On This Day in 1789 [repost]

[Repost from Rational Rant, 15 August 2009, slightly updated. I am dedicating this repost to the memory of Ed Brayton, without whose influence this post might never have been written.]

It’s Saturday, 15 August, 1789. Congress is in session in New York—the first congress under the new constitution. Up for discussion: a proposed constitutional amendment, to be inserted between the sentence guaranteeing habeas corpus and the one prohibiting ex post facto laws. It was one part of a political compromise, a series of amendments to the new constitution meant to keep doubters in the fold and to entice the undecided off the fence. We know the result today as the Bill of Rights. This proposed amendment read:

No religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed.

Peter Silvester (P, NY), an Albany lawyer who had held (and would continue to hold) a variety of governmental positions in the new republic, immediately spotted a problem with the wording. The opening words could be taken two ways. The intention was to keep the new government from passing a law that would establish religion, but could it not also be taken as a command to the congress to establish “no religion” as the law of the land? He “had some doubts of the propriety of the mode of expression used in this paragraph. He apprehended that it was liable to a construction different from what had been made by the committee. He feared it might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion altogether.”

Where on earth did this fear come from? Well, you have to remember that the issue of disestablishment (we would call it “separation of church and state”) was hot at the time, and that Virginia had recently emerged from a bruising battle on the subject when Patrick Henry had proposed a bill levying a tax to support all teachers of religion, a bill famously opposed and defeated by the efforts of James Madison—the author of the present amendment. You have to remember that in European states of the time the established church was generally tax-supported, and that there was no guarantee that religion could survive without that support. (And as we will see from a later point made by Benjamin Huntington, there was some sentiment afloat that people ought to be required to support some religious institution, at any rate.) So, at any rate, the first order of business was to rewrite Madison’s proposal to rule out the possibility of the Federal government being called upon to establish “no religion” by law.

John Vining (P, DE) proposed fixing the problem by “transposing the two members of the sentence.” I suppose he had in mind a wording like “No law shall be [enacted] to establish religion,” or something in that vein. Elbridge Gerry (A, MA) suggested the reading “no religious doctrine shall be established by law”—a version considerably narrower than anything else proposed so far, in that it would have allowed Congress to set standards for religious practice, presumably, or at least left that door wide open, even if it kept the government from establishing doctrine.

Roger Sherman (P, CT), Framer and Declaration signer, now derailed the discussion altogether. Even though politics had already decreed this was a dead issue, he reiterated that he “thought the amendment altogether unnecessary, inasmuch as Congress had not authority whatever delegated to them by the constitution to make religious establishments; he would, therefore, move to have it struck out.” Daniel Carroll (P, MD) quickly reminded him of these political realities, “As the rights of conscience are, in their nature, of peculiar delicacy, and will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand; and as many sects have concurred in opinion that they are not well secured under the present constitution, he said he was much in favor of adopting the words. He thought it would tend more towards conciliating the minds of the people to the Government than almost any other amendment he had heard proposed. He would not contend with gentlemen about the phraseology, his object was to secure the substance in such a manner as to satisfy the wishes of the honest part of the community.”

James Madison, Jr. (A, VA) patiently explained again the intended meaning of the amendment: “that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.” He once again went over the political necessity of the amendment: “Whether the words are necessary or not, he did not mean to say, but they had been required by some of the State Conventions, who seemed to entertain an opinion that under the clause of the constitution, which gave power to Congress to make all laws necessary and proper to carry into execution the constitution, and the laws made under it, enabled them to make laws of such a nature as might infringe the rights of conscience, and establish a national religion; to prevent these effects he presumed the amendment was intended, and he thought it as well expressed as the nature of the language would admit.”

Benjamin Huntington (P, CT) now took the bull by the horns. He said “that he feared, with the gentleman first up on this subject, that the words might be taken in such a latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the cause of religion.” The underlying fear, no doubt, was the possibility that if state support for religion was removed, religion itself might wither away altogether. Huntington made a rather lame argument that “The ministers of their congregations to the eastward were maintained by the contributions of those who belonged to their society; the expense of building meeting-houses was contributed in the same manner. These things were regulated by bylaws. If an action was brought before a Federal Court on any of these cases, the person who had neglected to perform his engagements could not be compelled to do it; for a support of ministers, or building of places of worship, might be construed into a religious establishment.” He felt that the 1663 Rhode Island Charter (then over a century old) was radical enough; it guaranteed that dissenters from the Church of England would be tolerated (as long as they kept quiet about it) but didn’t actually encourage them. “He hoped, therefore, the amendment would be made in such a way as to secure the rights of conscience, and a free exercise of the rights of religion, but not to patronize those who professed no religion at all.” And with this display of bigotry and intolerance Benjamin Huntington vanished from the debate.

If James Madison (or anybody else for that matter) thought Huntington’s remarks were worth responding to it doesn’t appear in the record. He went back to the main point of the wording, and suggested adding the word national before religion, which would have created the following result:

No national religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed.

He thought (wrongly) that this “would satisfy the minds of honorable gentlemen. He believed that the people feared one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform. He thought if the word national was introduced, it would point the amendment directly to the object it was intended to prevent.”

Samuel Livermore (P, NH) was impatient with this nit-picking; “he did not wish them to dwell long on the subject.” He proposed a substitute amendment:

Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience.

This is an electrifying moment; suddenly we see the beginning of the actual language that will become the First Amendment. It's not there yet, of course; we still have “infringing the rights of conscience” rather than “prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, but it’s on its way. For the moment, however, the proposal just lies there; under consideration is Madison’s proposal to add the word national to his version of the amendment.

Elbridge Gerry (A, MA), Declaration signer and opponent of the new constitution, who had earlier in the debate suggested the language “no religious doctrine” to replace “no religion”, now objected strongly to the term national, in that a Federal, and not a National, government was under consideration. Madison defended his suggestion by observing “that the words ‘no national religion shall be established by law,’ did not imply that the Government was a national one,” but he withdrew his motion regardless in favor of Livermore’s version. The vote was then taken on that, and the amendment passed 31-20. Thus, had this been the end of the story, the First Amendment would have read:

Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience.

Of course as we know these were not the words that were going to become enshrined as part of the first article of the Bill of Rights; the Senate would have to pass its version, and a compromise would be hammered out between them, but for the moment their work was done, and it was on to consider such matters as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the freedom to peaceably assemble (one representative compared the last to the freedom to wear a hat). But the big effort of the day was over an amendment that would have given the right to the people to instruct their representatives. The argument over that one was heated, and ended with the defeat of the proposal. That debate in fact appears to have taken much longer than the debates about the various freedoms altogether.

And that's the way it was on this date in history two hundred thirty-one years ago.

Cursed Be All Learning!

T

he underbrush has grown thickly about the internet since I’ve been down with the moving sickness, and frankly it’s beyond either my interest or abilities to hack it back. Luxuriant growths of strange fungi have emerged, and old thorny vines re-established themselves. (I see David Barton has a new version of his unconfirmed quotations page up, for example—and it is a rare growth indeed!) The gamergate creepers are everywhere, threatening to strangle the old growth columns, and the social injustice perennials are in full bloom.

While tramping through this tulgy undergrowth I came across this little toadstool of a website, attributed to a certain Pastor Stephen Andrew, entitled USA Christian Ministries, and containing a page of USA HistoryQuotes about God and the Bible, many of them fake. It’s apparently been there since at least 21 February 2012 (though not apparently in exactly the present form) and is a rich growth of frauds and forgeries. We find such familiar hoaxes as the Washington prayer book and the 1792 congressional proclamation approving the holy bible for use in schools. There are the rank misattributions, like the John Quincy Adams “cornerstone” quotation being attributed to his father, or the Reformed Dutch Synod’s “true religion” remark being assigned to George Washington. Not to mention the absurdity of attributing a comment by an anonymous 1956 writer to Patrick Henry. There are unsupported attributions, like Henry’s deathbed tribute to the Bible. There are incorrect citations, as when words from Noah Webster’s 1836 letter to David McClure are attributed to his preface to the 1828 dictionary. (I have read through the thousands of words in that preface, and fascinating reading it is, if you are interested in the correct pronunciation of the English language, or the derivation of its words, but he does not there discuss his views on the use of the Bible in education.)

There are the weird distortions, such as this version of Washington’s advice to the Delaware tribe:

You do well to wish to learn … above all the religion of Jesus Christ [in our schools].

You know, you don’t get to use ellipses and brackets to change the meaning of a quotation—that’s as much fraud as simply making words up and attributing them to somebody else. The same is true with his version of what he likes to call the “First Ammendment”:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [Christian denomination], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And apparently, if this site is to be believed (and I see no reason why it should), both Noah and Daniel Webster said “Education is useless without the Bible”. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent trying to run that idiotic claim down. I can easily believe that either of them—or both—actually said that, especially in the context of the whole Girard’s college imbroglio. For those who don’t know the story, Stephen Girard, the wealthiest man in the United States of his time (he bailed out the government during the 1812 war), left his fortune to a variety of public works in his adopted country. One of these was a school for the education of orphans. His French relatives wanted the cash, and Daniel Webster was one of the lawyers who fought to help them in their attempt to rob orphans of an education. One of the provisions in Girard’s will was that no priest or minister should set foot on the grounds of his school, and the anti-college team twisted that into a claim that no religion would be taught at the school. Daniel Webster claimed that a charitable bequest that excluded Christianity was invalid under the law, because, it seems, there could be no charity outside of the Christian context, and the bequest should therefore be set aside in favor of Girard’s family members. Daniel Webster cited Noah Webster (among others) in support of his position. Ultimately the judge sidestepped the whole issue by pointing out that the exclusion of ministers did not prevent religious education by laymen, and that therefore that whole line of argument was irrelevant.

I could easily imagine either Webster claiming that “education is useless without the Bible” in this context, but I haven’t found it. And, for the record, Girard’s school for orphans was indeed founded, and is still in operation to this day, though his desire that all girls and black children be excluded from his bequest is no longer honored.

Moving on, I see that Pastor Andrew’s collection of James Madison quotations is absolutely perfect—there is nothing genuine in the entire lot. They are out-and-out fakes, all of them. Taking them in order they are:

We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.

This is a well-known fake; Madison never wrote anything like it. Many of the words are Clarence Manion’s, taken from various forms of his 1950s lecture on “The Key to Peace”, and the entire thing may have been inspired by a few words of Madison’s in the Federalist Papers, but it doesn’t appear to be any older than about 1958. (Some writers claim a 1937 source, but the existence of that item is doubtful, to say the least.)

We then have

Religion [is] the basis and foundation of Government.

This one is particularly childish. What he actually wrote (in Memorial and Remonstrance on the Religious Rights of Man) was:

… Because finally, “the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience” is held by the same tenure with all his other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consider the “Declaration of those rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of government,” it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis.

Note that the word “religion” is part of a quotation and the words “the basis and foundation of government” are part of the title of a work he is referring to. The fraud could hardly be more transparent.

Finally we have

Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.

This is so obviously not Madison’s it is amazing that anybody could be taken in by it. As Jeffrey Shallit noted in a piece on this fake quotation (Yet Another Christian Fake Quote) Madison was more likely to say things like “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect” than “Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.” How did this bizarre attribution occur? A commenter on that site (me, actually, back when I still had access to my library) suggested “The Madison misattribution probably results … from human error (and failure to check sources). William J. Federer wrote in the Madison section of his America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations (p. 410):

Home-schooled as a child, Madison attended Princeton University under the direction of Reverend John Witherspoon, one of the nation's premier theologians and legal scholars. The University's first president, Jonathan Dickinson, had declared: “Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”

Somebody seeing this sentence in quotation marks in a section devoted to Madison quotations could easily be excused for mistaking it for Madison's words.”

So it would seem to be a simple case of misattribution. It was Jonathan Dickinson, not James Madison, who said “Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.” But did he? For the sake of his posthumous reputation I would hope he didn’t—but hopes are not the same as evidence. I did look for it—but I couldn’t find it.

The oldest reference to the saying that Google Books turned up was from a sketch of a speech given by the Reverend S. S. Cox D.D. in October 1845 recorded in the Permanent Documents of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, Volume 1, p. 30. He attributed the following words to “a venerable man [by] the name of Witherspoon”:

Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ; cursed be all that learning that is not coincident with the cross of Christ; cursed be all that learning that is not subservient to the cross of Christ.

The “venerable man [by] the name of Witherspoon” was no doubt John Knox Witherspoon (1723-1794), signer of the Declaration and president of the College of New Jersey. William Federer mentioned him along with Dickinson in the bit quoted above. But could Witherspoon have actually said these bigoted anti-intellectual words?

Well, yes he could, kind of. Context matters here. The words appear in a sermon he published in 1768, one of a group “selected in order to form a little system of the truths of the gospel”. The sermon in question is number VIII, entitled “Glorying in the Cross” and taking for its text Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter vi, verse 14, given there as “But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the manner of sermons “Glorying in the Cross” meanders on for a bit, as Witherspoon tries to establish to his own satisfaction at least what exactly is meant by by its subject. “The word here translated glorying, signifies at the same time exulting, or rejoicing; and therefore to glory in the cross, is the same thing as to rejoice in the Saviour.” He moves on to ask “in what it was the apostle did not glory.” From elsewhere in Paul’s works (the latter portion of II Corinthians maybe?) Witherspoon concludes there were at least three things “he renounced as any subject of boasting. 1. His learning as a scholar; 2. His privileges as a Jew; 3. Even his zeal and activity as a minister of Christ.”

Are you still with me? Do you see where we’re going here? “The apostle Paul” he observes “had been brought up at the sect of Gamaliel, and seems to have been well accomplished in every branch of human science. Yet he speaks of it with great neglect, or rather with a noble disdain, when compared with the doctrine of the cross…” Witherspoon asks rhetorically “What is the meaning of this renunciation of human learning and wisdom? Is there any real opposition between learning and the cross? Would not the legitimate use of human wisdom lead us to embrace it?” For him this renunciation implies, first “An admiration of the divine glory in that which had not on it any of the marks of human wisdom…”, second “such a superlative admiration of this glorious and interesting object, that all the knowledge he possessed, and the honour he could otherwise acquire, seemed to him unworthy of regard…”, and third, “humility and self-denial, with the noble contempt of vain embellishments, which showed he was not building a monument to himself, but seeking the honour of his Saviour.”

And at this point he enters the caveat that is the source of this passage:

Mistake me not, my brethren: I am not speaking against learning in itself; it is a precious gift of God, and may be happily improved in the service of the gospel; but I will venture to say, in the spirit of the apostle Paul's writings in general, and of this passage in particular, Accursed be all that learning which sets itself in opposition to the cross of Christ! Accursed be all that learning which disguises or is ashamed of the cross of Christ! Accursed be all that learning which fills the room that is due to the cross of Christ! and once more, Accursed be all that learning which is not made subservient to the honour and glory of the cross of Christ!

As is my custom I have bolded the material that is reflected in the misquotation under consideration. (It will be noted that the first and third of Cox’s curses have Witherspoon’s first and fourth curses as their source; the second however is not parallel to either Witherspoon’s second or third. Go figure.) So, yeah, Witherspoon is indeed the source of the fake Madison quotation; the context mitigates the anti-intellectualism of it somewhat. But not much, no.

For my part, I am unenthusiastic about ideologies that would set limits on inquiry. I mean, I have nothing against the gospel per se; there are some nice things in it, considering that it was the product of a benighted and savage era. It is as straw compared to the work of Aristotle or Archimedes, and less useful than the advice of Sun Tzu, but it has its points. When used to impede the advance of knowledge, however, I will venture to say in no uncertain terms, Accursed be all that learning that limits itself to the cross of Christ! Accursed be all that learning that exists only to exalt the cross of Christ! Accursed be all that learning that erases knowledge for the cross of Christ! and once more, Accursed be all that learning that is made subservient to the honour and glory of the cross of Christ! Such “learning” is unworthy the efforts of the minds that wasted their abilities on it, loving the darkness rather than shining their lamps into the shadowed corners of the cosmos to see what really was there. It’s akin to those lawyers who would rob orphans of an education if that education didn’t include their particular unsubstantiated pet notions.

Still, at least the reverend John Witherspoon had a mind, and made what appears to be a sincere effort to come to grips with the meaning of his text. Today's Christ-mongers are too busy selling a product to worry about such niceties. Manufacturing appropriate quotations and rewriting constitutions to suit their theological fancies are more their speed. Research is hard. Why do it, if you can just make things up? Use your ellipses as scissors and your brackets as paste and you can make anybody say anything you like. It's not like people have access to repositories of documents they can visit, or even conjure up in their own homes if they have an internet connection. No, they'll believe whatever you tell them. And trusting pastors with websites can be counted upon to spread your message.

And so with that I bid a fond farewell to this fantastic fungal growth in a remote corner of the online woods. I would suggest that the good Pastor Andrew needs to weed his garden a bit. There are a lot of tares mixed in with his wheat.

David Barton’s “Unconfirmed” Quotations—The Current Score

As yesterday's observations moved one of David Barton’s “unconfirmed” quotations from the Fake to the Slightly Mangled column, I thought it might be fun to see how the entire group stacks up so far. Here they are, in his order:

1. It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!—Patrick Henry

Fake. This one has been done to death; it’s an obvious fake—actually written in 1956, and misattributed to Henry in the 1980s.

2. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.—George Washington

Fake. This is a misquotation of a saying attributed to Washington by James K. Paulding in a children’s biography of Washington: “It is impossible to govern the universe without the aid of a Supreme Being”. Paulding insisted in his preface that he got his material from people who had known Washington, and maybe he did, but as he chose not to give his sources, it remains an unverified claim. In any case this rewritten version is manifestly fake.

3. Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian.—Holy Trinity v. U. S. (Supreme Court)

Fake. The actual author of this quotation is not the United States Supreme Court, but the Illinois Supreme Court (Richmond v. Moore, 1883): “Although it is no part of the functions of our system of government to propagate religion, and to enforce its tenets, when the great body of the people are Christians, in fact or sentiment, our laws and institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. And in this sense, and to this extent, our civilization and institutions are emphatically Christian, but not for the purpose of compelling men to embrace particular doctrines or creeds of any church, or to support one or another denomination by public burthens, but simply to afford protection to all in the enjoyment of their belief or unbelief.”

Barton’s response on learning this shows that he is still far from embracing scholarly standards on evidence, in spite of his claims—he moved the quotation from the unconfirmed to the confirmed column, apparently on the ground that somebody somewhere had said it, or something like it. If that’s his standard, then all of these quotations should be moved to the confirmed column forthwith, since every one of them was said by somebody on some occasion. The issue, of course, is whether they were said by the person (or in this case court) to which they are attributed. This one isn’t. EOD.

4. We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves . . . according to the Ten Commandments of God.—James Madison

Fake. The only genuine portion of this passage were the words “the capacity of mankind for self-government”—and Barton left them out of his mangled version of the pseudo-quotation. The quotation appears to have originated around 1958 and may be based on Dean Clarence Manion’s exposition of this Madison phrase in The Key to Peace. In any case, it’s not Madison’s.

5. Religion . . . [is] the basis and foundation of government.—James Madison

Fake. Barton prefers to call this one “inaccurate” for some reason, but it’s a fake pure and simple. The word “religion” comes from a passage Madison was quoting, and the words “the basis and foundation of government” are from the title of the piece being quoted. They aren’t Madison’s, and they don’t belong together. EOD.

6. Whosoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.—Benjamin Franklin

Fake. The words are Jacques Mallet du Pan’s, not Franklin’s, though du Pan claims they represent Franklin’s sentiment. He didn’t say where he got this idea.

7. The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be assessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.—Noah Webster

Unconfirmed—probably genuine. The passage supposedly comes from a letter Noah Webster wrote to an unnamed New York newspaper around 1837.

8. There are two powers only which are sufficient to control men, and secure the rights of individuals and a peaceable administration; these are the combined force of religion and law, and the force or fear of the bayonet.—Noah Webster

Likewise unconfirmed—probably genuine. It is the next paragraph from the same supposed letter, minus the introductory phrase “In my view”.

9. The only assurance of our nation’s safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion.—Abraham Lincoln

Unconfirmed—likely fake. It can’t be traced earlier than the mid-1970s.

10. The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.—Abraham Lincoln

Unconfirmed—likely fake. This one also can’t be traced earlier than the late twentieth century.

11. A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.—Samuel Adams

Genuine. Samuel Adams wrote to James Warren on 12 February 1779, “A general Dissolution of Principles & Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the Common Enemy. While the People are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their Virtue they will be ready to surrender their Liberties to the first external or internal Invader.”

12. I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make us better citizens.—Thomas Jefferson

Attributed. On 15 June 1852 Daniel Webster wrote a letter to “Professor Pease” concerning the sabbath-school movement in which he recalled an afternoon spent with Thomas Jefferson a quarter of a century or so before. In it he quotes Thomas Jefferson as having said to him “I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.” This letter was published in 1858 and these lines have been quoted from it ever since.

13. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.—Alexis de Tocqueville

Fake. This line is a misquotation from another foreign visitor to the United States, Andrew Reed, who along with James Matheson visited the United States from Great Britain during the Jackson administration. In one of his letters he wrote back home “Universal suffrage, whatever may be its abstract merits or demerits, is neither desirable nor possible, except the people are the subjects of universal education and universal piety. America will be great if America is good. If not, her greatness will vanish away like a morning cloud.” Quoted a number of times during the nineteenth century, it was garbled early in the twentieth and misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville.

14. The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.—John Quincy Adams

Genuine. Almost. What John Quincy Adams wrote to an autograph collector on 27 April 1837 was “The highest, the transcendent glory of the American Revolution was this—it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the precepts of Christianity. If it has never been considered in that light, it is because its compass has not been perceived.” John Wingate Thornton attributed the version above, sans quotation marks, to John Quincy Adams, making a couple of trivial changes. Perhaps he was quoting from memory, as the changes seem pointless. In any case it has been quoted in the Thornton version ever since.

By my count we have seven fakes, two probable fakes, two possibly genuine items, one attribution, and two legitimate quotations. It could be worse, I suppose. Some of them are plausible, anyway. But at least three of the fakes (the Patrick Henry and the two James Madisons) are so egregious as to make you wonder how anybody could have been deceived by them. And the Illinois Supreme Court decision is grotesque, an out-of-context quotation at its worst. (And three guesses as to why he didn’t quote this line from the same decision: “a total severance of church and State is one of the great controlling foundation principles of our system of government.”) The Washington strikes me as iffy at best, especially in Barton’s form (which goes back to 1893 at any rate), but there’s nothing impossible about it, as there is with the Henry, for example.

With the remaining unconfirmed items keep in mind that the burden of proof is always on the person citing the quotation as genuine. Once again let me invoke Martin Porter’s first principle of quotation: “Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.” It’s not a bad basis to work from.

Quotation of the Day

It was the universal opinion of the century preceding the last, that civil Government could not stand without the prop of a religious establishment, and that the Christian religion itself would perish if not supported by a legal provision for its clergy. The experience of Virginia conspicuously corroborates the disproof of both opinions. The civil Government, though bereft of every thing like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State.

James Madison, Letter to Robert Walsh, 2 March 1819

On this Day in 1789

It's Saturday, 15 August, 1789. Congress is in session in New York—the first congress under the new constitution. Up for discussion: a proposed constitutional amendment, to be inserted between the sentence guaranteeing habeas corpus and the one prohibiting ex post facto laws. It was one part of a political compromise, a series of amendments to the new constitution meant to keep doubters in the fold and to entice the undecided off the fence. We know the result today as the Bill of Rights. This proposed amendment read:

No religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed.

Peter Silvester (P, NY), an Albany lawyer who had held (and would continue to hold) a variety of governmental positions in the new republic, immediately spotted a problem with the wording. The opening words could be taken two ways. The intention was to keep the new government from passing a law that would establish religion, but could it not also be taken as a command to the congress to establish “no religion” as the law of the land? He “had some doubts of the propriety of the mode of expression used in this paragraph. He apprehended that it was liable to a construction different from what had been made by the committee. He feared it might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion altogether.”

Where on earth did this fear come from? Well, you have to remember that the issue of disestablishment (we would call it "separation of church and state") was hot at the time, and that Virginia had recently emerged from a bruising battle on the subject when Patrick Henry had proposed a bill levying a tax to support all teachers of religion, a bill famously opposed and defeated by the efforts of James Madison—the author of the present amendment. You have to remember that in European states of the time the established church was generally tax-supported, and that there was no guarantee that religion could survive without that support. (And as we will see from a later point made by Benjamin Huntington, there was some sentiment afloat that people ought to be required to support some religious institution, at any rate.) So, at any rate, the first order of business was to rewrite Madison's proposal to rule out the possibility of the Federal government being called upon to establish "no religion" by law.

John Vining (P, DE) proposed fixing the problem by “transposing the two members of the sentence.” I suppose he had in mind a wording like “No law shall be [enacted] to establish religion,” or something in that vein. Elbridge Gerry (A, MA) suggested the reading "no religious doctrine shall be established by law”—a version considerably narrower than anything else proposed so far, in that it would have allowed Congress to set standards for religious practice, presumably, or at least left that door wide open, even if it kept the government from establishing doctrine.

Roger Sherman (P, CT), Framer and Declaration signer, now derailed the discussion altogether. Even though politics had already decreed this was a dead issue, he reiterated that he "thought the amendment altogether unnecessary, inasmuch as Congress had not authority whatever delegated to them by the constitution to make religious establishments; he would, therefore, move to have it struck out.” Daniel Carroll (P, MD) quickly reminded him of these political realities, "As the rights of conscience are, in their nature, of peculiar delicacy, and will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand; and as many sects have concurred in opinion that they are not well secured under the present constitution, he said he was much in favor of adopting the words. He thought it would tend more towards conciliating the minds of the people to the Government than almost any other amendment he had heard proposed. He would not contend with gentlemen about the phraseology, his object was to secure the substance in such a manner as to satisfy the wishes of the honest part of the community."

James Madison, Jr. (A, VA) patiently explained again the intended meaning of the amendment: "that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience." He once again went over the political necessity of the amendment: “Whether the words are necessary or not, he did not mean to say, but they had been required by some of the State Conventions, who seemed to entertain an opinion that under the clause of the constitution, which gave power to Congress to make all laws necessary and proper to carry into execution the constitution, and the laws made under it, enabled them to make laws of such a nature as might infringe the rights of conscience, and establish a national religion; to prevent these effects he presumed the amendment was intended, and he thought it as well expressed as the nature of the language would admit.”

Benjamin Huntington (P, CT) now took the bull by the horns. He said “that he feared, with the gentleman first up on this subject, that the words might be taken in such a latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the cause of religion.” The underlying fear, no doubt, was the possibility that if state support for religion was removed, religion itself might wither away altogether. Huntington made a rather lame argument that “The ministers of their congregations to the eastward were maintained by the contributions of those who belonged to their society; the expense of building meeting-houses was contributed in the same manner. These things were regulated by bylaws. If an action was brought before a Federal Court on any of these cases, the person who had neglected to perform his engagements could not be compelled to do it; for a support of ministers, or building of places of worship, might be construed into a religious establishment.” He felt that the 1663 Rhode Island Charter (then over a century old) was radical enough; it guaranteed that dissenters from the Church of England would be tolerated (as long as they kept quiet about it) but didn’t actually encourage them. “He hoped, therefore, the amendment would be made in such a way as to secure the rights of conscience, and a free exercise of the rights of religion, but not to patronize those who professed no religion at all.” And with this display of bigotry and intolerance Benjamin Huntington vanished from the debate.

If James Madison (or anybody else for that matter) thought Huntington’s remarks were worth responding to it doesn’t appear in the record. He went back to the main point of the wording, and suggested adding the word national before religion, which would have created the following result:

No national religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed.

He thought (wrongly) that this “would satisfy the minds of honorable gentlemen. He believed that the people feared one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform. He thought if the word national was introduced, it would point the amendment directly to the object it was intended to prevent.”

Samuel Livermore (P, NH) was impatient with this nit-picking; “he did not wish them to dwell long on the subject.” He proposed a substitute amendment:

Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience.

This is an electrifying moment; suddenly we see the beginning of the actual language that will become the First Amendment. It's not there yet, of course; we still have "infringing the rights of conscience" rather than "prohibiting the free exercise thereof", but it's on its way. For the moment, however, the proposal just lies there; under consideration is Madison's proposal to add the word national to his version of the amendment.

Elbridge Gerry (A, MA), Declaration signer and opponent of the new constitution, who had earlier in the debate suggested the language "no religious doctrine" to replace "no religion", now objected strongly to the term national, in that a Federal, and not a National, government was under consideration. Madison defended his suggestion by observing "that the words ‘no national religion shall be established by law,’ did not imply that the Government was a national one,” but he withdrew his motion regardless in favor of Livermore’s version. The vote was then taken on that, and the amendment passed 31-20. Thus, had this been the end of the story, the First Amendment would have read:

Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience.

Of course as we know these were not the words that were going to become enshrined as part of the first article of the Bill of Rights; the Senate would have to pass its version, and a compromise would be hammered out between them, but for the moment their work was done, and it was on to consider such matters as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the freedom to peaceably assemble (one representative compared the last to the freedom to wear a hat). But the big effort of the day was over an amendment that would have given the right to the people to instruct their representatives. The argument over that one was heated, and ended with the defeat of the proposal. That debate in fact appears to have taken much longer than the debates about the various freedoms altogether.

And that's the way it was on this date in history two hundred twenty years ago.