From my previous post on the American Revolution, I covered the nature of revolution itself. I treated this topic as consisting of two forms: first, a background of historical events that move in a lineage from a common ancestral ‘cell’ leading inexorably toward revolution, in which I discuss the nature of cause; and second, the praxis of historians in their evaluation of events that constitute an epoch, in which historians of revolution regards history as a mechanism of economic, natural, political, and social causes. Historians, as a rule, do not cover less tangible elements such as the unfolding of potentials found in phenomena ‘under the radar’ of visible society. The process of unfolding potentials invariably entails conflict in which hostile forces—of hierarchy, tradition, and identity—are opposed. These include sects, orders of the realm, divergences in character formation from families and schools, and samizdat-like dissemination of tracts and treatises.
Preconditions for revolution have their first stirrings arise when a set of circumstances under which what had been once accepted and considered tolerable reaches a point of no return that will no longer be tolerated, such as suspension of civil rights, government overreach, and military rule. The die is cast. The Rubicon has been crossed. Thus arises the necessary conditions that sufficiently impel peaceful townspeople and farmers to throw down their ploughshares and pick up the sword in rebellion against King and country. Before I attempt to identify the salient, i.e., more important, factors that laid the groundwork for revolution, I thought it proper to continue my evaluation of Thomas Jefferson from my last post, as an especial exemplar of enlightenment ideals. Also, I wish to elaborate the coextensive and differential viewpoints of Mr. Jefferson and of some of the other founding fathers and fellow philosophs—and their reasons therefor, which were, in many respects, unimportant and irrelevant to the artisans, laborers, and citizen-farmers that stirred revolutionary fervor that swept the colonies.
In my previous post Religious Background of an American Revolutionary, I had intended on entering into the mind and conscience of Thomas Jefferson, consulting many of his extant writings, reading contemporary accounts of those who knew him, and then turned to accounts by later historians written long after Jefferson’s passing. I also wanted to examine how his lifelong affiliation with Christianity and Deism furnished him a metaphysics of belief and morality, and whether he derived a guiding philosophy on the Nature of Man to rule himself and others.
As a man of many contradictions, I soon came to the conclusion that trying to reconcile a syncretic, inharmonious collection of articles of faith that would form coherently into Jefferson forming a comprehensive vision for God and Man may be chasing a will-o-the-wisp. In fact, it might be as hopeless a task as looking for a thread of consistency amongst a throng of Nobel Prize winners from the Americas, invited to dine with President Kennedy in 1962.
Although Jefferson did not explicitly express belief in the Christianity of the largest denominations of his time, (he would, later on, console himself to Unitarianism), there is still much evidence of spiritual and religious language underpinning his discourses on the politics and issues of his time. First, it should be noted that faith, belief, and arriving at personal convictions on Man and morality do not come from a flash of insight. Rather, one’s moral and political philosophy develops, or ‘unfolds’ over time. I prefer the use of the word unfolds, rather than “develop”, for the reasons discussed below.
DEVELOPMENT
Develop is one of the most over– (and misused) words in virtually every endeavor. And develop, when used in its cognate noun form—development—is invariably misappropriated and used without specifying what is being developed and why should it be developed. For example, in the concept known as economic development, the first question arises, a priori, is what latent potentialities already exist in the area or zone to be developed. The second question arises from the first: how can tapping into those potentialities actually realize some goal from developing these inherent potentials. And what follows from this is the all-important determination: what is the goal of economic development? For example, it may be to create jobs or generate tax revenues. But what kind of jobs and new sources of revenues? And finally, how does economic development complement and fit into an embedded framework of a larger whole, such as for an entire geographic region?
DEVELOPMENT AS UNFOLDING
Development, in the sense that I use the word, reflects the end result of a process of maturing and completion and realization of rudiments with the potentials that reflect some sort of fulfillment of a project. I propose in this essay to show the real causes of developing the conditions that lead to the revolution. It is commonly asserted that the “founding fathers”, i.e., extraordinary men of talent and rabble-rousing, were the principal agents of revolution. However, the founding fathers had all been educated by divines and the clergy in schools and colleges—almost all of which were established under religious auspices. Every American colony, except for Georgia, had constituted such schools—usually to train men for Christian ministry. Between the founding of the Virginia colony at Jamestown (1607), and the American Revolution (1775), several flagship colleges were founded: Columbia, Pennsylvania, and William & Mary (Anglican); Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth (Congregational); Princeton (Presbyterian); Brown (Baptist); and Rutgers (Dutch Reform).
Early in the colonial era, it was primarily Anglicans and the Puritans of New England that fostered schools and colleges informed by Christian piety and classical studies. Other religious groups, such as the Baptists and Quakers, moved to greener, freer pastures to practice their faith, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut in the former, and Pennsylvania in the latter. Lutheran settlers arriving from Germany and Dutch Reform settlers from The Netherlands founded communities in Pennsylvania and New York, respectively.
Due to a shortage of available clergy, many communities relied on their own resources. Many households had family bibles, passed down as family heirlooms. Anglican families found solace and comfort in the Book of Common Prayer. The most isolated families and communities relied on circuit preachers, usually Baptist and later, Methodists. After the witchcraft hysteria of the 1690s, Baptist preachers, and with the new century, the arrival of Methodism in the colonies, stirred a ruckus and fervor across the entire line of colonies stretching from New Hampshire to South Carolina. The Anglican and Puritan “old lights” gave way to the “new lights” of the eighteenth century—Baptists and Methodists—to preach a repentance of sin and emotional appeal to Salvation in Jesus Christ. This period of the 1730s and 1740s became known as the First Great Awakening, the aftereffects of which saw a steady increase in church membership right on up to Lexington and Concord. By this time, the Baptist and Methodist denominations had grown into the largest denominations in the colonies.
Before I discuss what unfolded during these times, a few final words on develop. It is derived from the French developer, (to wrap around, unwrap, wrap; envelop). To develop something entails reliance on externals; wrapping or enveloping means to add or enhance something to make it more interesting.
Only internal characteristics or qualities emerge from internal processes. This is the unfolding of inner potentialities that fruition into characteristics and qualities that take form to the visible eye.
PROCESS OF UNFOLDING
What emerged in the colonies was an unfolding of internal potentialities. The potency of Christianity’s influence that kept growing through the eighteenth century was a process of unfolding of attributes and qualities “hidden in the depths’ that needed to be revealed in God’s good time. This Christian ‘process’ is neither evolutionary nor progressive. To return briefly to the concept of development, for an ‘underdeveloped’ country to become a developed country, change is experienced as a ‘gradual unfolding of internal potentialities’ within societies or civilizations, in order to realize their potentialities. Development means the unfolding of what is already there. Economic development, as applied to urban zones in American cities, or as the goal of a foreign aid package, is a sham, unless the undeveloped or underdeveloped society has a preexisting moral foundation to build upon. This is truly what is needed to attain sustainable development or revolutionary change.
Christianity consists of institutional bodies organized to evangelize and perform charitable works. To carry out this mission, churches engage in preaching and teaching congregations to develop virtue in order to reveal qualities of character. For self-rule to become reality, there must be a moral foundation to individual freedom and democratic institutions. When a people become cognizant of their potential for independence and self-rule, their values and unique sense of destiny unfolds and evolves over time that converge into an essentialist ideology. The essentialism of a people results from a unique set of circumstances. “Packaged” revolution is not exportable. Peoples cannot simply adopt the essence of another civilization. Every people must chart their own “roads to revolution”, basing their revolt upon embedded values and potentials already inherent in their own societies.
COLONIAL CIRCUMSTANCES—TAXES, TRIBUTE, TYRANNY
With the Treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years War (1756-1763), both victor (Great Britain) and vanquished (France) incurred heavy debts from fighting a worldwide war spread across five continents. The debts had to be ‘serviced’ and honored. Great Britain, without consulting the American Colonies, decided to ‘conscript’ the colonies to pay for the recent war with France over the possession of North America. Thus, the British Crown decided to tax ‘essentials’ such as tea and legal documents, i.e., the Stamp Act. There is a consensus among historians that taxation on these and other essentials upon population suffering from the effects of a long war were, indeed, burdensome.* This had no precedence in the colonial era.
*The ancient Roman Republic exacted a tributum (a ‘tribute’ tax) during wartime to pay for war. When peace arrived, the tributum was suspended. Subsequent payments would be paid from publican and other peacetime revenue sources.
‘Tyrannical’ tactics used to enforce compliance with the crown’s demands, i.e., shooting unarmed protestors, replacing colonial officials with royal appointees, direct military rule, went from burdensome to intolerable. Colonials, knowing their Bible, did not oppose “giving unto Caesar”. Rather, they opposed a heavy-handed tyrant overruling a local self-governing people used to operating in a cooperative venture with King and Crown.
SOURCES OF ENLIGHTENMENT
One thing that was common among the colonial classes consisting of both rulers and ruled was not a common language, nor common political and economic interests, nor even common attitudes toward the crown. Rather, it had to do with religion, and neither politics nor economics. Religion is not subordinate to politics, economics, or even philosophy. But rather religion, understood as a moral, spiritual character, and not as institutionalized religion ritual and law, informs politics, and through it all forms of culture and economy.
The life of a colonial, revolutionary or otherwise, is like a multilayered palimpsest in which revolutionary convictions and fervor form only the surface layer of a ‘manuscript’ written on top of an original Christian formation. That earlier writing had been effaced to make room for new revolutionary writing, with traces of the old Christian writing remaining that can still be seen.
On the matters of language and ‘interests’, although English was predominant, French, German, Dutch, Swedish and other Germanic languages could be heard up and down the eastern seaboard. Artisans, craftsmen, laborers, farmers, and an aristocracy of plantations, lawyers, and possessors of capital found little agreement in matters of common political and economic interests. Nor was there much of a preexisting disposition for severing relations with Great Britain. Sentiment for revolutionary agitation was small and limited to mostly seaboard communities. In fact, according to most historians, if a poll could have sampled colonials on their penchant for revolution, the entire colonial population could be divided into “thirds”: about one-third in favor of revolution; about one-third loyal to the crown, and the remaining third were ‘undecided’ or biding their time before taking sides. It was as much a civil war as a revolutionary one.
They all had been formed under the moral instruction to be found in the Bible, in church affiliation, and from classical works such as Plutarchs’ Lives of Roman statesmen for models of virtue and character. Religion, when supplemented with fervor, was the glue that brought together artisan and aristocrat. As mentioned above, several of America’s heralded colleges and ivy-league institutions had their beginnings during this period. Several other ‘colleges, schools, and academies’ lesser known, but still extant, were established in this period—almost all under denominational auspices. One interesting observation is that two of the ‘schools’ were established by the Moravian Church: The first was Bethlehem Female Seminary in the Province of Pennsylvania (1742); the second was the Little Girls’ School (later Salem College) in the Province of North Carolina (1772). These two schools shine a light on the woman’s role in the colonies to evangelize societies, without which, no doubt, many ‘sinners’ were ‘saved’ and ‘redeemed from sin’.
By the time that the “shot that was heard all over the world” (April 19, 1775), Christianity was thoroughly embedded in the marrow of Colonial America. Beginning with Paul Revere’s warning of the coming Redcoats to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, the common fund of Christianity in the colonies included not just the Protestant groups already mentioned above, but also Roman Catholics, Deists, Huguenots, and assorted theists of many stripes and colors.**
** Placing several of the founding fathers in discrete categories may be akin to trying to locate, in space and time, the position and trajectory of protons and neutrons spinning about a nucleus. Most of the rational Deists, theists, “unchurched” laymen—and even Freemasons—all considered themselves, to some degree, Christian.
ORIGIN OF AUTHORITY
Political authority, it is said, is derived from the consent of the governed. But how (and why) is it that a people consent to be subject to the rule of a legitimate authority?
In consenting to a governing or religious authority, one assents to a series of propositions; another may accede or acquiesce to the recognized authority of a magisterium or the temporal order; and still others may follow a set of precepts usually laid out in a sacred text or statutory enactment. Both governing and religious authority derive their authority from either of two sources that are deductive in nature.
Governing authority is derived from sources that ‘constitute’ [i.e., constitution] the basic and first law of the realm. It includes all that is written down as a statutory enactment of a law-making body; and all law that derives from statute, namely, those entities that construe and interpret the meaning and application of those statutes. Those entities are in either of two forms: an edict or executive order by the principal governing official, usually a monarch, emperor, or duly-elected chief executive; or judicial decisions that adjudicate contested issues of law between parties in a courtroom proceeding.
Religious authority derives from written sources that contain the essentials of an established creed, i.e., that is required and cannot be omitted. It begins with a ‘founder’ that is a teacher, who lays out principles in the form of maxims. The founder gathers disciples and followers. Sacred writings unfold the essence of the teaching in written accounts from oral tradition, and later recorded as bindingly authoritative in the canon of scripture.
Law and religion are two forms of consent that obtain in relationships. With law, the relation is one of ruler to subject. Personal relationships do not exist. Relationships become contractual: an impersonal, abstract, deracinated connection with rulers and individuals in a mass society.
In the case of religion, relationships are organic, meaning, they are personal and fit within man’s nature. It is not artificial or a contrivance. There are bonds of affection that arise from a vertical orientation that may be expressed as the Wholly Other to sinner; or as God’s covenant with a community of believers.
NOMINAL BELIEF VERSUS REAL BELIEF
To the degree that a person self-identifies as a Christian depends to a large extent upon a number of factors where one would conclude that that person was sincere in his belief. With the “artisan class”, membership and church rolls for parishes and congregations is sufficient evidence of subscription to a common set of Christian precepts. Since there is not much evidence in terms of individual testimonies of belief from the artisan class, historians can still find documentation through recorded baptisms, marriages, and burials in sacred ground that serve as evidence of “real”*** belief.
***See my earlier post Towards a More Perfect Union: Two Views of Church and State, that discusses the differences between nominalism (names) and realism (reality, actuality) and their signification in religious and political contexts.
With respect to the founding fathers, there is more than ample documentation that would indicate religious fervor, intensity of church involvement, and recorded testimonies of their subscription to core doctrines of Christianity, such as the Trinity, Revelation, the Resurrection, miracles, and supernatural events unexplainable by Reason.
The common understanding of the Revolutionary fathers is that they believed in a “God” of Reason that could fully account for scriptural events involving miracles and the supernatural. This view, of a de-supernaturalized Biblical account of events would come to be known as Deism.
Before pivoting to a fuller discussion of Deists and their beliefs, a few matters to mention about its importance and prevalence in the Colonies. The artisan class and much of the aristocracy held conventional beliefs of the Christianity of their day. They, for the most part, had no desire to abandon religious “superstition” to become Men of Reason under the aegis of deism.
For a small “Illuminati”, Deism was less a matter of doctrinal statements, but more of a philosophic epistemology that claims to comprehend God as rationality itself, and emphasizes reason over and against revelation. Reason, the Enlightenment God, is a stark god, a Sartre-an “useless passion”, a meaningless abstraction, a nothingness at the heart of existence. Moreover, by exalting the virtue of liberty above all, the founding fathers left no record of specifying liberty for what ends or purposes. Deism lacks a teleological outlook. There is no “good” specified—neither a common good, nor the characteristics that constitute a good life—without which democracy cannot help but fall into tyranny.
DEISM
All Deism, like Gaul itself at the time of Caesar, is divided into three parts. One of which lived their lives as orthodox Christians; another as professed Christians who did not observe the rites and rituals of Christianity, such as “taking” communion; they are denominated as Non-Orthodox—or Deist Christians; and the third group, who spoke the language of the Enlightenment—Reason, in reference to the “Supreme Judge of the World, Divine Providence,” etc.—they called themselves Deists.
Many of the hallmarks of the Christian life, such as receiving Baptism, being listed on church rolls, getting married to practicing Christians, and attending services—were observed by most of the Revolutionary founders, as visible signs to outside observers of being “orthodox” Christians. Some went “further” in expressing their belief through active participation in “Awakenings”, Bible societies, circuit preaching, and as authors of pious tracts.
Other founders limited their involvement to strictly formal matters. Colonial churches not only had a religious dimension but also served social and political functions, as well. But mere church attendance, or service in a governing body (such as being an Anglican vestry—which was a state office in the colonies of Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia) is neither necessary nor sufficient to be considered an orthodox Christian. These are Non-Orthodox, or Deist Christians.
Those founders considered Deist would have valued Reason über alles (Reason above all), and would not have participated in communion, confirmation, consecrations, or other ordinances or sacraments of the church. Deists, along with materialists, shared the belief in the transcendence of Reason, and the inevitability of intellectual and moral progress, even though there was nothing in their premises to warrant such assumptions. Nor did Deists read the Bible, pray, attend church, or participate in any Christian rites. They invented their own version of Christianity—rejecting Revelation, the Trinity, miracles, “priestcraft”, and the supernatural. What was left of their version of God is a distant God, a mechanical clockwork God that had all the passion of a machine, without any interest in the affairs of humankind. Deism is a man’s religion, without the female or family element.
Another telltale sign of religious conviction is to note the language used in their reference to God. Founders that used the language of Christian piety, such as “Savior,” “Redeemer,” or “Resurrected Christ” were probably non-Deistic Christian adherents. Men who considered themselves pious Christians, and yet abided in a living God that can be known only through the faculty of Reason likely were Deists. These “Christian Deists” avoided the use of terminology associated with ‘persons’ in reference to God. Their “God” was not necessarily a personal God, but a collection of attributes or qualities, such as “Merciful Providence” or “Divine Goodness.” Non-Christian Deists did not use Christian terminology at all, such as goodness or mercy; rather they understood “God” as “He” is manifested in nature and through reason. They took to describing God as “Providence,” “the Creator,” “the Ruler of Great Events,” and “Nature’s God.” Anything that would smack of dogma or mystery to validate belief was rejected.
From reviewing testimonies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, and other well-known participants in the Revolutionary conflict that rejected Christianity and is on record as holding Deist views, include Gouverneur Morris, Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin. I omitted several ‘suspected’ of sola Deism, or ‘Deism alone.’ George Washington, a freemason and one known to have never taken communion, nevertheless considered himself a Christian of the Anglican persuasion. Others include John Jay (who served as president of the American Bible Society); and Patrick Henry (who distributed religious tracts riding lawyer circuit). There are several more I could mention, but for the sake of brevity, I will leave it there.
RECAPITULATION AND CLOSING THOUGHTS
Although the Deist version of religious thought appears to have ‘won out’ as the consensus of historians, many questions remain. The notion of a mechanical, clockwork universe does not meet the test of a people willing to fight and die for a worthy cause in order to be free from burdensome taxation and trade restrictions. That is not the stuff of which revolutions are made. When a people subject themselves to endure trials and sufferings in a long conflict that lasted for six years, it must be for reasons other than denial of the trinity and the freedom to discover the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. Few men are willing to fight and possibly die for a conjecture, hypothesis, or opinion. He fights, according to GK Chesterton, not a visible enemy in front, but to defend all that is behind him—hearth, homestead, and his ‘household gods.’ He fights for realities. He will die for those realities.
Enlightenment ideas do not have the performative power to serve as a foundational metaphysics. The ‘reasoned’ laws of Newton and the ‘experience’ of Locke is not a matter of first principles that most colonials would fuss about. They would not serve as a ground for belief and conviction. As for Reason itself, Pascal wagered that the heart has reasons that reason cannot arrive at. Reason, as such, does not really prove anything; it only enables us to join issue with others; suggests ideas; opens viewpoints; maps out lines of thought; or determines when differences of opinion are hopeless.
It was Christianity, not reason, that enabled a multitude of farmers and artisans to withstand a long conflict, rather than the rationalism of Kant or the skepticism of Hume. Congregations, awakenings, schools, and circuit riders preached hope, fostering a sustainable fortitude in a pious people to endure a long war. All, and more than all, it was reading and studying (the Bible, Book of Common Prayer, religious tracts by divines and textuaries) that formed a people in the ways of ordered freedom.
