November 2007 43
Figure 5 An 1815 war rate
cover from Georgetown DC:
a friendly tongue in cheek
letter between college?
friends, one in Princeton NJ
who recently converted and
Lewis A Cozens, who is “not
myself one of the elect” [not
yet converted]. He refers to
the ‘prevailing mania” of
religious fervor and seems
to suggest his friend
converted “to reinstate
himself in the good opinion
of a damned Presbyterian
faculty.” You’d have to
have been there to
understand all the nuances.
in a dispassionate way, through experience not through
emotions, miracle stories, and supernatural revela-
The reference to ‘Heaven-rescued’ probably acknowl-
tions. Washington’s friend, Dr. Abercrombie, in an-
edges the devastating rain (hurricane?) that helped
swer to a query about Washington’s religion replied,
persuade the British, following the burning of Wash-
“Sir, Washington was a Deist.”
ington DC, to give up their attempt to take Baltimore
“Parson” M. L. Weems in his influential book, Life of
(and then Philadelphia), and instead retreat south to-
W
ward safety. Key also suggested we ‘Praise the Power
ashington (1806), tells apocryphal tales of young
George chopping the cherry tree, and throwing a sil-
[God]’, for preserving us from defeat, and coined a
ver dollar across the Potomac. He also states unequivo-
near-familiar phrase.
cally that Washington was a Christian. All this was
Faith in spite of Their Leaders
patriotic fabrication for the instruction of children,
With today’s War on Terror, initiated by the Radical
written soon after Washington’s death in 1799. The
Muslim view that America is hostile to Islam, it might
Washington diaries show he rarely attended any
church at all (as with Lincoln). S
be useful to repeat endlessly the words from Article
till, this fact informs
XI of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, initialed by Wash-
us of the strong beliefs of the reading public, and what
ington himself late in 1796. It underscores
they wanted to hear to comfort them after the passing
Washington’s, Adam’s, and Congress’s view on
of the Father of their Country. A country is after all,
religion’s role in government:
the sum total of it’s inhabitants experience, not just
those of its founders.
As the Government of the United States of America
is not in any sense founded on the Christian reli-
Also, don’t forget that in 1814, lawyer Francis Scott
gion; as it has in itself no character of enmity
Key penned the Star Spangled Banner victory poem
against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of [Mos-
with words that met with extreme popularity, with key
phrases (italicized) in the fourth and last stanza:
lems]; and as the said States never have entered
into any war or act of hostility against any [Mo-
Oh! thus be it ever, when free men shall stand hammedan] nation, it is declared by the parties
Between their loved homes and the war’s desola- that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall
tion,
ever produce an interruption of the harmony ex-
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-res-
isting between the two countries.
cued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson declared
nation! that we were free thanks not to man but the “Laws of
Then conquer we must, when our cause is its just, Nature”. Interestingly, he had to be encouraged by
And this be our motto: “In God is our Trust”
Congress Member and Chaplain John Witherspoon
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
of New Jersey to add the words “and of Nature’s God”.
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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