Gardiner meet Mr. Madison
buc...@exis.net
>
> >:| Rick Gardiner <Gard...@pitnet.net> wrote:
> >:| Madison was.["orthodox Christian"]. Jefferson was not. Most were. A few were not.
> You have yet to establish that Madison was a "orthodox Christian."
>
> There is so little known about his personal religious beliefs and practices
> that you cannot establish that fact.
>:|It seems to be the conclusion of Dr. Ketchum, doesn't it?
Is it?
Let's see:
Though much of the Christian aspect of Madison's schooling was relatively
perfunctory and he never seemed to have been an ardent believer himself,
he nonetheless year after year undertook his studies from a christian
viewpoint.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison, A Biography by Ralph Ketcham.
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville and London, (1990) pp 46.
Remember, I have recommended the Ketcham Bio of Madison, and especially
cited Chapter III [The College of New Jersey at Princeton] on several
occasions. In doing so I clearly stated that those who checked it out
would find some information that supported some of your claims regarding
Madison, some information that did not support of disagree with some of
your claims and some information that disagreed with some of your claims.
The above disagrees with your claims as to how religious Madison was.
To that, let's add the following:
========================================================================
This is talking about James Madison:
MADISON'S MOTHER, STILL ALIVE AT MONTPELIER during these adventures
of her son, and for many years thereafter, was a devout Anglican. Madison
himself acknowledged all his life, in extravagant terms, his debt to the
Anglican clergymen who were his most important tutors. Madison had gone to
college, as we have seen, to the institution founded by the New Side
Presbyterians primarily to train pastors, of which college Jonathan Edwards
had been very briefly president, and whose president when Madison went
there, as we have seen, was the formidable Scotch Presbyterian pastor and
teacher the Reverend John Witherspoon, "the good Doctor," as Madison and
his friend Billey Bradford called him. Madison stayed on after graduation
for some months of study with Witherspoon; his studies included "divinity."
He had many friends from his Princeton days who were Presbyterian pastors;
he himself briefly entertained the idea of going into "Divinity" himself,
or at least commented on the worthiness of those who do, in his
correspondence with Billey Bradford. He acquired, from the learned clergy
who were his teachers, a sufficient knowledge of the church fathers and the
Christian intellectual tradition to be able in his retirement to make a
competent list of books on those subjects for the University of Virginia
library. A historian editing the Madison Papers called him (by perhaps a
not very exacting standard) "probably America's most theologically
knowledgeable president." He had been baptized in the Church of England; he
and Dolly were married (to the consternation of her Quaker relatives) by an
Episcopal priest in an Episcopalian ceremony; he was buried, this Father of
our American Constitution, in 1836, according to the Book of Common Prayer.
We may add that during his political career he became a particular hero to
the Baptists and other Dissenters in the Virginia fight over religious
liberty But, for all that, it is a little hard to say just what his mature
religious views were.
One can certainly say that in his maturity politics and government,
rather than religion proper, became his primary interest. And that the
"religious" issue that stirred him most deeply was that of freedom--of
religious liberty, freedom of conscience.
He did not write sentences like those of his friend Jefferson,
exclaiming against the irrationality of the doctrine of the Trinity or the
teachings of St. Paul. He was a product of the Enlightenment, but not of
its sharply antireligious phase; he was a product of Christian teaching,
but not of its insistent, explicit, evangelical phase. In his maturity he
rather kept his mouth shut on these issues. And the great issue he cared
most about was liberty. In this combination he was not unlike some others
of the great founders, with their different mixtures: **Benjamin Franklin,
warning Tom Paine, with whom he essentially agreed on doctrinal matters,
not to carry on so explicit an attack on orthodoxy in public;** [emphasis
added] John Adams, who despite his Puritan background and religious
interests saw his church become Unitarian and pretty much agreed with
Jefferson on doctrine in the correspondence of their old age; George
Washington, cagey enough that both popular disputants and scholars argue to
this day about his religious views; and Jefferson himself, who though more
explicit and antiorthodox than other Americans, did not go as far as his
European counterparts in the worldwide fraternity of the Enlightened.
When it came time for the framers to draw a fundamental law for the
new nation it contained mixtures and silences and freedoms and perhaps an
implied background not unlike that of James Madison and other great
founders.
In the body of the Federal Constitution, as it was hammered out by
James Madison and the others in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, we
discover that the topic of religion is treated primarily although not quite
entirely, by negation, silence, exclusion, and inference. There is in this
Constitution, in contradiction to claims made by pious citizens of a later
time, no formal commitment to Christianity or to belief in God, or to any
religious belief whatsoever.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Business of May next James Madison & the
Founding. William Lee Miller. University Press of Virginia.(1992) p 105-06)
==================================================================
(See "James Madison and Religion" in Alley's JAMES MADISON AND RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY)
Now, what do you find in the above that disagrees with anything said above?
I did note that you didn't actually post anything.
I do have the book here.
**********************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
"Dedicated to combatting 'history by sound bite'."
Now including a re-publication of Tom Peters
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
and
Audio links to Supreme Court oral arguments and
Speech by civil rights/constitutional lawyer and others.
Page is a member of the following web rings:
The First Amendment Ring--&--The Church-State Ring
Freethought Ring--&--The History Ring
Legal Research Ring
**********************************************
buc...@exis.net
In the index of the Ketcham Bio of Madison there is a section under James
Madison that says:
Familiarity with writings
of: Addison, Aristotle,Arbuthnot, Francis Bacon, Barbeyrac, Bentham,
Burlamaqui, Samuel Butler, Bynkershoeck, Caesar, CALVIN (MY GOODNESS),
Cicero, Edward Coke, Condorcet, Cumberland, DeMosthenes,
Diderot, Abbe Du Bos, DuPont de Nemours, Fortune, Barthilemy de Felice,
Ferguson, Fielding, Franklin, Godwin, Grotius, Harrington, Hobbes,
Homer, to; Horace, Hume, Hutcheson, Johnson,
Justinian, Lord Kames, Kant, Livy, Locke, Longinus, Lucian, Abbe de
Mably, Machiavelli, Mandeville, Martens, Abbe Millot, Milton,
Montaigne, Montesquieu, Thomas More, Cornelius Napes, New
Testament, Newton, Ovid, Robert Owen, Paine. the philosophes, Plate,
Plutarch, Polybius, Pope, Priestley, Pufendorf, de Retz,;
William Robertson, Rousseau, Sallust, Selden, Shaftesbury,
Shakespeare, Sidney, Smollett, Steele, Swift, Tacitus, Terence,
Thou, Thucydides, Tucker, Vattel, Virgil, Voltaire, 45, 166, r8j;
Xenephon,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is interesting that there is no mention of Luther.
Now there are a few others not mentioned as well, which we do know he at
least knew of, such as Blackstone, and Witherspoon. But Witherspoon is
mentioned in other places.
Luther is mentioned no where, nor is Blackstone mentioned anywhere in the
index.
Now Calvin was mentioned and one page number was given for him.
Let's see what it says::
==============================================================
Madison insisted, as he remarked during the Federal Convention,
that in framing governments, "we must not shut our eyes to the nature of
man, nor to the light of experience." I;ollowing Locke"s empirical method,
he studied as fully and carefully as he could the experience of mankind
recorded in the histories of his day. From these books, and from the
generalizations of philosophers from Aristotle to David Hume, Madison
absorbed a sober view of human history. The record was generally one of
war, tyranny, violence, stupidity, and corruption, with distressingly few
instances of peace, prosperity, and enlightenment. The thought of
Machiavelli, Calvin, and Hobbes, known to, though largely rejected by,
Madison, helped keep him in mind of human depravity. Unlike some
Enlightenment thinkers, who emphasized human goodness to the point of
blaming all evil on social conditions, Madison sought always to recognize
and take into account the limitations of human nature.
Shunning the extreme attitudes on human nature helped Madison avoid
simplistic and impractical theories of government. "If men were angels," as
he had pointed out in Federalist Number 51, "no government would be
necessary." On the other hand, if men were absolutely evil, as he told
the Virginia Convention of 1788, "we are in a wretched condition . . .
[where] no form of government can render us secure."
================================================================
Gee, so much for any of your claims regarding Calvin and Madison, huh?
Luther didn't even get an honorable mention. In fact, thus far I have yet
to find any mention of Luther in any book concerning Madison.
Rick Gardiner
Thanks for this informative info, which you have posted before.
> MADISON'S MOTHER, STILL ALIVE AT MONTPELIER during these adventures
> of her son, and for many years thereafter, was a devout Anglican. Madison
> himself acknowledged all his life, in extravagant terms, his debt to the
> Anglican clergymen who were his most important tutors.
Does that mean anything at all to you? If you were born a raised in Iraq under
the tutelage of a host of Shiites, do you really think that you would then be
impervious to the ideals which your instructors communicated to you during
your most formative years? Are you going to be so arrogant as to say "I would
just rejected it all for American values which I really truly believe down in
my heart."
There is a famous saying about the impact of teachers which you should become
familiar with:
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=NIV&passage=Luke+6:40
> Madison had gone to
> college, as we have seen, to the institution founded by the New Side
> Presbyterians primarily to train pastors, of which college Jonathan Edwards
> had been very briefly president, and whose president when Madison went
> there, as we have seen, was the formidable Scotch Presbyterian pastor and
> teacher the Reverend John Witherspoon, "the good Doctor," as Madison and
> his friend Billey Bradford called him. Madison stayed on after graduation
> for some months of study with Witherspoon; his studies included "divinity."
> He had many friends from his Princeton days who were Presbyterian pastors;
> he himself briefly entertained the idea of going into "Divinity" himself,
Does that mean anything at all to you? Do you think that many people who were
indisposed to Christianity often chose seminary for the heck of it?
Particularly a seminary where "orthodoxy" (their word) was a central focus.
> or at least commented on the worthiness of those who do, in his
> correspondence with Billey Bradford. He acquired, from the learned clergy
> who were his teachers, a sufficient knowledge of the church fathers and the
> Christian intellectual tradition to be able in his retirement to make a
> competent list of books on those subjects for the University of Virginia
> library.
Do you really think that many people expose themselves to all that theology
because they disagree with it?? I suppose a few do, but there is no evidence
in Madison's case, that he was not a typical Princetonian.
> A historian editing the Madison Papers called him (by perhaps a
> not very exacting standard) "probably America's most theologically
> knowledgeable president."
Yes. I agree.
> He had been baptized in the Church of England; he
> and Dolly were married (to the consternation of her Quaker relatives) by an
> Episcopal priest in an Episcopalian ceremony;
Here is the ceremony: http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/occasion/marriage.html
> he was buried, this Father of
> our American Constitution, in 1836, according to the Book of Common Prayer.
Here is the ceremony: http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/occasion/burial.html
Now certainly you or Curtis will say, so what? it is all a matter of rote...
insincere tradition.
I simply don't think that men like Madison were that interested in hoodwinking
the world about their convictions.
> We may add that during his political career he became a particular hero to
> the Baptists and other Dissenters in the Virginia fight over religious
> liberty But, for all that, it is a little hard to say just what his mature
> religious views were.
Other than the fact that we have all the religious proclamations and oaths he
made throughout his life! Why shouldn't we just believe what he said?
> One can certainly say that in his maturity politics and government,
> rather than religion proper, became his primary interest. And that the
> "religious" issue that stirred him most deeply was that of freedom--of
> religious liberty, freedom of conscience.
Yes indeed. He was very similar to Roger Williams in this regard.
> He did not write sentences like those of his friend Jefferson,
> exclaiming against the irrationality of the doctrine of the Trinity or the
> teachings of St. Paul.
N.B.
> He was a product of the Enlightenment,
As was Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon.
> but not of
> its sharply antireligious phase;
N.B.
> he was a product of Christian teaching,
As were most of the founders.
> but not of its insistent, explicit, evangelical phase.
He chose the life of a politician, not a minister.
> In his maturity he
> rather kept his mouth shut on these issues. And the great issue he cared
> most about was liberty.
In many of the founders' minds "liberty" was a religious issue.
> In this combination he was not unlike some others
> of the great founders, with their different mixtures: **Benjamin Franklin,
> warning Tom Paine, with whom he essentially agreed on doctrinal matters,
> not to carry on so explicit an attack on orthodoxy in public;** [emphasis
> added]
Franklin was insincere, and he admitted it. Why do you think this gives you
the right to infer that Madison was also insincere?
> John Adams, who despite his Puritan background and religious
> interests saw his church become Unitarian and pretty much agreed with
> Jefferson on doctrine in the correspondence of their old age;
This is highly disputable.
> George
> Washington, cagey enough that both popular disputants and scholars argue to
> this day about his religious views;
Yes, they do.
> and Jefferson himself, who though more
> explicit and antiorthodox than other Americans, did not go as far as his
> European counterparts in the worldwide fraternity of the Enlightened.
Jefferson was a Unitarian.
> When it came time for the framers to draw a fundamental law for the
> new nation it contained mixtures and silences and freedoms and perhaps an
> implied background not unlike that of James Madison and other great
> founders.
> In the body of the Federal Constitution, as it was hammered out by
> James Madison and the others in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, we
> discover that the topic of religion is treated primarily although not quite
> entirely, by negation, silence, exclusion, and inference. There is in this
> Constitution, in contradiction to claims made by pious citizens of a later
> time, no formal commitment to Christianity or to belief in God, or to any
> religious belief whatsoever.
It was a civil, not ecclesiastical, document, and the founders were quite
familiar with Luther, Calvin, Locke, etc., on the civil/ecclesiastical
distinction. Additionally, each colony embraced its own provincial form of
religion. Had the federal government attempted to deal with religion, the
constitution would never have been ratified by the states which felt the most slighted.
> Now, what do you find in the above that disagrees with anything said above?
>
> I did note that you didn't actually post anything.
> I do have the book here.
Thanks for the information.
Also, thanks for the link to my library from your site. I was pretty surprised
to find your comments about the page to be relatively benign. That is very
respectable of you.
I have been monitoring my statistics and I have found a number of people
coming to my site from your link.
You may have noticed that I linked to a couple of your pages as well: 1) the
Detached Memoranda, and 2) the debates in Congress regarding religion in the amendments.
buc...@exis.net
After sedning this I realized I had not given the cite for it.
In the index of the Ketcham Bio of Madison there is a section under James
Madison that says:
Familiarity with writings
of: Addison, Aristotle,Arbuthnot, Francis Bacon, Barbeyrac, Bentham,
Burlamaqui, Samuel Butler, Bynkershoeck, Caesar, CALVIN (MY GOODNESS),
Cicero, Edward Coke, Condorcet, Cumberland, DeMosthenes,
Diderot, Abbe Du Bos, DuPont de Nemours, Fortune, Barthilemy de Felice,
Ferguson, Fielding, Franklin, Godwin, Grotius, Harrington, Hobbes,
Homer, to; Horace, Hume, Hutcheson, Johnson,
Justinian, Lord Kames, Kant, Livy, Locke, Longinus, Lucian, Abbe de
Mably, Machiavelli, Mandeville, Martens, Abbe Millot, Milton,
Montaigne, Montesquieu, Thomas More, Cornelius Napes, New
Testament, Newton, Ovid, Robert Owen, Paine. the philosophes, Plate,
Plutarch, Polybius, Pope, Priestley, Pufendorf, de Retz,;
William Robertson, Rousseau, Sallust, Selden, Shaftesbury,
Shakespeare, Sidney, Smollett, Steele, Swift, Tacitus, Terence,
Thou, Thucydides, Tucker, Vattel, Virgil, Voltaire, 45, 166, r8j;
Xenephon,
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison, A Biography by Ralph Ketcham.
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville and London, (1990) pp 743)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison, A Biography by Ralph Ketcham.
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville and London, (1990) pp 297)
================================================================
buc...@exis.net
Gardiner wrote:
> > > 3) The following "key founders" were strongly Christian, and by that,
> > > I mean traditional orthodox believers in the trinity:
> > >
> > > James Madison (father of the constitution)
>:|Uh...I don't know; I suppose everyone without a religious disposition attends
>:|divinity school and allows oneself to be mentored, discipled, and shepherded
>:|by a flaming Calvinist preacher (viz., Witherspoon). Have you ever read
>:|through Madison's notes which he took at Princeton? Do so and then say that
>:|there is "little if any evidence." Have you read Smylie's work on Madison
>:|which demonstrates that his political disposition was formed at the feet of
>:|Witherspoon? Do you contest the fact that Witherspoon was an orthodox
>:|Presbyterian theologian? Is your thesis that although Madison was steeped
>:|in Calvinism through his college education, he rejected all that he imbibed
>:|in his formative years and became averse to it?
[In addition, he has at times implied that Madison considered being a
minister and recommended to others they become such]
==============================================================
Madison's religious views become clearer in two further experiences
which occupied his attention before he was completely absorbed in his
public career. Both in his graduate study at Princeton under Witherspoon,
and in the years 1772-1775 when he was at Montpelier suffering from
epileptoid hysteria, Madison undertook serious study of the Scriptures and
theology.
There is positive evidence that he never intended to make the ministry his
life work, nor was religious study the only topic that engaged his
attention in these years. He simply was interested in basic theological
questions, a concern which was heightened by his illness and fear of an
early death. He wrote his friend William Bradford in 1772 that "a watchful
eye must be kept on ourselves, lest while we are building ideal monuments
of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in the
annals of Heaven . . . my sensations for many months past have intimated to
me not to expect a long or healthy life," Following this Madison advised
Bradford to "season" his studies "with a little divinity now and then."""
During these same years Madison conducted family prayers which, once again,
suggests no more than that he partook of the usual activities of religious
people of the time.
(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 181)
buc...@exis.net
>:|buc...@exis.net wrote:
You know of course you are arguing with
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Business of May next James Madison & the
Founding. William Lee Miller. University Press of Virginia.(1992) p 105-06)
==================================================================
William Lee Miller is White Burkette Miller Center professor of Ethics and
Institutions at the University of Virginia. He is author of numerous books
and articles, including *The First Liberty:Religion and the American
Republic.*
[ William Lee Miller, who has made a special study of the
role of religion in the nation's founding, summarized the
conclusion of that study in these striking words:
Did "religious freedom" for Jefferson and Madison extend
to atheists? Yes. To agnostics, unbelievers, and pagans? Yes. To
heretics and blasphemers and the sacrilegious? Yes. To "the
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohametan, the
Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination?" Yes. To Papists?
Yes. To "irreligion"? Yes. To people who want freedom from
religion? Yes. To people who want freedom against religion?
Yes.(9)
(9) William Lee Miller, "The Ghost of freedoms Past," in The Washington
Post National Weekly Edition (13 October 1886), p. 23. ]
>:|>
>:|
>:|> We may add that during his political career he became a particular hero to
>:|> the Baptists and other Dissenters in the Virginia fight over religious
>:|> liberty But, for all that, it is a little hard to say just what his mature
>:|> religious views were.
>:|
>:|Other than the fact that we have all the religious proclamations and oaths he
>:|made throughout his life! Why shouldn't we just believe what he said?
>:|all the religious proclamations and oaths he
>:|made throughout his life!
All !!!!!! LOL. How many, silly?
How mnay, what context, waht did he say then, waht did he say later?
Why not give the full story, or does the full story hurt your position?
I gfuess if you can't prove him one of yours you have to try the other
tactic, try to devalue or smear him.
Guess waht, nothing you can do, or those light weights like carey,
Childress, or the wackos, like Burton and some of the others that pop up
from time to time are going to alter Madison's role in history or his role
in the battle to gain religious freedom in this nation.
buc...@exis.net
>:|buc...@exis.net wrote:
You know of course you are arguing with
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Business of May next James Madison & the
Founding. William Lee Miller. University Press of Virginia.(1992) p 105-06)
==================================================================
William Lee Miller is White Burkette Miller Center professor of Ethics and
Institutions at the University of Virginia. He is author of numerous books
and articles, including *The First Liberty:Religion and the American
Republic.*
[ William Lee Miller, who has made a special study of the
role of religion in the nation's founding, summarized the
conclusion of that study in these striking words:
Did "religious freedom" for Jefferson and Madison extend
to atheists? Yes. To agnostics, unbelievers, and pagans? Yes. To
heretics and blasphemers and the sacrilegious? Yes. To "the
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohametan, the
Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination?" Yes. To Papists?
Yes. To "irreligion"? Yes. To people who want freedom from
religion? Yes. To people who want freedom against religion?
Yes.(9)
(9) William Lee Miller, "The Ghost of freedoms Past," in The Washington
Post National Weekly Edition (13 October 1886), p. 23. ]
>:|>
>:|
>:|> We may add that during his political career he became a particular hero to
>:|> the Baptists and other Dissenters in the Virginia fight over religious
>:|> liberty But, for all that, it is a little hard to say just what his mature
>:|> religious views were.
>:|
>:|Other than the fact that we have all the religious proclamations and oaths he
>:|made throughout his life! Why shouldn't we just believe what he said?
>:|all the religious proclamations and oaths he
>:|made throughout his life!
All !!!!!! LOL. How many, silly?
How mnay, what context, waht did he say then, waht did he say later?
Why not give the full story, or does the full story hurt your position?
I gfuess if you can't prove him one of yours you have to try the other
tactic, try to devalue or smear him.
Guess waht, nothing you can do, or those light weights like carey,
Childress, or the wackos, like Burton and some of the others that pop up
from time to time are going to alter Madison's role in history or his role
in the battle to gain religious freedom in this nation.
buc...@exis.net
>:|Also, thanks for the link to my library from your site. I was pretty surprised
>:|to find your comments about the page to be relatively benign. That is very
>:|respectable of you.
I am a very respectable person.
I don't need to be rude and crude to people as some seem to need to be.
The comments are your own comments. When it comes to the link page, I try
to use waht the person I am linking to has said about their own site.
The agenda your page serves is duly noted in what is given. People can
view your page with that knowledge in their minds.
>:|
>:|I have been monitoring my statistics and I have found a number of people
>:|coming to my site from your link.
>:|
I haven't checked what kind of traffic each page (article) gets in awhile.
Things are set up to record hits on each page (article) except for Tom
Peters's re-published web page (his index page is set up to record hits)
but we haven't set the monitor to read all his other pages (articles) yet.
Lat time I did check such, which was probably a month or more ago, I was
surprised to find the links page among the top 20 of the most popular pages
(articles)
I have no problems with where people go to look for things, I present
information, people are permitted to make up their own minds. (One reason
why there is little commentary on the historical side or our page.)
I am linked to your page, to Wallbuilders, Brain Carey, as well as other
pages, some of which are firm supporters of SC&S, some of which are more
neutral in such support. In addition there are articles on the page written
by people who are close to my views and articles which see things a bit
different.
That's one reason I have gotten a big laugh when I have read some of your
attacks about our page. You know little about that page. Just one more time
you speak without knowing all you speak of. but pretending to know all.
>:|You may have noticed that I linked to a couple of your pages as well: 1) the
>:|Detached Memoranda, and 2) the debates in Congress regarding religion in the amendments.
Nope, I have noticed any such thing at all. I don't keep watch over such
things.. I do check the over all counters on our page and a couple other
pages (that have counters that can be viewed by the public and is on the
same topic) on a daily basis, to see how we are doing in regards to other
such pages.
This being December, the traffic is down, as it was last year at this time,
Probably will remain down till mid January or so. last year the traffic was
slow from Dec 15 to into Feb.
I am not that caught up in numbers and the like as you appear to be. I only
check the guest book about once a month.
But if you are linking to what is on my page it is just one more piece of
evidence that you are moving beyond your clamed area of interest.
Beginning to make one wonder who is the real Gardiner.
Considering the fact that our page actually contains data, not just links
to other sites, and considering the fact that at least my side of the page
contains historical data, and considerign the faxct you are moving more and
more into the post June 1787 period, I would suspect to find most of my
side of our page linked from your page in time.
buc...@exis.net
Gardiner wrote:
> > > 3) The following "key founders" were strongly Christian, and by that,
> > > I mean traditional orthodox believers in the trinity:
> > >
> > > James Madison (father of the constitution)
>:|Uh...I don't know; I suppose everyone without a religious disposition attends
>:|divinity school and allows oneself to be mentored, discipled, and shepherded
>:|by a flaming Calvinist preacher (viz., Witherspoon). Have you ever read
>:|through Madison's notes which he took at Princeton? Do so and then say that
>:|there is "little if any evidence." Have you read Smylie's work on Madison
>:|which demonstrates that his political disposition was formed at the feet of
>:|Witherspoon? Do you contest the fact that Witherspoon was an orthodox
>:|Presbyterian theologian? Is your thesis that although Madison was steeped
>:|in Calvinism through his college education, he rejected all that he imbibed
>:|in his formative years and became averse to it?
[In addition, he has at times implied that Madison considered being a
minister and recommended to others they become such]
==============================================================
. . . it becomes apparent that Madison did not maintain his interest in
theological controversy very long after his period of entrance into public
life in 1776.
(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 179)
buc...@exis.net
Gardiner wrote:
> > > 3) The following "key founders" were strongly Christian, and by that,
> > > I mean traditional orthodox believers in the trinity:
> > >
> > > James Madison (father of the constitution)
>:|Uh...I don't know; I suppose everyone without a religious disposition attends
>:|divinity school and allows oneself to be mentored, discipled, and shepherded
>:|by a flaming Calvinist preacher (viz., Witherspoon). Have you ever read
>:|through Madison's notes which he took at Princeton? Do so and then say that
>:|there is "little if any evidence." Have you read Smylie's work on Madison
>:|which demonstrates that his political disposition was formed at the feet of
>:|Witherspoon? Do you contest the fact that Witherspoon was an orthodox
>:|Presbyterian theologian? Is your thesis that although Madison was steeped
>:|in Calvinism through his college education, he rejected all that he imbibed
>:|in his formative years and became averse to it?
[In addition, he has at times implied that Madison considered being a
minister and recommended to others they become such]
==============================================================
Marrineau's description of her encounter with Madison was brimming with
undisguised reverence. Here was a man inspired by what she described as
"the true religion of statesmanship, Faith in men, and in the principles on
which they combine in an agreement to do as they would be done by." After
observing her venerable host, she offered the thought that this "political
religion" was indeed a form of personal piety, for it had the effect "of
sustaining the spirit through difficulty and change, and leaving no cause
for repentance, or even solicitude, when, at the close of life, all things
reveal their values to the meditative sage." Crippled with rheumatism,
confined to a single room, often deeply troubled by what he read in the
newspapers and confronted in his everyday experience as a slaveholder. the
Sage of Montpelier "reposed cheerfully, gayly, to the last, on his faith in
the people's power of wise self-government.
This extended description of Harriet Martineau's visit to Montpelier [the
year prior to Madison's death]and her impressions of Madisonon is based on
her chapter entitled "Madison" in Martineau's Retrospect of Western Travel
(London and New York, 1838). 1, 189-198
The Last of the Fathers, James Madison and the republican Legacy, by Drew
McCoy, Harvard University, Cambridge University Press. pp 6
buc...@exis.net
Gardiner wrote:
> > > 3) The following "key founders" were strongly Christian, and by that,
> > > I mean traditional orthodox believers in the trinity:
> > >
> > > James Madison (father of the constitution)
>:|Uh...I don't know; I suppose everyone without a religious disposition attends
>:|divinity school and allows oneself to be mentored, discipled, and shepherded
>:|by a flaming Calvinist preacher (viz., Witherspoon). Have you ever read
>:|through Madison's notes which he took at Princeton? Do so and then say that
>:|there is "little if any evidence." Have you read Smylie's work on Madison
>:|which demonstrates that his political disposition was formed at the feet of
>:|Witherspoon? Do you contest the fact that Witherspoon was an orthodox
>:|Presbyterian theologian? Is your thesis that although Madison was steeped
>:|in Calvinism through his college education, he rejected all that he imbibed
>:|in his formative years and became averse to it?
[In addition, he has at times implied that Madison considered being a
minister and recommended to others they become such]
==============================================================
Evidence relating to the substance of Madison's religious studies during
this period is scanty. Four large pages of closely written notes in
Madison's hand on The Gospel of St. John, The Acts of the Apostles, and the
Proverbs of Solomon have been dated 1772 by Irving Brant. These notes
contain Scriptural passages, the key ideas in them, and occasionally,
digressions such as comparisons with Mohammedan practices, etc, The
emphasis is on ethics, guides to action, and recognition of the humble
virtues of Christianity, although there ate some citations dealing with
problems of sin and the after life. The notes on the whole indicate serious
and systematic study, but are hardly thorough or extensive enough to
suggest professional use of them.
That theology and church history were studied during this period is
substantiated by ]Jefferson's request to Madison to compile a list of
theological books for the University of Virginia, since he knew that
Madison had Under taken extensive study at one time of that subject There
is no other time in Madison's career when he either had the time or faintly
suggested that he was making such a study, although his continued interest
in religious study is indicated by a request to a friend in London in 1821
for a book entitled The Apocryphal New Testament Translated from the
Original Tongues. Thorough lists of books on the first five centuries of
Christian History indicate systematic study of that period. A request from
Jefferson for speed in compiling the list caused Madison to simply list the
well-known theological works of the remaining centuries. Again the
impression is that of the serious and systematic layman of wide curiosity,
rather than that of the professional student of divinity.
(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 181-82)
Kenneth Childress
>Rick Gardiner <Gard...@pitnet.net> wrote:
[...]
>All !!!!!! LOL. How many, silly?
>How mnay, what context, waht did he say then, waht did he say later?
>
>Why not give the full story, or does the full story hurt your position?
>
>I gfuess if you can't prove him one of yours you have to try the other
>tactic, try to devalue or smear him.
>
>Guess waht, nothing you can do, or those light weights like carey,
>Childress, or the wackos, like Burton and some of the others that pop up
>from time to time are going to alter Madison's role in history or his role
>in the battle to gain religious freedom in this nation.
While I'm pleased to be able to irritate you enough that you keep
throwing my name around, if you think for even one moment that I'm
against religious freedom, you're even more clueless than I originally
thought.
--
Mike Curtis
>In article <387c7366...@news.exis.net>, <buc...@exis.net> wrote:
>>Rick Gardiner <Gard...@pitnet.net> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>All !!!!!! LOL. How many, silly?
>>How mnay, what context, waht did he say then, waht did he say later?
>>
>>Why not give the full story, or does the full story hurt your position?
>>
>>I gfuess if you can't prove him one of yours you have to try the other
>>tactic, try to devalue or smear him.
>>
>>Guess waht, nothing you can do, or those light weights like carey,
>>Childress, or the wackos, like Burton and some of the others that pop up
>>from time to time are going to alter Madison's role in history or his role
>>in the battle to gain religious freedom in this nation.
>
>While I'm pleased to be able to irritate you enough that you keep
>throwing my name around, if you think for even one moment that I'm
>against religious freedom, you're even more clueless than I originally
>thought.
Am I to expect specific examples of your complaints?
<tap, tap, tap>
Mike
Mike Curtis
buc...@exis.net
Rick Gardiner <Gard...@pitnet.net> wrote:
>:|jal...@pilot.infi.net wrote:
>:|>
>:|> "Richard Tree" <rjtre...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>:|>
[Richard Tree]
>:|> >:|James Madison once wrote, "We have staked the future of government not upon
>:|> >:|the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of
>:|> >:|our political institutions on the capacity of each and all of us to govern
>:|> >:|ourselves according to the ten commandments of God."
>:|> >:|
>:|> >:|Unfortunately, I do not know the source of the quotation; however, based on
>:|> >:|this quotation and other examples of writings by the founders I am inclined
>:|> >:|to believe our they were striving for limiting the government's power to
>:|> >:|influence religious practices but not religion's power to influence
>:|> >:|government.
>:|>
[jalison]
>:|> You don't know the source of that quote because James Madison never made
>:|> that quote.
>:|
[Gardiner]
>:|First, it is impossible for you to prove a negative concerning what someone
>:|who lived two hundred years ago may or may not have said within his lifetime.
>:|What you mean to say is that you can't find a recorded primary source record
>:|of Madison making that quote.
>:|
>:|Secondly, and more importantly, is that you miss the forest through the trees.
>:|If you read the quote and the idea which Mr. Tree has posted, you will find
>:|that the sentiment is not that the civil government is explicitly rooted in
>:|the ten commandments (as the title of your website wrongly infers), but that a
>:|republican government can only survive when the citizens have a sense of
>:|individual moral conscience.
>:|The founders knew that monarchs tended to argue that the people are like
>:|children and need moral and religious external coercion to keep them straight.
>:|The founders response to that was that as long as people can "govern
>:|themselves internally" according to the dictates of their conscience, which as
>:|Jefferson said, was the law of Nature's God.
>:|
>:|Thus, Mr. Tree's position regarding the founders' sentiments is true.
>:|You can
>:|whine all you want about finding a primary source, and the fact that Madison
>:|obviously didn't use Roman letters, but your historiagraphic approach is
>:|really quite imbecile, and it has caused you to come to very untenable
>:|historical conclusions.
>:|
>:|You take pains to prove that Madison didn't say it, but you know good and well
>:|that Adams, Washington, and Rush did.
[NOTE: Gardiner has never provided any evidence that Adams, Washington or
Rush ever said those exact words, either]
>:|Do you think that Madison was really
>:|that far out of step with his Federalist and republican buddies on this score?
>:|Of course he wasn't.
[jalison provided]
Responding to the public hubbub, editors of The Papers of James Madison,
John Stagg and David Mattern, referred all inquirers to a letter dated
November 23, 1993, in which Mr. Mattern wrote concerning the alleged
quotation: [James Madison once wrote, "We have staked the future of
government not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked
the future of all of our political institutions on the capacity of each and
all of us to govern ourselves according to the ten commandments of God."]
"We did not find anything in our files remotely like the sentiment
expressed in the extract you sent us. In addition, the idea is inconsistent
with everything we know about Madison's views on religion and government,
views which he expressed time and time again in public and in
private."(250) This expert response has not dampened the ardor of those who
private would have Madison affirm their own distorted version of American
history. Crowell accused Mr Mattem of "revisionism at its worst."(251) I
offer here a reconstruction of the convoluted trek of the words in
question.
(250) Letter from David Mattem to Gene Garman, Nov. 23, 1993. A copy of
this letter was supplied to the author by Mr. Mattem, current editor of The
Papers of James Madison.
(251) Rosenberg, supa note 245, at F1.
Public education and the Public good, By Robert S. Alley, William & Mary
Bill of Rights Journal, Vol. 4, Issue 1, Summer 1995. pp 316-318
LOL, guess experts don't agree with you.
buc...@exis.net
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)
buc...@exis.net
In 1814, Madison demonstrated his occasional Enlightenment antagonism
toward clericalism in a bitter comment on New England's resistance to the
Wat of 1812: "The greater part of the people in that quarter have been
brought by their leaders, aided by their priests, under a delusion scarcely
exceeded by that recorded in the period of witchcraft...."*
Hostility to "enthusiasts" and New England theocracy hardly amounts to
hostility toward religion.
*Madison to Wilson Cary Nichols, Washington, November 26, 1814, Hunt VIII,
p. 319.
buc...@exis.net
The Lockean tradision of religious toleration was basic, although Madison
went far beyond Locke in following the logic of making private opinion
immune from magisterial control.
(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,
buc...@exis.net
Three people whom Gardiner has on many occasions stated that Madison was
greatly influenced by were Luther, Calvin and Witherspoon
Influenced is actually a mild term, he has stated and at other times
implied that these men had the most influence on Madison.
In this post I will begin to deal with Calvin and Luther.
================================================================
The Papers of James Madison
VOLUME I, March 16 1751 to December 16, 1779
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME II, March 20 1780 to Feb. 23, 1781
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME III, March 3, 1781 to December 31, 1781
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME IV, Jan. 1, 1782 to July 31, 1782
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME V, August 1, 1782 to December 31, 1782
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME VI, Jan. 1. 1783 to April 30, 1783
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME VII, May 3, 1783 to Feb 20, 1784
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME VIII, March 10, 1784 to March 28, 1786
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME IX, March 1786 to May 1787
ODU DOESN'T HAVE IT OR IT WAS CHECKED OUT
VOLUME X May 27 1787 to March 3, 1788
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME XI, March 7, 1788 to March 1, 1789
No references to Calvin or Luther
VOLUME 12, March 2, 1789 to Jan. 20, 1790
No references to Calvin or Luther
==============================================================
As I finish with this group of volumes, I will go get the next group and
check them. But thus far, for approx the first 39 years of his life
Madison does not seem to have much to say about those two fellas, nor do
those carrying on any kind of correspondence with Madison seem inclined to
mention them.
buc...@exis.net
f you are sending this to Gardiner, he probably won't see it, since he
usually reads the posts in alt.history.colonial or
soc.history.war.us-revolution
>:|Greetings all.
>:|
>:|RICK WROTE...... There is a famous saying about the impact of teachers which
>:|you should become
>:|> familiar with:
>:|>
>:|http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=NIV&passag
>:|e=Luke+6:40
>:|(Luke 6:40...."A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully
>:|trained will be like his teacher.") [NIV]
>:|
>:|from BONES
>:|Since you seem to enjoy appealing to the authority of the "Buy-bull"
>:|regarding what it has to say about teachers, Rick, why not mention this
>:|quote from your "Holy" book, too?
>:|"But ask the animals, and they will TEACH you, or the birds of the air, and
>:|they will TELL you, or speak to the earth, and it will TEACH you, or let the
>:|fish of the sea INFORM you:" JOB 12:7-8 [NIV] (Old Testament, of course)
>:|
>:|Who trained you, one might ask? Have you never learned that a preposition
>:|is something with which you should never end a sentence???? :~)
>:|
>:|Hope this helps.
>:|
>:|BONES BACH
>:|theb...@fgi.net
>:|
>:|
>:|
>:|
>:|
>:|
c...@teleport.com
> ic...@best.com (Kenneth Childress) wrote:
>
> >In article <387c7366...@news.exis.net>, <buc...@exis.net> wrote:
> >>Rick Gardiner <Gard...@pitnet.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>All !!!!!! LOL. How many, silly?
> >>How mnay, what context, waht did he say then, waht did he say later?
> >>
> >>Why not give the full story, or does the full story hurt your position?
> >>
> >>I gfuess if you can't prove him one of yours you have to try the other
> >>tactic, try to devalue or smear him.
> >>
> >>Guess waht, nothing you can do, or those light weights like carey,
> >>Childress, or the wackos, like Burton and some of the others that pop up
> >>from time to time are going to alter Madison's role in history or his role
> >>in the battle to gain religious freedom in this nation.
> >
> >While I'm pleased to be able to irritate you enough that you keep
> >throwing my name around, if you think for even one moment that I'm
> >against religious freedom, you're even more clueless than I originally
> >thought.
Whose religion? How about the Agnostics?
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