion and made jokes about God. Never a member of any denomination he attended the Episcopal church before his duel and requested communion from the Episcopal Bishop of New York on his death bed which was granted after he denounced dueling and spoke of his belief in God's mercy.
Well, Sarah, if you have gotten this far you can see that the Founding Fathers were thinkers, not believers. John Adams suggested to, "Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and Dogmatism cannot confine it." Jefferson believed that, "The natural course of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism." He went on to say, "It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason." Following the liberal thinkers view, Jefferson would have regarded your talking to God as prayer but would have called the plan God revealed in your head as schizophrenia. He had a similar dim view of prophesy calling the Book of Revelation, "Merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams." Apocalyptic writing deserved no commentary, for "what has no meaning admits no explanation"; therefore, apocalyptic prophecies associated with Jesus deserved and would receive no attention from Jefferson nor should they from you. Finally only 10% of the American population were church members at the time of the Revolution. There were only Americans then, no one was calling themselves "real Americans" and fighting other Americans. They were in this together and were all equals. Even Washington was regarded as "First Among Equals." If you want to learn the true thought of the days of the American Revolution, the Jefferson Bible is easily found online through Google and would be a good place for you to begin your learning.