The Faith of the Founding

My colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Walter Berns, has written that the philosophy of John Locke was decisive in the American founding. According to Berns, Locke’s disguised but unmistakable aims were to break with the traditional Christian understanding of nature and to drive religion out of politics by confining it to the private sphere. Professor Berns invokes Jean-Jacques Rousseau to set the horizon and framework of this interpretation, and thus makes the European Enlightenment a hermeneutical key to the American founding. In doing so, he neglects the testimony of John Adams, Benjamin Rush, Alexander Hamilton, John Dickinson, and others of the founders, whose views on the source of natural rights are far more religious than those of Locke (narrowly interpreted). In addition, Berns largely ignores the practice of the founding generation, which accommodated a far more public role for the free exercise of religion than the American Civil Liberties Union now tolerates.

Nonetheless, the Berns thesis does throw some doubt upon the generous and affectionate thesis about the American founding propounded by the genial Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, one of the thinkers who prepared the way for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If Berns is right, Maritain cannot be. And vice versa. In a series of books, Maritain argued that modern democracy of the American type cannot be understood apart from the inspiration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which works in secular history as yeast in dough. In Man and the State, for example, Maritain introduced his thesis in these terms:

Later, in Reflections on America, Maritain wrote: "The Founding Fathers were neither metaphysicians nor theologians, but their philosophy of life, and their political philosophy, their notion of natural law and of human rights, were permeated with concepts worked out by Christian reason and backed up by an unshakeable religious feeling."

Coming from radically secular France, where the revolutionaries of 1789 seized, profaned, and closed Christian institutions throughout the republic in the name of "natural rights," Maritain fears that Americans will not hold fast to their own originality:

This difference between France and America stimulated Maritain’s philosophical reflections. Yet Maritain seldom cites a particular text of the founding period, such as the Declaration, the Constitution, The Federalist, or other classics. It is not apparent that he read much of Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, or other founders.

Therefore, one wonders whether Maritain’s thesis, lovely as it is, is borne out by a close reading of the essential documents. Prof. Berns, like other students of Leo Strauss, points out that interpreting apparently religious documents such as the Declaration of Independence requires a special kind of care, since the surface meaning of the words may mask a contrary and hidden subtext. One must grasp, for instance, the particular philosophical problem that John Locke faced, namely, how not to seem like a heretic while actually proposing a heretical solution to the "theological-political problem." While seeming to cite religious arguments and to pay obeisance to traditional terms, Locke actually reduced religion to subordinate status. He intended to eliminate the centuries of competition between religious authority and political authority by subordinating religion to secular law.

In making this argument, Prof. Berns leans heavily upon James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance of 1785, a pamphlet that Madison circulated throughout Virginia in resistance to an initiative of Governor Patrick Henry. Henry had proposed a bill to raise taxes for salaries of clergymen in all those churches that would accept such aid. He hoped, in other words, to engineer a way around the recent disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Virginia. Madison feared that this ploy reintroduced the entanglement of church and state. So in a fuller way than anyone yet had, although building upon earlier works by George Mason and Thomas Jefferson, Madison spelled out the ground of his argument for the natural right of religious liberty. As a major test of the argument between Maritain and Berns, it seems useful to examine the reasoning of these three Virginians in some detail.

The way in which Virginia approached the question of religious liberty was very different from the path chosen by Massachusetts and other states, but the Virginia way has become the standard by which American liberals today measure the relations of church and state—and even of religion and society. "Church" and "state" refer to institutions, of course, whereas "religion" refers more broadly to the habits and actions of individuals, sometimes acting singly, sometimes acting together with others. For instance, citizens often act together through diverse associations, contexts, activities, and civic relationships in order to achieve their social ends and purposes independently of the state. The sphere of "society," therefore, is much larger than that of "state."

Massachusetts and others among the founding thirteen states, while protecting the full religious liberty of citizens under their new constitutions after Independence, maintained an established church and entrusted important moral and educational tasks to church communities with state support, direct or indirect. Virginia, too, agreed that the protection of morals and education in republican habits was indispensable to the survival and well-being of republican government. However, abuses of religious freedom led three leading Virginians to draw an exceedingly bright line between the state and not only the church but even religion more generally. This line was defined by four major documents: George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779), James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), and again his Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1785).

Three features of this decade-long struggle deserve note. First, Virginia trod this path almost alone among the founding states. Second, the extraordinary passion of Jefferson and Madison on this point was bitterly resisted by many in Virginia, as well as in other states, and in practice it proved nearly impossible to observe completely. The dependence of the republic upon the concepts and habits inculcated by Jewish and Christian religions proved to be too conspicuous to ignore. As Presidents, for example, both Jefferson and Madison expended considerable effort to show their personal support for religious worship and to nurture religious activities. The actual practice of the early republic exhibited many accommodations between the state and religious citizens in multiple warm and friendly ways that sharply distinguished the American way from the rigorous hostility Maritain had known in France. While the American Republic had no established church, the American state took a positive and benign attitude toward the full, free, and quite visibly public exercise of religion, not least at major state functions and national celebrations. Moreover, the religion shown in such public exercises was not just "religion in general," but quite distinctively Protestant Christianity, albeit, typically, in a fairly nondenominational form. And this public choice was not a matter of mere reflex, without argument on its behalf. Public figures and public documents widely asserted that this particular stream of religion was of decisive importance in the history of liberty, and indispensable to its survival.

But the third feature of these founding documents is even more striking and profound. For it is quite stunning that the four documents in question depend for their intelligibility and their credibility upon a distinctively Jewish and Christian view of man’s relation to God. The hinge of the argument in each document is a fact of Jewish and Christian faith: that each individual conscience stands in the presence of its Creator. Further, by virtue of having been created from nothing, each individual owes a primordial duty to her or his Creator. This duty is of so intimate a nature that no other person can perform it in that individual’s place. It is an inalienable duty, which can be taken up by no other.

This particular religious view is held by only two religions. It is not found in Buddhism nor in Hinduism; not in animism nor in pantheism; not in the religions of the ancient Greeks or Romans; nor in the religions of the Incas or the Mayans; and not even in that one other religion which also recognized a Creator separate from the created world, Islam.

These other world religions are satisfied by outward obeisance. Do your duty, and no one inquires into what your secret thoughts may be. Since only outward ritual acts were demanded, not even the great Greek or Roman philosophers worried over the assent of conscience to the worship of the gods. By contrast, Jews and Christians trembled if asked to make outward obeisance to idols, for they recognized in that act a terrible sin of idolatry.

Only Judaism and Christianity among all world religions developed, and still nourish and celebrate, the three central concepts necessary to the American conception of rights. Only they hold to the doctrine that there is a Creator (and Governor of the universe); that each individual owes a personal accounting at the time of Judgment to this Creator, a Judgment that is prior to all claims of civil society or state; and that this inalienable relation between each individual and his Creator occurs in the depths of conscience and reason, and is not reached merely by external bows, bended knees, pilgrimages, or other ritual observances.

Take, for example, the paragraph of the Virginia Declaration of Rights dealing with religion, which is explicitly dependent on a distinctively Christian understanding of religion:

Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779), submitted but not passed by the legislature until 1785, likewise picks up an explicitly Christian motif:

Then, since no Assembly can pass an irrevocable act that another Assembly, of equal powers, cannot rescind, Jefferson’s bill adds a deeper understanding of the ground of this act:

Thus, in the acts put forth by Mason and Jefferson, the concept of natural right is argued for in the language of Jewish and Christian belief about the Creator, who wishes to be worshiped in spirit and truth. For this God, the arena of conscience is sacred, in such a way that the duty, and therefore the natural right, of the individual who stands in that arena is also sacred. In that sacred space that stands between the individual and the Creator, no state, society, or other human person dares to intervene.

William Penn of the Society of Friends first established religious liberty in the colonies and supplied the Christian rationale for it. In Penn’s vision, Almighty God conceived of this universe we inhabit and brought it into being so that somewhere in it there would be at least one creature with whom He could establish friendship. And since God wished the friendship of free women and men, not slaves, He constituted human beings free. For Penn, friendship is the purpose of the universe, and friendship’s necessary precondition is liberty:

Religious liberty for all was the first natural right Penn recognized in his new colony. One can see this metaphysical scheme behind the words of Mason and Jefferson in the two acts of the Virginia Assembly quoted above: "that all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other."

Penn’s scheme also lies behind Madison’s eloquent Remonstrance, but Madison adds a deeper and more profound point—namely, that the relation of the intelligent creature and his Creator is not only inalienable in the sense that no one else may stand in for another, but also in the sense that this is a relation prior to all other relations, even those of civil society. Religious liberty, then, is not a natural right that comes into existence along with civil society. It is prior to civil society. It is rooted in nature itself, in the primordial relation of intelligent creature to Creator. In an astonishing tour de force, the young Madison goes beyond Locke and even deeper than Mason and Jefferson. His argument begins where the Virginia Declaration of Rights left off, and so he quotes directly from that text:

It is important to pause here and take in Madison’s point. The relation of an individual to his Creator is precedent to his entering into civil society; it arises from nature itself. Yet this view of nature is in fact derivative from an expressly Christian view of the world expressed in philosophical rather than in exclusively theological or scriptural terms. In Madison’s view, by nature an individual is "a subject of the Governor of the Universe." On that fact, deep and inviolable, his natural right is grounded.

Continuing to quote from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, Madison attempts to ground the fundamental equality of all individuals, considered as subjects of the Governor of the Universe.

In the remainder of the Remonstrance, Madison gives several expressly Christian arguments for the natural right of religious liberty. He calls Governor Henry’s bill, against which he is remonstrating, "a contradiction of the Christian religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world." Indeed the Christian Church survived centuries of direct opposition by the mighty Roman Empire. "Nay, it is a contradiction in terms, for a religion not invented by human policy must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy." Note well Madison’s description of Christianity: "a religion not invented by human policy."

Madison goes on to declare that "the policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift ought to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind." But attempts to enforce Christian conscience have the reverse effect, dispelling seekers after truth in aversion and fear. Which brings us to Madison’s ringing conclusion:

In brief, Madison argues as a Christian, with the purest ideals of Christianity in mind, and with a view to his faith’s flourishing. He does not argue as an atheist, materialist, or apostate from Christianity.

Only Judaism and Christianity have a doctrine of God as Spirit and Truth, Who created the world in order to invite these creatures endowed with intelligence and conscience to enter into friendship with Him. Only the Jewish and Christian God made human beings free, halts the power of Caesar at the boundaries of the human soul, and has commissioned human beings to build civilizations worthy of the liberty He has endowed in them. So high is this God’s valuation of human liberty of conscience that, even though He has launched a divinely commissioned religion in history (in two Covenants, Jewish and Christian), He would not have either of these religions imposed by force on anyone. So devoted were the American founders to this understanding of religious liberty that, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography (1821), the authors of the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom refrained from mentioning the exact name of the "holy author of our religion." Here is Jefferson’s explanation for the omission:

Madison gives powerful Christian reasons for such forbearance. Alone among the religions of the world, Judaism and Christianity place so high a valuation upon religious liberty because of their own doctrine that the relation God seeks with humans is friendship.

The explicitly Christian language of Madison, and the background of divine-human relations on which it expressly draws, strongly suggest that Maritain, and not Walter Berns, is correct. While Madison’s use of the Christian tradition employs a restricted, even chaste use of theological language—the name Jesus Christ is never mentioned, only "divine Author of our religion"—there can be no doubt that his worldview is Christian. It is neither Kantian nor Hobbesian, Greek nor Roman nor Voltairean. Neither is it a full-blooded Thomist vision. Yet it embraces too many theological elements to be considered merely secular, philosophical, or unbelieving. It is neither rationalist nor relativist, and it is more than merely theist or, as the conventional jargon of historians puts it, "Deist." In itself, while it does not affirm everything that orthodox Christian faith affirms, Madison’s vision is sufficiently impregnated with Christian faith to be not only unconvincing but even unintelligible without it.

Some may assert that although Madison’s formulations appear to be Christian, in reality they stand as typical Enlightenment philosophizing. But one has only to compare them to texts from Rousseau, Voltaire, and other secularist figures of the time to see how much Christian sentiment and metaphysics they embody in their simple, elegant statement of a man’s duties in spirit and truth to his Creator. Although to my knowledge Maritain did not consider these classic Virginia texts in detail, his judgment about the American founding nevertheless seems utterly accurate, affirming just enough and not a word more than the facts require.

Apart from Christian conceptions of a Creator Who asks to be worshiped in spirit and truth, and a Christian conception of the inner forum of inalienable conscience, George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, and Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance would lose all cogency and sense. These documents owe their derivation to a Jewish and Christian worldview, and do not spring from any other.

Supreme Court of New York 1811, in the Case of the People V Ruggles, 8 Johns 545-547, Chief Justice Chancellor Kent Stated:

The defendant was indicted ... in December, 1810, for that he did, on the 2nd day of September, 1810 ... wickedly, maliciously, and blasphemously, utter, and with a loud voice publish, in the presence and hearing of divers good and Christian people, of and concerning the Christian religion, and of and concerning Jesus Christ, the false, scandalous, malicious, wicked and blasphemous words following: "Jesus Christ was a bastard, and his mother must be a whore," in contempt of the Christian religion. .. . The defendant was tried and found guilty, and was sentenced by the court to be imprisoned for three months, and to pay a fine of $500.

The Prosecuting Attorney argued:

While the constitution of the State has saved the rights of conscience, and allowed a free and fair discussion of all points of controversy among religious sects, it has left the principal engrafted on the body of our common law, that Christianity is part of the laws of the State, untouched and unimpaired.

The Chief Justice delivered the opinion of the Court:

Such words uttered with such a disposition were an offense at common law. In Taylor's case the defendant was convicted upon information of speaking similar words, and the Court . . . said that Christianity was parcel of the law, and to cast contumelious reproaches upon it, tended to weaken the foundation of moral obligation, and the efficacy of oaths. And in the case of Rex v. Woolston, on a like conviction, the Court said . . . that whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government. . . . The authorities show that blasphemy against God and . . . profane ridicule of Christ or the Holy Scriptures (which are equally treated as blasphemy), are offenses punishable at common law, whether uttered by words or writings . . . because it tends to corrupt the morals of the people, and to destroy good order. Such offenses have always been considered independent of any religious establishment or the rights of the Church. They are treated as affecting the essential interests of civil society. . . .

We stand equally in need, now as formerly, of all the moral discipline, and of those principles of virtue, which help to bind society together. The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity, as the rule of their faith and practice; and to scandalize the author of these doctrines is not only ... impious, but . . . is a gross violation of decency and good order. Nothing could be more offensive to the virtuous part of the community, or more injurious to the tender morals of the young, than to declare such profanity lawful.. ..

The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious' opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject, is granted and secured; but to revile ... the religion professed by almost the whole community, is an abuse of that right. . . . We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors [other religions].. .. [We are] people whose manners ... and whose morals have been elevated and inspired . . . by means of the Christian religion.

Though the constitution has discarded religious establishments, it does not forbid judicial cognizance of those offenses against religion and morality which have no reference to any such establishment. . . . This [constitutional] declaration (noble and magnanimous as it is, when duly understood) never meant to withdraw religion in general, and with it the best sanctions of moral and social obligation from all consideration and notice of the law. . . . To construe it as breaking down the common law barriers against licentious, wanton, and impious attacks upon Christianity itself, would be an enormous perversion of its meaning. . . . Christianity, in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is not unknown to our law. . . . The Court are accordingly of opinion that the judgment below must be affirmed: [that blasphemy against God, and contumelious reproaches, and profane ridicule of Christ or the Holy Scriptures, are offenses punishable at the common law, whether uttered by words or writings].

The Supreme Court in the case of Lidenmuller V The People, 33 Barbour, 561 Stated:

Christianity...is in fact, and ever has been, the religion of the people. The fact is everwhere prominent in all our civil and political history, and has been, from the first, recognized and acted upon by the people, and well as by constitutional conventions, by legislatures and by courts of justice.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 1817, in the Case of The Commonwealth V Wolf stated the courts opinion as follows:

Laws cannot be administered in any civilized government unless the people are taught to revere the sanctity of an oath, and look to a future state of rewards and punishments for the deeds of this life, It is of the utmost moment, therefore, that they should be reminded of their religious duties at stated periods.... A wise policy would naturally lead to the formation of laws calculated to subserve those salutary purposes. The invaluable privilege of the rights of conscience secured to us by the constitution of the commonwealth, was never intended to shelter those persons, who, out of mere caprice, would directly oppose those laws for the pleasure of showing their contempt and abhorrence of the religious opinions of the great mass of the citizens.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 1824, in the Case of Updegraph V The Commonwealth 11 Serg. & R. 393-394, 398-399, 402, 507 (1824) recorded the Courts Declaration that:

Abner Updegraph . . . on the 12th day of December [1821] . . .not having the fear of God before his eyes . . . contriving and intending to scandalize, and bring into disrepute, and vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures of truth, in the Presence and hearing of several persons ... did unlawfully, wickedly and premeditatively, despitefully and blasphemously say . . . : "That the Holy Scriptures were a mere fable: that they were a contradiction, and that although they contained a number of good things, yet they contained a great many lies." To the great dishonor of Almighty God, to the great scandal of the profession of the Christian religion.

The jury . . . finds a malicious intention in the speaker to vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures, and this court cannot look beyond the record, nor take any notice of the allegation, that the words were uttered by the defendant, a member of a debating association, which convened weekly for discussion and mutual information... . That there is an association in which so serious a subject is treated with so much levity, indecency and scurrility ... I am sorry to hear, for it would prove a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows, and young women for the brothel, and there is not a skeptic of decent manners and good morals, who would not consider such debating clubs as a common nuisance and disgrace to the city. .. . It was the out-pouring of an invective, so vulgarly shocking and insulting, that the lowest grade of civil authority ought not to be subject to it, but when spoken in a Christian land, and to a Christian audience, the highest offence conna bones mores; and even if Christianity was not part of the law of the land, it is the popular religion of the country, an insult on which would be indictable.

The assertion is once more made, that Christianity never was received as part of the common law of this Christian land; and it is added, that if it was, it was virtually repealed by the constitution of the United States, and of this state. . . . If the argument be worth anything, all the laws which have Christianity for their object--all would be carried away at one fell swoop-the act against cursing and swearing, and breach of the Lord's day; the act forbidding incestuous marriages, perjury by taking a false oath upon the book, fornication and adultery ...for all these are founded on Christianity--- for all these are restraints upon civil liberty. ...

We will first dispose of what is considered the grand objection--the constitutionality of Christianity--for, in effect, that is the question. Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law . . . not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church ... but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.

Thus this wise legislature framed this great body of laws, for a Christian country and Christian people. This is the Christianity of the common law . . . and thus, it is irrefragably proved, that the laws and institutions of this state are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity. . . . In this the constitution of the United States has made no alteration, nor in the great body of the laws which was an incorporation of the common-law doctrine of Christianity . . . without which no free government can long exist.

To prohibit the open, public and explicit denial of the popular religion of a country is a necessary measure to preserve the tranquillity of a government. Of this, no person in a Christian country can complain. . . . In the Supreme Court of New York it was solemnly determined, that Christianity was part of the law of the land, and that to revile the Holy Scriptures was an indictable offence. The case assumes, says Chief Justice Kent, that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted on Christianity. The People v. Ruggles.

No society can tolerate a willful and despiteful attempt to subvert its religion, no more than it would to break down its laws--a general, malicious and deliberate intent to overthrow Christianity, general Christianity. Without these restraints no free government could long exist. It is liberty run mad to declaim against the punishment of these offences, or to assert that the punishment is hostile to the spirit and genius of our government. They are far from being true friends to liberty who support this doctrine, and the promulgation of such opinions, and general receipt of them among the people, would be the sure forerunners of anarchy, and finally, of despotism. No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.... Its foundations are broad and strong, and deep. .. it is the purest system of morality, the firmest auxiliary, and only stable support of all human laws. . . .

Christianity is part of the common law; the act against blasphemy is neither obsolete nor virtually repealed; nor is Christianity inconsistent with our free governments or the genius of the people.

While our own free constitution secures liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship to all, it is not necessary to maintain that any man should have the right publicly to vilify the religion of his neighbors and of the country; these two privileges are directly opposed.

The Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina in 1846 in the case of City of Charleston V S.A. Benjamin cites an individual who broke the Ordinance that stated: "No Person or persons whatsoever shall publicly expose to sale, or sell... any goods, wares or merchandise whatsoever upon the Lord's day." The court convicted the man and came to the conclusion: "I agree fully to what is beautifully and appropriately said in Updengraph V The Commonwealth.... Christianity, general Christianity, is an always has been, a part of the common law; "not Christianity with an established church... but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men."

"The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests."President Andrew Jackson

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." First Chief Justice of Supreme Court John Jay

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court

"Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating [removing] Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools."Benjamin Rush

"It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God."President John Quincy Adams

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity."President John Quincy Adams

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."Patrick Henry

"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His Apostles.... This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government."Noah Webster

"Whether this [new government] will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation [Proverbs 14:34]. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others."Patrick Henry

"I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- God Governs in the Affairs of Men, And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, Is it possible that an empire can rise without His aid?"Benjamin Franklin

"Except the Lord build the house, They labor in vain who build it." "I firmly believe this."Benjamin Franklin, 1787, Constitutional Convention

"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the council of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States.." "...Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency" From President George Washington's Inaugural Address, April 30th, 1789, addressed to both Houses of Congress.

President Washingtons Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1789

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible"President George Washington, September 17th, 1796

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle." President George Washington

"...The Smiles of Heaven can never be expected On a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of Order and Right, which Heaven Itself Ordained."President George Washington

It is hoped that by God's assistance, some of the continents in the Ocean will be discovered....for the Glory of God. Christopher Columbus

The Mayflower Compact, November 11th, 1620

"All persons living in this province, who confess and acknowledge the One Almighty and Eternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall in no wise be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion or practice, in matters of faith and worship; nor shall they be compelled at any time to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever." April 25, 1662- William Penn signed this to establish religious liberty in the new provence of (Pennsylvania).

Excerpts from the Declaration to take up arms, July 6th, 1775

Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.","Give me liberty or give me death."Patrick Henry of the Constitutional Convention

"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 they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader . . . If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security."Samuel Adams, 1779

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

"The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion."Abraham Lincoln.

"Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty" Abraham Lincoln.

"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state.President Harry S. Truman.

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	Frequency of Citation
Rank	Author	Percentage
1	St. Paul (Biblical)	9.00%
2	Montesquieu (Enlightenment)	8.30%
3	Sir William Blackstone (Common Law)	7.90%
4	John Locke (Whig)	2.90%
5	David Hume (Enlightenment)	2.70%