In the early days of the American Republic, there was great debate
over the revolutionary basis of the authority of the Constitution. The founding
fathers had made it clear that the oath was not to God, princes or kings, or
even the nation, but to the document that established the United States of
America, the Constitution. This document was perhaps the ultimate expression of
the Enlightenment. Not only did it place the source of authority as the people,
but it also maintained that no religious test would be applied and that no one
religion would be the official faith of the United States.
To a people who could see the religious wars of Europe, and from
which many had fled, it was important to remove the causes of many of the wars
and civil wars of the preceding centuries. By declaring that there would be no
religious test for the new country, the founding fathers made it clear that
whoever and whatever you worshipped, the important thing was that you declared
your allegiance to the Constitution. They knew that religious divides would
exist, and their thought was not to eliminate those divides but to allow them
to live together.
Today, through the rosy haze of history, it is easy to think that
the founding fathers and those who followed were of one mind, that this was
something that they unanimously embraced. But even from the start, there was a
debate on what that meant and who, exactly, it applied to. An example of this
debate was a monograph published in 1820 with the delightfully long title A candid
examination of certain doctrines laid down and contended for by the Friends of
Sabbath mails, or, a brief inquiry into the religious character, obligations,
and powers of the government of the United States, the rights and privileges of
our citizens, the tendency of the Christian religion, and the danger to be
apprehended from the prevalence of infidelity. Like many of his
predecessors in the early days of the republic, the author was anonymous, using
the equally delightful nom de plume of “Spirit of seventy six”.[1]
The author argues first that because the founding fathers had
invoked throughout the creation of the Constitution not just God but the Christian
God, the writers of the Constitution intended that the United States was a
Christian nation. Like many others, he maintained that the precepts, morals,
and laws were ultimately derived from God. It is possible to determine, especially
from the diatribe at the beginning, that rumblings were already begging to
stir, that some felt that God might have no place in public discourse. This
points to a larger debate, almost from the beginning, of whether the United States
was secular or Christian.
Later in the essay, the “Spirit of seventy-six” descends into a
polemic on Muslims and “Hindoos,” describing them as not only uncivilized but
incapable of civilization. This makes it difficult for a modern reader to take
the writer seriously, but the first part of the monograph is well reasoned,
whether the reader agrees or not. In different forms, some of the same debate
continues today, with some of the same arguments over prayer in schools and
displays of the Ten Commandments at courthouses and public buildings, among
others.
[1] Spirit
of seventy six. A candid examination of certain doctrines laid down and
contended for by the Friends of Sabbath mails, or, a brief inquiry into the
religious character, obligations, and powers of the government of the United
States, the rights and privileges of our citizens, the tendency of the
Christian religion, and the danger to be apprehended from the prevalence of
infidelity. Ithaca N.Y.: Printed by Spencer & Chatterton, 1820.
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