> “I think people feel they need a break from the intensity of everything that’s going on.”
>> Not to be a jerk, but...
>> That is why we lose in the battles that were fought and those coming at us.
Not to be sappy but that’s why Valley Forge wasn’t lost. And our opponents never give up and never take a break.
Watched tonight’s “Samuel Adams” show on dvr. Both sides take out of context passages to show the founders were either evangelical Christians or Deists and/or Atheists. And Beck’s show tonight was no exception. First, I have no doubt that Sam Adams was in fact on of the most Christian of our founders.
However, having read the complete correspondence between Jefferson and the Adams (John and Abagail) and currently reading a three volume set of the complete correspondence between Jefferson and Madison, I happen to know that John Adams, Jefferson and Madison all thought upon the inclusion of religion in the Massachusetts Constitution (as well as Madison’s and Jefferson’ own state Constitutions inclusion of religion in Virginia) was abhorrent to the idea of freedom of conscience/thought.
Each of them drafted amendments to eliminate those clauses in their respective state constitutions - Madison and Jefferson were finally successful and it was John Adams (although an author of the original Massachusetts Constitution) that submitted a ‘religious freedom’ amendment in Massachusetts’s Constitutional Convention of 1820 along these lines:
“Mr BOSTLSTON of Princeton at the suggestion of Mr ADAMS of Quincy who was absent offered a resolution proposing to alter the Constitution so that instead of every denomination of Christians toe it should read “all men of all religions demeaning themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the Commonwealth shall be equally under the protection of the law” Referred to the committee of the whole on the Declaration of Rights” from “Journal of debates and proceedings in the Convention of delegates”
The problem was in Mass. was that the Congregationalists held a virtual monopoly within the state. They did so by giving money to the Universities and hence had professors from their religions. They held great sway and those that were against the amendment argued along the lines that the money to the universaries might dry up and it was suggested that any denomination willing to make contributions to the Universities would be treated equally. The general feeling at the time among the other denominations was that such equal treatment with the already ‘established religion’ was an empty gesture.
This amendment failed in 1820 but in 1833 a similar amendment was adopted to restore true religious freedom to Massachusetts.
I don’t mind Glenn teaching history but he should teach the whole story, not just the parts that happen to agree with his view. The fact that in the letters between TJ and JA that they often lamented the fact that their state constitutions held what they considered to be anti-freedom of religion clauses, should be also a part of his ‘lesson’. And that isn’t to say that either Adams or Jefferson were deist or atheists - they weren’t - only that the concept of ‘religious freedom’ as it’s embodied in the writings of mainly Jefferson and Madison and in the first amendment is a different concept that was held by Samuel Adams. And it was TJ’s and JM’s that won out in the US Constitution.