INTRODUCTION
The American founding era,Footnote 1 sandwiched between two religious revivals known as the first and second Great Awakenings, is often described as an age of Enlightenment and rationalism in which “the founding generation,” according to political theorist Wilson Carey McWilliams (Reference McWilliams and Aronoff1984, 21), “rejected or deemphasized the Bible and biblical rhetoric.”Footnote 2 Moderate Enlightenment ideas found a following among intellectual elites, and some of the most prominent founding figures were heterodox in their religious beliefs. Compared to an earlier age dominated by Puritan divines, biblical language in the founding generation's political rhetoric may seem muted. Nonetheless, late-eighteenth-century Americans remained biblically literate, and, contrary to the claims of modern scholarship, biblical language and themes continued to permeate both the private expressions and public pronouncements of those who shaped the new nation and its civic institutions. Biblical language pervaded the discourse of not only pious founders, such as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Roger Sherman, and John Witherspoon, but also those figures most influenced by the Enlightenment, including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.Footnote 3
The founders read the Bible. Their many quotations from and allusions to both familiar and obscure scriptural passages confirm that they knew the Bible from cover to cover. Biblical language and themes liberally seasoned their rhetoric. The phrases and cadences of the King James Bible, especially, informed their written and spoken words.Footnote 4 Its ideas shaped their habits of mind. Many founders were students of the Bible, and a few even wrote Bible commentaries and learned discourses on theology and Christian doctrine and practice.Footnote 5 Following an extensive survey of American political literature from 1760 to 1805, political scientist Donald S. Lutz (Reference Lutz1992) reported that the Bible was cited more frequently than any European writer or even any European school of thought, such as the Enlightenment or Whig intellectual traditions. Even though he excluded from his sample most documents, including many political sermons, that included no citations to secular political thinkers (greatly suppressing the number of references to the Bible in this literature), the Bible accounted for about a third of all citations. According to Lutz (Reference Lutz1992), “Deuteronomy is the most frequently cited book, followed by Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws” (136).Footnote 6 The book of Deuteronomy alone is “cited almost twice as often as all of Locke's writings put together,” and “Saint Paul is cited about as frequently as Montesquieu and Blackstone, the two most-cited secular authors” (Lutz Reference Lutz1988, 140). The founders' frequent use of the Bible is no surprise because they lived in an overwhelmingly Protestant culture and in a biblically literate society.Footnote 7 Indeed, one would expect politicians and polemicists in such a culture to invoke familiar authoritative and venerated texts in their public pronouncements. Their references alone indicate that the founders knew the Bible better than any other literary work.
The influence of Locke, Montesquieu, and other European Enlightenment figures on the American founding has been exhaustively examined;Footnote 8 virtually ignored is the Bible's influence in thought and expression on the founding.Footnote 9 Why has modern scholarship missed or dismissed the Bible's place in the founding? Often times the most important things in life, like the air we breathe, are overlooked because they are so pervasive and so much a part of our very existence that they are taken for granted. This may account for the historians' inattention to the Bible's place in the political discourse of the founding. A biblical illiteracy, especially a lack of familiarity with the distinct phraseology and cadences of the King James Bible, may explain the failure of many scholars to recognize the biblical language in this literature. Also, scholars trained in the modern academy with its emphasis on the rational and the secular may discount biblical themes because they find them less noteworthy or sophisticated than the intellectual contributions of the Enlightenment. There may even be a discomfort with explicitly religious material and themes. Moreover, some commentators find a focus on the God of the Bible and religion divisive or even offensive to twenty-first-century, secular sensibilities. In an admonition seldom mentioned in the scholarly literature, for example, George Washington warned, in his Farewell Address of September 19, 1796, that anyone who labored to subvert a public role for religion and morality could not call himself a patriot (Washington Reference Washington1931, 35:229). Such rhetoric, unexceptional in its time, is discordant with the secular ethos of our time. Other founders held views similarly out-of-step with secular academic and popular sentiments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, such as advocating state support for Protestant denominations and restricting the civil and religious rights of Catholics, Unitarians, atheists, and Jews. In any case, the notion that the founding fathers rejected biblical language and themes in their political discourse is unfounded.
The founders' frequent recurrence to the Bible in their public rhetoric reveals as much about the Bible's place in the hearts and minds of their audiences as it does about them. (Many founders revered the Bible as divine revelation and commended its role in fostering the virtues required of a self-governing people.Footnote 10 A few, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, and Thomas Paine, doubted its divine origins.)Footnote 11 The Bible was the most accessible book in late-eighteenth-century America. The Bible (and Christianity) was among the most important sources of cultural influence in the colonial and early national periods. It shaped the language. It also informed education, letters, law, and politics. The founding generation wove biblical language, often without quotation marks or explicit references, into their ordinances, official proclamations, judicial opinions, political discourses, private correspondence, and last wills and testaments. Quotation marks and citations were unnecessary to identify the source of words so familiar to a biblically literate people.Footnote 12
The mere fact that the founding generation frequently quoted from or alluded to the Bible in their political discourse reveals little about the American founding or the Bible's influence on late-eighteenth-century political thought, except that the Bible was a familiar and useful literary source. Furthermore, the mere fact that an individual founder used the Bible tells us little about whether or not this figure revered Scripture or, even, was a Christian. Some polemicists have made the error of assuming that selected founders were committed Christians based principally on the number of quotations from and allusions to the Bible in that founder's political rhetoric. Pamphleteer Thomas Paine illustrates the error. He made frequent allusions to the Bible, yet no figure of the founding era was more famously dismissive of orthodox Christianity and its view of Scripture than Paine. A study of the Bible in the political discourse of the age must be attentive to the purposes for which biblical texts were invoked and the contexts in which the founding generation turned to the Bible. Writers drew on the Bible for a variety of purposes. The diverse uses range from the strictly literary and cultural to the profoundly theological, from the stylistic to the substantive. The careful reader of this literature should give attention to not only the fact that the Bible was cited frequently but also the purposes for which Scripture was used and how it informed broader texts and themes.
This article contributes to the scholarship by illustrating the founders' diverse uses of the Bible and offering a preliminary typology of the rhetorical uses of biblical texts in the political literature of the founding era. Drawing on some of the most familiar political rhetoric of the age, this article examines how and for what purposes the founders used the Bible. It provides a framework for assessing the place, role, and influence of the Bible in late-eighteenth-century political discourse.
THE DIVERSE USES OF THE BIBLE
Authoritative texts — including sacred writings — are appealed to and cited for a variety of reasons. This is as true of the Bible in the political discourse of the founding era as it is of other authoritative texts at other times and places. Although generally regarded as a sacred text, not all uses of the Bible by the founding generation were for strictly spiritual ends. Indeed, Scripture was frequently employed for literary, rhetorical, or political purposes. These distinctions are important insofar as it is misleading to read spiritual meaning into purely literary, rhetorical, or political uses of the Bible or vice versa.
What were some of the founding generation's diverse uses of the Bible? The uses of Scripture ranged from the primarily literary and cultural to the essentially theological. The Bible was used then, as it is sometimes used today, (1) to enrich a common language and cultural vocabulary through distinctively biblical allusions, expressions, figures of speech, proverbs, aphorisms, and the like, (2) to enhance the power and weight of rhetoric, (3) to identify and define normative standards and transcendent rules for ordering and judging public life, (4) to illuminate the role of Providence in the affairs of men and nations, and (5) to gain insights on the character and designs of God, especially as they pertain to His dealings with humanity. This list is not meant to be exhaustive. Still other uses, one imagines, could be added to the list. Moreover, a rigid adherence to this typology would be imprudent. The lines separating these categories are, at times, fine and even indistinct, and selected uses of the Bible can be illustrative of more than one category. Nonetheless, this typology, it is hoped, can assist in discerning the different ways in which the founders used the Bible and, thereby, offer preliminary and tentative guidance on how to think about the place and contributions of biblical language in the political discourse of the American founding. This article describes and illustrates each of these different uses of Scripture.
To Enrich a Common Language
A ubiquitous literary text, the Bible provided a distinct and familiar language recognized and respected by virtually all Americans in the founding era. The founders frequently quoted from and made allusions to the Bible because it was the most authoritative, accessible, and familiar literary text in America. It was the source of a common cultural vocabulary. Historian, Gordon S. Wood (Reference Wood and Horwitz1977), said of Thomas Paine, the most successful polemicist of his age, that, in an effort to connect with the common man, “he counted on his audience being familiar with only one literary source — the Bible” (Wood Reference Wood and Horwitz1977, 111).Footnote 13 Simply put, Paine appealed to Scripture so frequently because he knew the Bible-reading proclivities of his audience.Footnote 14 In a sense, the English of the King James Bible was the lingua franca of late-eighteenth-century America, and effective mass communicators, especially politicians and polemicists, adeptly used this language to reach their audiences.
The two most familiar and accessible sources of literary allusions available to late-eighteenth-century Americans were the Bible and classical literature. Like classical mythology, the Bible is a bountiful storehouse of literary resources. It is a rich source of history, prophecy, poetry, proverbs, parables, and metaphors — a valuable mine for both the learned and the common man. It would have been extraordinary, indeed, if the founding generation had not drawn on this familiar literary source. A few examples will illustrate this use of the Bible. In his infamous 1796 Mazzei letter, which was widely interpreted as denigrating the aging President George Washington, Thomas Jefferson alluded to two Old Testament characters: “In place of that noble love of liberty, & republican government which carried us triumphantly thro' the war, an Anglican monarchical, & aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government … It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field & Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England” (Jefferson Reference Jefferson1984, 1036–1037). The deist, Thomas Paine, perhaps to appeal to a pious readership, reveled in biblical allusions. “None but a Herod of uncommon malice would have made war upon infancy and innocence [Matthew 2:16],” said Paine of Britain's brutal suppression of the “young” and “virtuous” American nation (Paine Reference Paine and Foner1995c, 165). For Americans to submit to the English crown and forgo independence, he opined, would be “apostacy,” and “they would deserve to be swept from the earth like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah [Genesis 19:12–29]” (Paine Reference Paine and Foner1995d, 185). Such recurrence to biblical expressions, figures of speech, proverbs, allegories, and allusions to communicate, explicate, or illustrate important principles or concepts was typical of the public discourse and literature of the age. Moreover, the source and meaning of such references would have been immediately apparent to a biblically literate audience.
Given the prevailing religious ethos of the times, the founding generation often expressed political or social ideas in a biblical vernacular readily accessible to and granted by their audience. Indeed, as Joseph R. Fornieri (Reference Fornieri2003) observed of a later generation of Americans, “the Bible once served as a common reference point for civil discourse” (Fornieri Reference Fornieri2003, 43).Footnote 15 In his essay, “The Bible in the American Political Tradition,” Wilson Carey McWilliams (Reference McWilliams and Aronoff1984) similarly observed that, in the founding of America, the Bible was the only common text for Americans, uniting people from different races, classes, and backgrounds. “Scripture,” he wrote, “was a common point of reference for groups with differing and often hostile pasts, and a stable beacon for peoples who had broken their ties to custom” (McWilliams 20). That made it an ideal instrument for explicating and illustrating important principles or concepts that a speaker wished an audience to take seriously and understand.
Biblical expressions and figures of speech are ubiquitous in the founders' rhetoric. Volumes could be filled illustrating this assertion, but a handful of examples from the papers of George Washington will exemplify the Bible's place in the literature of the age. Washington's frequent recurrence to biblical language is typical of many leading political figures in the founding era. (Washington, by most accounts, was a pious man but not an evangelical or religious enthusiast who would have been expected to invoke the Bible more than other gentlemen of his time or social standing.) The language of the English Bible so permeated the vernacular that some speakers and writers may not always have been conscious of the fact that a popular phrase or image had biblical origins. In any case, Washington routinely incorporated into his working vocabulary familiar biblical language, such as “forbidden fruit” (Genesis 3; GW to Mrs. Annis Boudinout Stockton, September 2, 1783), “fat of the land” (Genesis 45:18; GW to Robert Dinwiddie, April 22, 1756), “seven times seven years” (Leviticus 25:8; GW to Mrs. Martha Washington, June 18, 1775), “thorn in our side” (Numbers 33:55; Judges 2:3; see also 2 Corinthians 12:7; GW to Samuel Purviance, March 10, 1786; GW to James Madison, March 31, 1787), “first fruit” (Deuteronomy 26:2),Footnote 16 “sleep with my Fathers” (Deuteronomy 31:16; 2 Samuel 7:12; 1 Kings 1:21; GW to Marquis de Lafayette, February 1, 1784), “neither sleep nor slumber” (Psalm 121:4; Isaiah 5:27),Footnote 17 “like sheep, to the Slaughter” (Psalm 44:22; Acts 8:32; Romans 8:36; GW to the Officers of the Army, March 15, 1783), “engraved on every man's heart” (see Jeremiah 17:1; Jeremiah 31:33; Romans 2:15; GW to Earl of Buchan, May 26, 1794), “seperating [sic] the Wheat from the Tares” (Matthew 13:25ff; GW to John Augustine Washington, May 31, 1776), “a millstone hung to your neck” (Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2; GW to George Washington Parke Custis, November 28, 1796); “wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6; Mark 13:7),Footnote 18 “good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21, 23; GW to Tobias Lear, June 15, 1791),Footnote 19 “take up my bed and walk” (Mark 2:9; John 5:8–12; GW to Maquis de Lafayette, July 4, 1779; GW to The Secretary of War, March 25, 1799), “widow's mite” (Mark 12:42; Luke 21:2–3; GW to Bushrod Washington, January 15, 1783; GW to George Washington Parke Custis, November 15, 1796), “the scales are ready to drop from the eyes” (Acts 9:18; GW to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, June 28, 1788), and “Throne of Grace” (Hebrews 4:16; GW to German Lutherans of Philadelphia, April 1789; Washington Reference Washington1931, 27:128; 35:498; 1:326; 3:294; 28:393; 29:192; 10:433; 15:176; 27:56; 28:471; 33:321; 27:317–318; 19:136; 29:124; 21:181; 15:6; 15:59; 14:313; 13:466; 26:225; 33:382; 5:92; 35:295-296; 31:317; 41:40; 29:485; 31:297; 35:416–417; 15:370; 37:159; 26:40; 35:283; 30:10; Washington Reference Washington1987, 2:180). A sentence in a 1785 letter Washington wrote to his dear friend the Marquis de Lafayette is replete with biblical expressions: “… I wish to see the sons and daughters of the world in Peace and busily employed in the more agreeable amusement of fulfilling the first and great commandment [Matthew 22:38], Increase and Multiply [Genesis 1:22, 28; see also Genesis 8:17, 9:1, 7, 35:11, Leviticus 26:9]: as an encouragement to which we have opened the fertile plains of the Ohio to the poor, the needy [cf. Deuteronomy 15:11; Deuteronomy 24:14; Psalm 35:10] and the oppressed of the Earth; any one therefore who is heavy laden [Matthew 11:28], or who wants land to cultivate, may repair thither and abound, as in the Land of promise [promised land; Exodus 12:25; Deuteronomy 9:28, 19:8], with milk and honey [a phrase descriptive of the promised land ubiquitous in the Pentateuch; see, for example, Exodus 3:8, 13:5, 33:3; Leviticus 20:24; Numbers 13:27, 14:8, 16:13, 14; Deuteronomy 6:3, 11:9, 26:9, 15, 27:3, 31:20; Joshua 5:6]: the ways are preparing, and the roads will be made easy [Isaiah 40:3], thro' the channels of Potomac and James river” (Washington Reference Washington1931, 28:206–207). A biblical phrase familiar in Washington's papers and in the wider literature of the era is the “vine and fig tree” motif found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (see, for example, 1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10; 1 Maccabees 14:12). This was a metaphor for not only freedom from want and fear but also freedom of religion and the right to private property. Washington alone invoked this image nearly four dozen occasions during the last half of his life (Dreisbach Reference Dreisbach2007).
Washington and his contemporaries also made frequent use of biblical proverbs and aphorisms. Quoting the wisdom of Solomon, Washington, in his letter to George Washington Parke Custis, March 19, 1798, informed his step grandson that “The wise man, you know, has told us (and a more useful lesson never was taught) that there is a time for all things [Ecclesiastes 3:1, 17]” (Washington Reference Washington1931, 36:187).Footnote 20 In correspondence with a Mount Vernon overseer (Howell Lewis, November 3, 1793), Washington counseled, “The habit of postponing things is among the worst in the world[,] doing things in season is always beneficial; but out of season [cf. 2 Timothy 4:2], it frequently happens that so far from being beneficial, that oftentimes, it proves a real injury. It was one of the sayings of the wise man you know, that there is a season for all things [Ecclesiastes 3:1], and nothing is more true; apply it to any occurrence or transaction in life” (Washington Reference Washington1931, 33:148). In a missive (to Williams Vans Murray, December 3, 1797), Washington borrowed the words of not only Solomon but also the psalmist: “I have been occupied from the ‘rising of the sun to the setting of the same,’ [Psalm 113:3, 50:1; Malachi 1:11] and which as the wise man has said ‘may be all vanity and vexation of spirit’ [Ecclesiastes 1:14, 2:11, 17, 26, 4:4, 16, 6:9]” (Washington Reference Washington1931, 36:88). He appropriated one of the most popular biblical proverbs in American political rhetoric in a letter written to religious constituents (the German Lutherans of Philadelphia, April 1789) shortly before assuming the presidency: “I flatter myself [that] opportunities will not be wanting for me to shew my disposition to encourage the domestic and public virtues of industry, economy, patriotism, philanthropy, and that righteousness which exalteth a nation” (Proverbs 14:34; Washington Reference Washington1987, 2:180).
Washington's frequent recurrence to biblical language is typical of many in the founding generation.Footnote 21 Biblical allusions, expressions, images, metaphors, and proverbs proliferated in the political rhetoric of the age. They were used by believers and nonbelievers alike. These phrases and motifs resonated with late-eighteenth-century Americans, and many such expressions became a part of the national political vernacular. The pervasive use of the King James Bible, at the very least, enriched the literary culture of the founding era.
To Enhance the Power and Weight of Rhetoric
The founders frequently employed biblical language because, as an authoritative text, its mere invocation, it was believed, enhanced the persuasive power of, or lent rhetorical weight to, an argument. The evocative use of biblical language stirs an audience's “religious imagination,” often appealing as much to emotion as to reason (Fornieri Reference Fornieri2003, 46). Such uses of Scripture, which often mimic pulpit oratory, are calculated to persuade by capturing an audience's attention (with, perhaps, the fear of God), arousing a righteous passion, solemnifying a discourse, projecting an aura of transcendence and truth, emphasizing the gravity of an idea or argument, and/or underscoring an argument's moral implications or sacred connotations. Therefore, the founders often deployed biblical language (such as was illustrated in the preceding section) to enhance the power and weight of their rhetoric.
There are even examples throughout history of speakers who, “in order to increase the gravity of their words,” have employed “a phraseology, cadence, or tone” that imitates or “parallels the classic phrasing of the King James Version” (Noll Reference Noll2005, 7). A mere resemblance to the mellifluous language of the King James Bible, in other words, adds gravitas to rhetoric. Such usage of morally freighted language can be an honest rhetorical device; it can also, in the cynic's hands, be an instrument to manipulate a pious public who venerates the Sacred Text.
Few late-eighteenth-century political figures were more fluent in biblical language or adept in appropriating the distinct cadences and vernacular of the King James Bible in political prose than Patrick Henry. Consider, for example, arguably the most famous lines of revolutionary rhetoric, Henry's “give me liberty or give me death” declamation delivered before the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775.Footnote 22 Familiar biblical images and phrases are integral to this revolutionary prose. Henry adeptly tapped the righteous indignation of the Old Testament prophets and, in a stirring political jeremiad, warned “Virginia of impending doom” (Cohen Reference Cohen1981, 706). The oration's dramatic climax is punctuated by the unmistakable words of the Prophet Jeremiah. Henry, like Jeremiah two and a half millennia before, ridiculed the idea of peace when “there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11) and boldly called on his fellow citizens to prepare for war (Cohen Reference Cohen1981, 713–714):Footnote 23
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess [cf. Deuteronomy 3:12], are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God [Isaiah 45:21] who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us [2 Chronicles 32:8]. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone [Ecclesiastes 9:11]; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace [Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11]. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears [cf. Acts 17:20] the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle [Matthew 20:6]? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear [Acts 20:24], or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me [cf. Genesis 17:4; Joshua 24:15], give me liberty or give me death! (Henry Reference Henry1891, 1:262–266; Wirt Reference Wirt1817, 120–123).Footnote 24
Biblical language so permeates the text that it reads like a lay sermon.Footnote 25 Henry deployed biblical phrases and bible-like language to great rhetorical effect, communicating the gravity of the moment, the righteousness of the patriots' cause, and the promise of God's sustaining aid.
George Washington was similarly adept in borrowing familiar biblical themes and expressions. In a famous 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, Washington wrote:
For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support … May the Children of the Stock of Abraham [Acts 13:26], who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid [Micah 4:4]. May the father of all mercies [2 Corinthians 1:3] scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy (Washington Reference Washington1987, 6:285).
This missive borrowed liberally both direct phrases and metaphors from the Sacred Text. Most prominent is the extended quotation from Micah 4:4: “every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”Footnote 26 Other biblical phrases are heard in this one brief passage: “Children of the Stock of Abraham” is taken directly from Acts 13:26; “dwell in this land” or variations on the phrase appear numerous times in the King James Bible (see, for example, Deuteronomy 12:10); “father of all mercies” departs only slightly from 2 Corinthians 1:3; the lighted path is a familiar biblical image (see, for example, Psalm 119:105; Proverbs 4:18; Isaiah 42:16); “vocations useful here” recalls Ephesians 4:1; “in his time” and “due time” are familiar biblical phrases (see, for example, Ecclesiastes 3:11); and “everlastingly happy” is reminiscent of Isaiah 35:10. That a letter to a religious audience would make such liberal use of Scripture is not surprising. More important, however, such use of biblical language was not unusual for Washington and his contemporaries.
Biblical language and even language merely reminiscent of the popular King James Bible were frequently deployed in the political rhetoric of the founding generation in order to enhance the authority and gravity of the rhetoric. This rhetoric invoked the distinct cadences and linguistic patterns of the King James Bible, as well as borrowed familiar expressions, figures of speech, proverbs, and allusions Americans identified with the English Bible.
To Identify and Define Standards
The Bible was also a source of normative standards and transcendent rules to order and judge public life. There were pious Americans in the founding era who believed that, as Joseph R. Fornieri said of Abraham Lincoln, biblical precepts were a source of moral and ethical obligations binding on the nation — both the rulers and the ruled. The Bible was widely “regarded as an authoritative standard to human life, both temporal and spiritual.” It provided a “constitution,” in the broad sense of that term, of not only a language but also a set of authoritative principles, precedents, and regulations that define a community, and guide its thoughts and conduct (Fornieri Reference Fornieri2003, 43, quoting Anastaplo Reference Anastaplo1989, 1). “The justice of human institutions, policies, and enactments were adjudicated in terms of their conformity with a divine standard revealed in the Bible and confirmed through right reason.” And Americans of the age “invoked biblical precepts as a rule and measure to validate the principles” of the American polity and “to gauge the moral progress or decline of the regime” (Fornieri Reference Fornieri2003, 41–42).
Scripture was used to propose models, appeal to precedents, and/or set normative standards for the ordering of public life. For example, there were Americans in the founding generation who believed that the Hebrew commonwealth described in the Old Testament (see, for example, Exodus 18:13–27; Deuteronomy 1:9–18) provided a rudimentary model for republican government. In an influential 1775 election sermon preached to Massachusetts' highest public officials, the president of Harvard College, Samuel Langdon, opined: “The Jewish government, according to the original constitution which was divinely established, if considered merely in a civil view, was a perfect Republic … The civil Polity of Israel is doubtless an excellent general model, allowing for some peculiarities; at least some principal laws and orders of it may be copied, to great advantage, in more modern establishments” (Langdon Reference Langdon1775, 11–12). In his widely distributed and influential revolutionary pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), Thomas Paine asserted that monarchy was “first introduced into the world by the Heathens,” and it cannot “be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon [Judges 8:22–23] and the prophet Samuel [1 Samuel 8], expressly disapproves of government by kings.” Paine appealed to Jewish history as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures to repudiate monarchy and hereditary succession. For “[n]ear three thousand years,” he wrote, Jewish government “was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts” (Paine Reference Paine and Foner1995a, 12–13).Footnote 27
Some Americans, especially those who embraced Reformed theology, sought to emulate what they believed to be a biblical model for the separation of the powers of civil government. They thought a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances were necessitated by humankind's radical depravity and the need to check sinful human behavior. The Congregationalist minister, Samuel Langdon, in a 1788 New Hampshire election sermon, for example, saw in Deuteronomy 16:18–19 and other Old Testament texts evidence of a separation between general and local government authorities, as well as the distinct offices and responsibilities of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches (Langdon Reference Langdon1788, 5–29). Others, more generally, thought the form of government described in Deuteronomy 16:18 to 18:22 established the distinct and separated powers of judge (17:2–7 [local courts], 17:8–13 [high court]), king (17:1–20), priest (18:1–8), and prophet (18:14–22). Each office or branch was assigned specific functions and sphere of influence, enjoyed full autonomy and independence from the others, and was subject to the rules of law. No branch in this model of separation of powers could claim priority over the others in antiquity, rank, power, or divine favor.Footnote 28
In the waning days of the Constitutional Convention, during debate on a proposal to require the ownership of property as a qualification for public office under the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin spoke in opposition to any proposal “that tended to debase the spirit of the common people … We should remember the character which the Scripture requires in Rulers,” Franklin said, invoking Jethro's qualifications for prospective Israelite rulers, “that they should be men hating covetousness [Exodus 18:21]” (Farrand Reference Farrand1911, 2:249). This speech is a rare instance in the Constitutional Convention when a delegate cited biblical authority in support of a specific constitutional provision. Significantly, Franklin appealed to a biblical standard (“the character which the Scripture requires in Rulers”), informed his audience in unambiguous language that his source was “Scripture,” and then quoted a specific biblical text.
Those who use the Bible to make authoritative claims about how the commonweal should be ordered also imply that their vision is sanctioned by the Scripture's Divine Author. There were some founders, no doubt, who viewed the Bible as the ultimate and, perhaps, exclusive guide to politics and pubic policy. A more considered view acknowledged that the Bible did not articulate specific policies for all political objectives and that various contingencies must be weighed and balanced in the application of biblical principles to specific policies. To be sure, few Americans of the late-eighteenth century and even nineteenth century would have defended policies they believed clearly violated biblical principles. And, indeed, many went to great lengths to show how their political principles and policies were either mandated by or consistent with the Bible. Americans of this age evaluated the legitimacy of a political principle or public policy in terms of its consistency with republican principles of civil government; many also evaluated political principles and public policies in terms of biblical standards as they understood them; and few thought republican principles and biblical precepts were inconsistent in any significant respects (Fornieri Reference Fornieri2003, 37).
To Illuminate the Role of Providence in the Affairs of Men and Nations
Many Americans of the founding era believed in “providential history,” and they believed the Bible opened a window into the mind and ways of the Divine in the history of mankind. Accordingly, they looked to the Bible to illuminate God's historic and unfolding involvement in the affairs of men and nations. The role of Providence was central to the Protestant Reformed theology of most Americans.Footnote 29 Although there were variations in popular conceptions of Providence, for most Americans it meant, at least, that there was a superintending divine authority who oversees and, perhaps, directs the steps of humankind and the affairs of the material world to accomplish divine ends. Americans were curious to learn how God might be directly and intimately involved in the affairs of their nation and directing the steps of their leaders.
One of the most influential political sermons of the revolutionary era, delivered in May 1776 by John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian cleric, delegate to the Continental Congress, and president of the College of New Jersey in Princeton, surveyed the “dominion of Providence” in human affairs throughout history, including the present rebellion (Witherspoon Reference Witherspoon1776). This theme resonated with a late-eighteenth-century American audience. In Federalist Paper 37, James Madison said “[i]t is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution” (Publius [James Madison] 1961, 230–231).Footnote 30 George Washington, in a letter to Brigadier General Thomas Nelson, August 20, 1778, deployed familiar Scripture to express a firm belief that Americans must acknowledge the hand and design of God in the birth of the new nation: “The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith [1 Timothy 5:8], and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations …” (Washington Reference Washington1931, 12:343).Footnote 31
From the first settlements in the New World through independence and, even, to the present day, some Americans thought America was, or hoped she would be, God's chosen nation — a new Israel. Many thought America was, at least, analogous to ancient Israel and believed lessons could be drawn from the comparison. The early Puritans, especially, sought to learn lessons from God's dealings with the Hebrew commonwealth (Bercovitch Reference Bercovitch and Gunn1983). A ubiquitous theme in the literature of Puritan New England and, later, the literature of the American founding era was that the American experience was analogous to that of the Children of Israel exiting slavery in Egypt. The precise contours of the analogy differed depending on who made it and when, but they were often elaborate comparisons. (Significantly, even Americans most influenced by the Enlightenment and skeptical of the miraculous aspects of the exodus account embraced this theme.) North American settlers viewed England, the land of political repression and religious intolerance from which they fled, as their Egypt; the Stuart monarchs (and, later in the revolutionary era, George III) as their intransigent Pharaoh; and the treacherous waters of the Atlantic Ocean as their Red Sea. (Many Americans of the founding era came to regard George Washington as their Moses who led them out of Egyptian bondage and to a “Promised Land.”)Footnote 32 Like the ancient Israelites, they encountered a forbidding terrain and hostile inhabitants in the new Canaan. The political leadership and laws of Moses vividly recorded in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy had special meaning for these colonists and directed their ambitious errand into a new promised land where they were called by God to build a “city set on a hill” (Matthew 5:14; see also 2 Samuel 7:10, 16) — a new Jerusalem.Footnote 33
This theme of America as God's chosen nation was embraced by both pious and skeptical citizens, woven into the national mythology, and manifested in the nation's diverse expressions and symbols. The president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles (Reference Stiles1783), delivered a 1783 election sermon before Connecticut's highest officials. His text was Deuteronomy 26:19, a passage describing God's promise to exalt the nation Israel if her people remain a “holy people,” which Stiles declared was “allusively prophetic of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States” — “God's American Israel” (Stiles Reference Stiles1783, 7). The prominent Congregationalist clergyman, Samuel Langdon (Reference Langdon1788), declared in an election sermon entitled, “The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States,” that “instead of the twelve tribes of Israel, we may substitute the thirteen States of the American union” (Langdon Reference Langdon1788, 30).Footnote 34 Even Thomas Jefferson drew on the comparison between America and the Children of Israel, closing his Second Inaugural Address in March 1805 by encouraging all Americans to join him in seeking “the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life …” (Jefferson Reference Jefferson1984, 523).
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin to a committee to design “a seal for the United States of America” (Ford et al. Reference Ford1904, 5:517–518). Franklin proposed an image of Moses extending his hand in anticipation of God's supernatural parting of the Red Sea, allowing the Children of Israel to escape Pharaoh's army (Exodus 14). Jefferson similarly recommended a portrayal of the “Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by Day, and a Pillar of Fire by night” (Exodus 13:21–22; Franklin Reference Franklin1959, 22:562–563).Footnote 35 Remarkably, both men, sons of the Enlightenment, drew on familiar Old Testament images of the Children of Israel, who were miraculously delivered from Pharaoh's bondage just as Americans had been providentially delivered from the tyranny of George III, as fitting allegorical portrayals of the new nation's plight.
Americans saw in Scripture a record of providential history. This history, many believed, cast a light on how God ordered the affairs of men and nations. Many Americans studied the Bible to discern how God might direct the course of the new American nation and to search for America's place in a Divine plan.
To Reveal the Character and Ways of God
Scripture was also deployed to describe God's nature and character. The founding generation, in short, had a theological interest in the Bible. This interest, to be sure, was inspired by a desire to understand the Divine's dealings with humanity. This is not surprising for a nation of theists who believed that God intervenes in human affairs. Americans of the era were drawn to Scripture to discern and explicate the Divine character, especially as it pertains to His involvement in national concerns. The line between this particular use of the Bible and the preceding one is, admittedly, a fine one. The former emphasizes providential history, the notion of a “chosen nation,” and that nation's place in history; the latter is concerned with the character of God and how the Deity relates to humankind.
An often recounted episode at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 illustrates a use of the Bible for this end. At a particularly difficult moment, as deliberations reached an apparent impasse and tempers frayed, the elder statesman Benjamin Franklin made a poignant appeal for harmony and Divine intervention:
In this Situation of this Assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark [Job 12:25] to find Political Truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights [James 1:17] to illuminate our Understandings? In the Beginning of the Contest with Britain, when we were sensible of Danger, we had daily Prayers in this Room for the Divine Protection. Our Prayers, Sir, were heard; — and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engag'd in the Struggle, must have observed frequent Instances of a superintending Providence in our Favour. To that kind Providence we owe this happy Opportunity of Consulting in Peace on the Means of establishing our future national Felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that GOD governs in the Affairs of Men [cf. Daniel 4:17]. And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice [Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6], is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labour in vain that build it” [Psalm 127:1]. I firmly believe this; and I also believe, that, without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel [Genesis 11:1–9]; we shall be divided by our little, partial, local Interests, our Projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and a Bye-word [see Deuteronomy 28:37; 1 Kings 9:7; 2 Chronicles 7:20; Psalm 44:14] down to future Ages. And, what is worse, Mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate Instance, despair of establishing Government by human Wisdom, and leave it to Chance, War, and Conquest (Franklin Reference Franklin1987, 1138–1139; Farrand Reference Farrand1911, 1:451–452).
If we take his words at face value, this solemn plea reveals that Franklin believed in a God — an omniscient God who orders the affairs of men and nations and who is cognizant of the minute details of the material world. Moreover, the wisdom of Franklin's God far surpasses that of humankind, and this God's concurrence is vital to the success of human endeavors. And most pertinent to the speech, Franklin's God responds to a people's supplications for Divine blessing and assistance. “Our Prayers,” said Franklin of an earlier occasion, “were heard; and they were graciously answered.”
Franklin delivered this speech in a closed, secret proceeding. This suggests that he was not merely appealing to popular religious sentiments beyond the Convention's chambers, and he may have been expressing his true beliefs at the time. On other occasions, it should be noted, Franklin expressed a different view of God — one removed and disengaged from the concerns of humankind. Even if one concedes that he was appealing to popular religious prejudices to gain some immediate political benefit, then that suggests there was considerable sentiment within the Convention for the view of God expressed in Franklin's speech.
Late-eighteenth-century Americans were drawn to biblical texts that promised Divine blessing and protection for a righteous people whose God is the God of the Bible and who conform their ways to Divine precepts. They were aware that these same passages warned of dreadful consequences for the nation that disregarded Divine instructions. Among such popular texts were Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, and Psalm 33:12. Significantly, these texts pertain not only to the fate of a people (or nation) but also “to the sovereign character and mysterious purposes of God” (Noll Reference Noll2005, 46).
These examples represent distinctly theological, not merely rhetorical or political, uses of the Bible insofar as such usages attempt to elucidate the nature and ways of the Divine. Again, these theological claims find their place in political literature because they purport to explain or warn how a sovereign God, as His character is revealed in Scripture, will deal with peoples and nations in the here and now. Nonetheless, they are texts that point, first, to God and, second, to His dealings with humankind.
CONCLUSIONS
The Bible was a prodigious source of ideas and expressions in the political discourse of the founding era. It was an extraordinarily accessible, familiar, and authoritative text for most Americans. Not surprisingly, both influential and ordinary citizens drew on biblical language, ideas, and themes in thinking and talking about the political challenges that confronted them. The use of biblical language was not always deliberate. Certain phrases and images from the King James Bible, especially, permeated the vernacular so thoroughly that speakers made use of them without regard to their biblical origins. This underscores the Bible's historical and expansive influence on the culture. The Bible's influence, it must be emphasized, did not necessarily supersede or crowd out all other influences on the founders' political thought and rhetoric. The founding generation drew on multiple sources, one of which was the Bible. Biblical influences co-existed with other — even seemingly competing — influences, such as Enlightenment, republican, and English constitutional and common law sources. Also, an individual founder's invocation of biblical ideas or phrases does not necessarily indicate whether or not that figure was a Christian or sought to promote a Christian polity. Believers and skeptics alike made use of the Bible.
The various uses of the Bible described in this article are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Many of the examples above are illustrative of more than one category of usage. More important, a failure to appreciate these diverse uses can result in a misunderstanding of the Scripture's role in the literature of the founding. To interpret biblical language as purely stylistic or rhetorical, for example, can lead to the cynical conclusion that the founders employed the Bible only for temporal political advantage and that their “use of religious language was merely a political expedient to accommodate the prejudices of a Bible-reading nation” (Fornieri Reference Fornieri2003, 38). This interpretation discounts the extent to which the Bible and biblical precepts penetrated the core beliefs of many founders and the ubiquitous manifestations of those beliefs in both public and private utterances. The opposite error — to read all invocations of biblical language as direct, literal appeals to transcendent, divine claims — ignores the nature of political rhetoric and arguably leads to an erroneous conclusion that the founders were driven by a theocratic, even messianic, vision of America. Some politicians and polemicists, no doubt, employed biblical language on occasion merely to excite a pious public. Sometimes the Bible was appealed to for literary, rhetorical, or political purposes; sometimes it was used to invoke the Divine and the transcendent. Readers should be aware of the complexity and richness of biblical expressions in the literature of the era and seek to appreciate the various ways and diverse purposes for which the founding generation used the Bible.
The Bible is unlike any other written text in the canon of western literature. For many readers, it is the “word of God,” and that alone requires that it be read, interpreted, and used differently than any other text. Whether or not one accepts this characterization of the Bible, one cannot escape the historical fact that it has a unique place in western culture, and that invites attention to be given to the reasons and methods for asserting, perpetuating, protecting, challenging, and making use of its unique place in the culture.
