FEBRUARY 1, 1800

Doctor Rush tells me that he has it from Asa Green, that when the clergy
addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was
observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a
word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and
they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to
declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However,
he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every
article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over
without notice. Rush observes, he never did say a word on the subject in
any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors
of the States, when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he
speaks of "the benign influence of the Christian religion."
        I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets
and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington
believed no more of that system than he himself did.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Entry by Thomas Jefferson in his Anas. February 1
1800, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Selected and Edited by Saul K.
Padover , The Easton press. (1967) pp 217-218)
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From: jali...@pilot.infi.net
Newsgroups:
alt.history,alt.history.colonial,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.religion .christian,alt.deism
Subject: Re: George Washington not Christian
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:12:50 GMT

The book that I have referred to time and time again regarding Washington
mentions

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  On May 24, 1774, the Virginia Assembly, whose sessions Washington was
attending in Williamsburg, voted to observe a day of fasting, humiliation,
and prayer on the first day of June to demonstrate its sympathy with
Massachusetts on the day that the Boston Port Bill went into effect.
Washington, accordingly, noted in his diary on June 1: "Went to Church and
fasted all day.""' Here, as elsewhere, there have been attempts to read
profound spiritual significance into Washington's notation. "Will the
reader mark especially die latter clause of this note," exclaimed one
writer.

   He went to church in conformity with the order passed by the
   house of burgesses. But not only so-he did that also which,
   perhaps, was not known to any mortal; which was known only
   to Cod,-he faded all day. Who is not struck with the sincerity
   and piety of this account?

  And another writer referred to the seven words in Washington's diary as
"seven lights, the seven golden candles so to speak, that throw a most
penetrating light into the deeper and spiritual life of this great man."
But Washington's action on that day, like that of other Virginians, was
of course politically, not religiously, motivated. As to Washington's
behavior in church, Eleanor Parke   ("Nelly") Custis, Martha Washington's
granddaughter, who resided at Mount Vernon for many years and attended
church with the Washingtons, declared: "No one in church   attended to the
services with more reverential respect."
   William White, who officiated at Christ Church in Philadelphia during
and after the Revolution and who was one of the chaplains in Congress
during Washington's presidency, made a similar comment. Washington, he
assured an inquirer in 1832, was "always serious and attentive" in church.
But he added that he never saw Washington kneeling during the services."'
Nelly Custis also declared that Washington "always stood during the
devotional parts of the service."
  Regarding the Lord's Supper, we have the firsthand testimony of three
witnesses in a position to know what they were talking about-Nelly Custis,
Bishop White, and Dr. James Abercrombie, assistant rector of Christ Church
in Philadelphia--that Washington was not in the habit of partaking of the
sacrament. "On communion Sundays," according to Mrs. Custis, "he left the
church with me, after the blessing, and returned home, and we sent the
carriage back for my grandmother.'"" In 1835, Bishop White, in answer to
Colonel Hugh Mercer's question as to "whether General Washington was a
regular communicant in the Episcopal Church in Philadelphia," replied: "In
regard to tile subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say, that
General Washington never received the communion, in tile churches of which
I am parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant."" And
Dr. Abercrombie had an even more interesting story to tell about Washington
and the sacrament. It appeared in his letter to Origen Bacheler in 1831 and
Bacheler, for obvious reasons, chose not to make it public:

. . . observing that on Sacrament Sundays, Genl Washington immediately
after the Desk and Pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the
congregation, always leaving Mrs. Washington with the communicants, she
invariably being one, I considered it my duty, in a sermon on Public
Worship, to state tile unhappy tendency of example, particularly those in
elevated stations, who invariably turned their backs upon the celebration
of the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the
President, as such, he received it. A few days later, in conversation with,
I believe, a Senator of the U.S., he told me he had dined the day before
with the President, who in the course of the conversation at the table,
said, that on the preceding Sunday, he had received a very just reproof
from the pulpit, for always leaving the church before the administration of
the Sacrament; that he honored the preacher for his integrity and candour;
that he had never considered the influence of his example; that he would
never again give cause for the repetition of the reproof; and that, as he
had never been a communicant, were he to become one of them, it would be
imputed to an ostentatious display of religious zeal arising altogether
from his elevated station. Accordingly, he afterwards never came on the
morning of Sacrament Sunday, the' at other times, a constant attendant in
the morning."

  Abercrombie's report that Washington "had never been a communicant,"
together with the statements of Mrs. Custis and Bishop White, surely must
be regarded as conclusive. It is reluctant testimony and as such carries a
high degree of credibility. Neither White nor Abercrombie had anything to
gain by their revelations; -Abercrombie, indeed, was admittedly displeased
by Washington's behavior. But like Bird Wilson, they seem to have believed
(as Wilson told Robert Dale Owen) that "truth..s truth, whether it makes
for or against us" and one can only respect them-and Washington-for their
candor." By contrast, the various stories collected by the pietists to
Prove that Washington received the sacrament at Morristown and elsewhere
are based on mere hearsay statements made many years after washington's
death.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963)  pp 32-35

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He (Washington) did not, as Jared Sparks and many other writers after him
have asserted--as an instance of his "lively interest in church
affairs"--serve in two parishes at the same time.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963) pp 27

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Washington transacted business on Sundays, visited friends and relatives,
traveled [in fact, he was once detained --by the "Sabbath police" for
traveling on Sunday when he was President] and sometimes went fox-hunting
instead of going to church.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963)  pp  29
=============================================================
  Washington's earliest biographers-even those who refused to place any
credence in Parson Weems's imaginative little improvisations about
Washington's piety-assumed, without laboring the point, that Washington was
a Christian. Aaron Bancroft (1807) declared simply Washington was Christian
in "principle and Practice,"  and John Marshall (1804-7) said briefly:
"Without making ostentatious profess ions of religion, he was a sincere
believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man." ,The doubts
raised by Robert Dale Owen Frances Wright in the
1830's seem to have had little immediate effect on biographers. Jared
Sparks (1837) and Washington Irving (1855-59), while making no use of
Weems's sentimentalities as source material for describing Washington's
religious life, also regarded his Christianity as unquestioned.
 SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963)  pp  67
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He [Madison] never became a member of the Episcopal Church, yet attended
its services and treated the clergy of Orange County with kind respect. He
relished Voltaire's devastating jibes at religion, yet frequently in his
career he had the cordial support of various religious groups.

It seems probable that Madison had a deep personal attachment to some
general aspects of Christian belief and morality. The importance of this
personal faith both to Madison's relationship to religious groups
throughout his public career, and in his crucial formulation of the
American doctrine of the free conscience, form the remaining and more
familiar parts of the story of James Madison and religion.

  One of the most striking features of Madison's life was the warm feelings
of mutual respect which generally existed between him and a wide variety of
religious groups. There were exceptions, of course. Madison showed his
suspicion of some of the less sophisticated sects in a comment to Bradford
in 1774 which Hunt omitted from his edition of Madison's Writings.

 I agree with you that the world needs to be peopled, but I should be sorry
if it  should be peopled with bastards as my old friend Dod [ clergyman
friend  from Princeton] seems to incline. Who could have thought the old
monk had  been so lecherous! I hope his religion, like that of some
enthusiasts, was not of  such a nature as to fan the amorous fire.*
*Madison to William Bradford, Orange County, April 1, 1774, cited in Brant
I, p 115
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison and Religion A New Hypothesis, by
Ralph L. Ketcham.  James Madison on Religious Liberty, Edited, with
introductions and interpretations by Robert S. Alley. Prometheus Books,
Buffalo N.Y. (1985)  pp 184)  
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        "Second, the contributions of religion, especially Protestantism,
to the shaping of American society must be put into clearer perspective. In
the generation that produced the Constitution, only about ten percent of
the population were church members, and "in 1800 there were fewer churches
relative to population than at any other time before or since"' Whether one
seeks to explain this by the rural nature of American society and the
relative lack of clergy, or the attraction to natural, as opposed to
revealed religion, the low level of church membership is a sobering fact."

SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Religion & Constitutional Government in the United
States, A Historical Overview with Sources. John E. Semonche, Signet Books
Carrboro, N.C. (1985)  pp 30
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". . .  Despite being the first Trinitarian to occupy the office, Jackson
refused to issue fast-day proclamations or to view with any sympathy the
religiously inspired movement to stop Sunday mail delivery. If Jackson went
too far with his democratic rhetoric in equating the voice of the people
with the voice of God, such an equation, he felt, did not diminish God. But
certain religious leaders viewed with suspicion the eager support Jackson
received from certain agnostics and atheists.
        During this Jacksonian era a number of Christian denominations, now
organized on a national level, attempted to establish the boundaries of the
First Amendment by arguing that the no-establishment clause was designed
only to prevent one sect from being preferred over another, which was the
specific language found in many state constitutions. Such a reading would
leave the federal government free to support Christianity in general.
Religious interest groups seeking to gain specific recognition of the
nation's obligation to God in the Constitution, or in government's action
under it, is no recent-day phenomenon.
Early in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, this battle surfaced
in a proposal to prohibit the delivery of mails on the Sabbath. Early
practice under the Constitution had produced Sunday service, but protest
from religious groups increased when the practice was codified by
legislation in 1810 and 1825. The flood of petitions Congress received in
opposition continued to mount, and in the Senate the matter was referred to
the committee on the post office and post roads. Senator Richard M. Johnson
of Kentucky produced for the Senate's consideration an eloquent defense of
the restricted power of the federal government to accommodate such
requests. Also, he stressed the need to respect the religious diversity of
the nation. The bid to stop the mails on Sunday failed, and despite the
disappointment of many, the state legislatures of Indiana, Illinois, and
Alabama sent memorials to Congress applauding its decision to repulse
sectarian influence on its councils and preserve both the letter and spirit
of the  Constitution ."
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Religion & Constitutional Government in the United
States, A Historical Overview with Sources. John E. Semonche, Signet Books
Carrboro, N.C. (1985)  pp 30
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 At the time of the Revolution most of the founding fathers had not put
much emotional stock in religion, even when they were regular churchgoers.
As enlightened gentlemen, they abhorred "that gloomy superstition
disseminated by ignorant illiberal preachers" and looked forward to the day
when "the phantom of darkness will be dispelled by the rays of science, and
the bright charms of rising civilization." At best, most of the
revolutionary gentry only passively believed in organized Christianity and,
at worst, privately scorned and ridiculed it. Jefferson hated orthodox
clergymen, and he repeatedly denounced the "priestcraft" for having
converted Christianity into "an engine for enslaving mankind, . . . into a
mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves." Although few of
them were outright deists, most like David Ramsay described the Christian
church as "the best temple of reason." Even puritanical John Adams thought
that the argument for Christ's divinity was an "awful blasphemy" in this
new enlightened age. When Hamilton was asked why the members of the
Philadelphia Convention had not recognized God in the Constitution, he
allegedly replied, speaking for many of his liberal colleagues, "We
forgot."(11)
FOOTNOTE
(11) Nicholas Collins, "An Essay on those inquiries in Natural Philosophy
which at present are most beneficial to the United States of America,"
American Philosophical Society, Trans., II (1793), vii; George H. Knoles,
"The Religious Ideas of Thomas Jefferson," Mirsissippi Valley Historical
Review, XXX (1943-44), '94·: He"'y May, The Enlightenment in America (New
York, 1976), 72-73; Bufler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, 195-96, 214-15; Trevor
Colbourn, ed., Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair (New
York, 1974), 147n.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Radicalism of the American Revolution, by
Gordon S. Wood, Alfred A. Knopf, N Y (1992)  pp 330)
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