As a woman who knows her husband very well, my wife taped a Ken Burns PBS special on Thomas Jefferson, knowing that her husband has a keen interest in early American history. So, on a cold, icy February winter evening in central Michigan we set ourselves down to sup and turn on the menu of recorded programs to select the show recorded a week earlier. Thomas Jefferson, as the third president of the United States, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and founder of the University of Virginia, would alone be enough material to cover more than two hours, in two parts, of televised airtime. The foregoing only scratches the surface of a full life of accomplishments that spanned more than four score years. In this post, instead of providing a compilation of Jeffersonian accomplishments, (that can be accounted for elsewhere through the use of a good, serviceable search engine), I wish to focus upon the influences that shaped Jefferson’s a priori* background influences that caused** him to pursue so many activities—often in contradiction, i.e., declaring for liberty, while owning slaves. My method of analysis entails navigating upstream in the course of human events to search for and retrieve Reformation and Pre-Reformation sources, especially as reflected in developments that took place in Medieval England, and in the reflections of the founding fathers in taking lessons from the experience of Republican Rome.
*a priori, from Latin: “from what is before”
**By the use of the word cause, I am referring to the term proximate cause, as understood by the legal profession. Proximate cause is an actual cause that is legally sufficient to prove tort and criminal liability. Under tort law, the principal test for proximate cause is foreseeability: if the harm that occurred was a foreseeable consequence of the outcome, then that action is a proximate cause of the harm. Another test is whether the action was a substantial factor in the harm. If so, then the action will be deemed a proximate cause. It must be in direct sequence, unbroken by any supervening event or superseding cause; and it must be present to cause the outcome which would otherwise not have happened. (There may be more than one proximate cause producing a certain outcome, but that is beyond the scope of this essay.)
The type of cause that I am interested in is not proximate cause as applied in tort law. Rather, I am interested in the proximate causes , i.e., the substantial factors, that influenced Mr. Jefferson’s known views and values that formed his political philosophy. As a successful politician and statesman, he must have had some foundational beliefs about the nature and destiny of Man. Since political philosophy can be defined as the love of wisdom to be found in a polis, (i.e., in a society), his ‘deism’ presents no aspiration to sanctity or saving grace as evidence on his beliefs in a personal God, nor is there any evidence of his beliefs as expressed in religious practices. His deism is a starkly distant, impersonal creator of a clockwork universe. Whatever spirit motivated him to produce the eloquence expressed, a posteriori,*** in the Declaration of Independence, and in his legislative proposals on religious liberty and emancipation, is the task of this post.
***a posteriori, from Latin: “from what is later”
HISTORIAN TREATMENT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Thomas Jefferson, as a man whom President Kennedy saluted as potentially equal in talent (when “dining alone”), to an entire gathering of Nobel Prize Winners of the Americas, I expected a treatment of the subject that would reflect his underlying and operational beliefs in God and Man, other than a simple attribute to Deism, which explains nothing. Since Jefferson was on very familiar terms with the Bible and the best thought of the Western Tradition, it would interest me, and I presume the reader, on what constituted Jefferson’s special brand of religion he shared with many founders, known as “Deism”, and the influences that stirred his conscience as a lawmaker and statesman. Even if religious beliefs could not be cited, then maybe something in English tradition or English common law would offer some necessary, if not sufficient evidence, to account for his Deism. English tradition and common law were heavily influenced by Protestant, especially, Calvinist views on presbyters and aristocracy. Still, one cannot understand common law without accounting for England’s Catholic past at the times of Magna Carta [drafted by the bishop on behalf of the nobles assembled at Runnymede]; to Henry II’s struggle with his friend Thomas Beckett over the prerogatives, rights, and separate relations between church and state.
The traditional treatment of Jefferson by historians is usually limited in scope to post-reformation centuries of Europe and North America that historians refer to as the “Early Modern Period”.****
****From Reformation (1517) to Revolution (1789). Martin Luther publication of his Ninety-five Theses in 1517; Storming of the Bastille in the French Revolution in 1789. Both events effectively anchor the endpoints of what in the West is known as the Early Modern Period.
A brief compendium of concepts during this period deemed essential influences upon the founding fathers would include the Divine Right of Kings; the celestial mechanics of Isaac Newton; the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment of Adam Smith’s “sympathetic” invisible hand, and David Hume’s skepticism of “natural religion”; John Locke’s limited government; Blackstone’s Commentaries on property, custom, and the validity of law; and, in general, British empiricism as the lodestar test of experience to “torture nature to reveal her secrets”.
Though self-billed as a ‘new order for the ages’, the new nation was based on principles that had as its main progenitors, it is said, the Church of England and the arising of dissident sects; the seventeenth-century English Civil War of Crown vs. Parliament; and the “Glorious Revolution” of 1689, as reflected in John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. Nevertheless, there was still a heavy underpinning of Christian piety and practice that constituted metaphysical first principles about the nature of man that better explain sources of the American Revolution. It is a mistake, first and foremost, to emphasize the role of reason in turning colonials into rebels against the crown. An informed reason principally guided by reason is based on a faith in the unreasonable assumption in the perfectibility of man. For perfectibility assumes that man can attain some level of apotheotic realization, which must assume what is good for Man; what “goods” are worth aspiring to; and admits of ends-in-view constituting a metaphysics of virtues and values.
THE ROLE OF HISTORIANS
Historians attempt to explain the “incomprehensibles” of history. They look to find patterns in miscellaneous bricolage of individuals or peoples fostering, and reacting to, events in time. There is no evidence (other than an ungrounded belief), for the Hegelian “necessary path that history must take”, nor for getting on (or off) the “wheel of history”. Neither are there “forces of reaction”, nor is there “the will of the people.”
Historians approach their task already imbued with assumptions and values about Man in society. The historian finds himself already embedded in a milieu of a particular culture, and numerous subcultures encompassing sect, professional training, and economic class. From their “original position”, individuals make existential choices that takes them on a journey to the essence of a hoped-for, desired destination. For the historian, historical inquiry is seeking realization of already-held ideals, centered on ‘tendencies’ in peoples – a teleology shared by sectarians, ideologues, and various peoples sharing a common identity different from others.
When historians ‘do’ history, they operate from a set of assumptions that anthropologists speak of as emic identities and etic identities. Emic signifies an identity that a people create for themselves. Etic signifies an identity assigned to a group by ‘outsiders’ – either as a useful descriptor, or for self-serving reasons, such as justifying colonial rule. Imposing etic terms on a group is a way to control them, which alters the culture and the very identity of how the subject people see themselves (through the lens or prism of the outsider). In the writing of history, there is a tendency for emic and etic identities to diverge. History is written from the perspective of powerful emic identities, in which historians ignore the colonials’ self-description, and instead give them descriptor names to facilitate analysis of the colonial culture. These are analytic descriptors. Some groups assert their identity by the descriptor name they want to be known by. These are performative descriptors. For example, Jews in Germany during the interwar years generally assumed for themselves a performative descriptor, identifying themselves primarily as German. However, National Socialism’s ideology of the Volk did not see it that way. They labeled German Jews by an analytic descriptor, which effectively placed them outside the Volk, excluding German Jews as a separate Volk, that is, as Jewish, as outsiders living in a German Reich, deracinating them from a home they had known for centuries.
Many historians also mistakenly use concepts and terminology appropriate in one era, but not in another. This is a form of anachronism—one that is not merely the misuse of language and concepts describing events, but one that is driven and motivated by ideological convictions that they bring to their work. Twenty-first century notions of human rights, such as rights to privacy, civil rights, and intelligence in nature, can be misused by historians. A right to privacy was unknown in the eighteenth century; that phrase was first coined by Louis Brandeis in an 1890 law review article. Civil rights is a well-known concept that did not arise until the movement by that name in the twentieth century. Intelligence in Nature was considered Supreme at the time of the American Revolution, but as paired with ‘design’ or ‘divine’ as used by modern theistic philosophers, as in the phrases of divine intelligence or intelligent design– both of which have different meanings in enlightenment and present-day usage. These errors are not minor but unscholarly – not showing the learning, reasoning (within the canons of the discipline), and attention to detail, characteristic of a scholar.
MORE ON JEFFERSON AND DEISM
It may be said that Thomas Jefferson, as well as most of the preeminent founders, were enlightened by “Deism” as their motivating metaphysics and their “religion” constituting a “New Order (or set of beliefs) for the Ages.” What precisely is Deism? To take a look at the word itself, Deism itself reflects some sort of “God-ism.” [Note. I capitalize God-ism because Deists assumed the existence of one God, but was abstractly referred to as Providence, Nature’s God, or Supreme Judge of the World.] Deism, like Christianity, needed to posit causes before taking on the mystery of things as if they were God’s spies. Both rejected the positing of several causes, deeming that, through applying the logic of Ockham’s razor, that “one” God—or creator; or unmoved mover; or Being itself—could have established a natural order of symmetry, measure and number. Such is the “God” of Deism. Several of the known Deist founders also considered themselves believing and practicing Christians. But is Deism compatible with Christianity? This is what I want to primarily explore in this essay. The answer to this exploration will likely show that Deism is a type of Biblical monotheistic cause—God as Creator and maker of “laws”; or God the Clockmaker as architect of time and cause of natural law. [Note: to make judgments on what makes one a believing—or practicing Christian—can be a hazardous undertaking. As to belief, which is a matter of conscience, written records or the reliable testimony of others who knew the man can be strong, though not convincing evidence of one’s beliefs. On being a “practicing” Christian, one can look to visible signs.] For example, George Washington penned in praise of religion and its “beneficence” in his Farewell Address in 1796. This would make it seem that he was a believer. Yet he was also a lifelong active member in Freemasonry. Although nominally in the Anglican community, he never took communion when offered. This is actually more revelatory of his non-practicing approach to religion, as taking communion is considered an important manifestation of belief in the Trinity. Thus, we may conclude that he believed in religion as a social good, but in the realm of the heart, was an unbelieving and nonpracticing churchman.
Although this post is not about General Washington, my brief attention to him is to exemplify the enlightenment comparatively to Mr. Jefferson and, by inference, to other rationalists in the early American pantheon, such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.
CAUSES OF REVOLUTION
Revolutions often arise from a number of causes. Some start small, scarcely noticed at first by members in their own societies. The fall of the Berlin Wall caught everyone by surprise. What had started as a small group of Lutheran “refugees” fleeing to the West German embassy seeking asylum in the West, turned into an avalanche of East German migrants to the Berlin Wall, seeking the same “asylum” as had been granted to the Lutheran refugees. The rest is history: the gates opened, the wall came down, and the entire international order in existence since the Second World War ended, without a shot being fired.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 had different causes. As direct descendant in continuity with the Persian Empire of antiquity, and then followed up by the conquests of Muhammad’s successors and heirs—brought a new dimension to Persian Literature and culture—that of the version of Islam known as Shiism. With the dismemberment of the Turkish caliphate, Iran was increasingly encroached upon by Great Britain and France, (and later, the United States) to “modernize”. Despite attempted coups, the Shah of Iran set to work in 1953, introducing land reforms (nationalizing Shia properties) and otherwise tried to “westernize” his nation in order to make Iran “a great power”. The problem here is that neither the Shah, nor anyone in his government, nor multitudes of western advisors, consulted the Iranian people. All the economic indices, such as growth in oil revenues, and a growing professional class with abundant cash to fuel a consumer economy, seemed to indicate that ‘all manner of things were going well’. Nevertheless, the Revolution took place. Why did it happen? For years after the event, Western analysts seemed to be at a loss to point to any of the traditional causes usually attributable to revolutionary movements: widespread poverty, decreasing standards of living and purchasing power, loss of civil liberties with increasing suppression—as reason for revolution. Finally, it was concluded by a consensus of scholars that it was “the religious factor”. The consensus of academia at that time promoted a “learned repugnance” to religious explanations. Because of a common western bias to “separate religion from state”, they failed to be scholarly in interpreting events through the prism of an Iranian lens, which is Muslim, which means that separation of church and state is not an Islamic concept. Although visible prosperity was evident, the heavy-handed imposition of western ways in what was essentially an ancient, yet highly advanced, literate culture explains the Iranian Revolution.
The tale of two countries does not mean that religious explanations are necessarily antecedent, and therefore, sufficient causes of revolution. Oppression, starvation, persecution, and war itself, still is sufficiently compelling to explain most revolutions. As for the American colonies, it was a country that was already rich and relatively free of religious and political persecution, even by the standards of the mother country and other European powers. Oppression, starvation, and persecution were relatively unknown in the British colonies of North America. The sources of discontent were primarily the imposition of “burdensome” taxation; British attempts to block the organic growth of the “nation” westward; and the Crown’s interference in foreign trade to the detriment of the colonies.*****
***** In 1884, American Historian Francis Parkman described the results of the Seven Years War (1756-1763) as a war “more fruitful of grand results” than any other war up to that time—particularly for Great Britain. With the end of French rule in North America, Colonials could move westward in search of new lands, new sources of wealth, and new horizons, without fear of French and Indian reprisals. The Treaty of Paris (1763), in effect, became the first step toward the undoing of British rule over the American colonies.
ORIGIN OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY
It had long been custom in English common law to be guided by legal principles expressed in the form of maxims such as “the king can do no wrong”; “no man is bound to accuse himself”; and “no man ought to benefit from his own wrong.” These maxims did not merely arise from royal edicts and promulgations, but are the product of human and historical events – both in English history, and in antecedents pondered by the founding fathers.
Mr. Jefferson and other founders were well-aware that common law had roots in the ancient law of Republican Rome. Under the Republic all law approved by the Roman Senate took many forms – all considered ‘constitutional’. The ‘constitutionality’ of law was not a “basic law”, nor a basic set of principles stated in a document. Its forms manifested as decrees [court rulings], edicts [general orders], Epistulae [replies to official inquiries], subscriptions [replies to petitions]. By the third century, the term rescripts applied to replies both to petitions and to letters (Epistulae). Roman ‘constitutional’ Civil Law did not end with the Fall of the Roman Empire. It metamorphosed into becoming the inspiration and continuity for the law codes of Justinian, Charlemagne, and Alfred the Great, King of Wessex (England, r. 871-899).
Alfred the Great was not only a pioneer in the development of English law, but also the means of promoting the joint development of church and state. English religious belief, culture, and common law had its genesis in his reign, with what proved to be his most important innovation—the redirection of education from a classical, mostly Greek and Roman education for the few into the vernacular of his time: Middle English Anglo-Saxon, as education for the many. Through this turn of events, the voice of the English civilization became more of a vernacular society, rather than Latinate. Not just common law, but most of all—education, would be Alfred’s most radical innovation. Inspired by English churchmen such as Augustine of Canterbury and the Venerable Bede—Alfred and his successors would further education through the establishment of England’s first university during the medieval period at Oxford in 1096. Education would prove over time to be the principal source of religious awakenings, revivals, and the establishment of schools and colleges under religious auspices during the colonial period. The reasons that common law, education, and religious piety were the primary agents of revolutionary fervor, rather than abstract appeals to the rights of Man, will be the subject of a future post.
