Founding Fathers & Religion
From rich Tue Jan 17 11:12:41 1995
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From: Paul Rich <rich@udlapvms>
Subject: Founding Fathers & Religion (fwd)
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Paul Rich rich@rico.pue.udlap.mx
University of the Americas-Puebla
Sta. Catarina Martir A.P. 100
Cholula Puebla 72820
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From: RICK DYSON <DYSONF@scholar.wabash.edu>
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Subject: Founding Fathers & Religion
A discussion on H-Pol on the founding fathers & religion. Any
thoughts?
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There are 9 messages totalling 468 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. REPLY: FF & Religion
2. FROM THE MODERATOR: Posting to H-Pol
3. FYI: NCC Washington Update v. 1 #1
4. REPLY: Talk radio
5. NETSOURCES: "Thomas" & NPR gopher
6. REPLY: FF & religion (3)
7. REPLY: talk radio
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Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 07:04:55 -0600
From: H-Pol moderator Peter Knupfer <pknupfer@ksu.ksu.edu>
Subject: REPLY: FF & Religion
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Date: Sat, 14 Jan 1995 09:28:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: "E. Wayne Carp" <CARPW%PLU.edu@KSUVM.KSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: REPLY: FF & Religion
On Thu, 12 Jan 1995, RobForbes <garrison%minerva.cis.yale.edu> wrote:
> Wayne, don't you consider the authors of the state constitutions--the
> vast majority of which included "religious tests" for voting, jury service,
> etc.--to be founders?
Rob asks a good question, but I must answer "no." As Gordon Wood has
pointed out, the constitutional convention was called to combat the
"licentiousness" of the state legislatures. Many of the framers,
especially the most important one, Madison, viewed the Constitution as a
document that would control state legislators/the "people" from mucking up
local and national affairs. A good example of the distinction between the
FF and the people is the ratification of the Mass. Constitution of 1780.
Written by John Adams, it was rejected by the Mass. townspeople for
numerous reasons, the prominent one being a lack of a religious test for
holding office. Thus, I agree with your statement that Franklin
"and the others feared the consequences of an electorate that was at once
unenlightened and utterly skeptical." But the point I would emphasize is
that they didn't write their _personal_ beliefs into the Constitution. IMHO
religious belief is a private matter and even if the one believes that
"a _sine qua non_of civilized existence" is to believe in something outside
of oneself, the State under our Constitution should not enforce such a belief.
Yours,
E. Wayne Carp
carpw@plu.edu
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Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 12:16:56 -0600
From: H-Pol moderator Peter Knupfer <pknupfer@ksu.ksu.edu>
Subject: REPLY: FF & religion
************
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 10:51:21 -0600 (CST)
From: Stephen Smith <libertas%comp.uark.edu@KSUVM.KSU.EDU>
Without reposting the exchange between Rob Forbes and Wayne Carp on
religious tests, I have previously examined the issue in Pennsylvania.
There were serious disagreements about the content and appropriateness of
such oaths in republican governments in 1776, but by 1789 the support for
test oaths seems to have disappeared from the debate. For those who
cannot get enough on this archania, I shamelessly refer you to "Prelude
to Article VI" in 30 Free Speech Yearbook 1 (1992).
Stephen Smith
University of Arkansas
libertas@comp.uark.edu
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Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 12:17:46 -0600
From: H-Pol moderator Peter Knupfer <pknupfer@ksu.ksu.edu>
Subject: REPLY: FF & religion
*************
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 12:29 EST
From: SCHWEITZ%UCIS.VILL.EDU@KSUVM.KSU.EDU
Let me second Wayne Carp's comments about the FF, state constitutions,
and religion. The phrase "founding fathers" is not really helpful when
broadly defined, because it generally ends up in a sentence like
"the founding fathers believed ..." If the "founding fathers" were
taken literally to mean everyone who contributed to the carving out
of the new nation's institutional structure, it becomes meaningless
because THEY DIDN'T AGREE ON A WHOLE HECK OF A LOT!! You want to put
Patrick Henry and Alexander Hamilton in the same box? It is misleading,
because it implies a golden age of harmony in political life that never
existed. (and it's boring, too). As for state constitutions -- the
PA Constitution of 1776 kept getting brought up as a worst-case example;
what NOT to do. Many of the rationales for a bicameral legislature in
a society without a hereditary aristocracy came from the Pennsylvania
"Republicans", and were arguments they had come up with in an effort to
get the PA Constitution of 1776 repealed and replaced. As for religion,
that depended upon who you were and where you were.
I wish I could come up with some good quotes for you, but as I recall
the PA Quakers could be pretty good at skewering the notion that you have
to believe in a hereafter to be an honest, decent sort. You might try
John Dewey on the same subject. At any rate, the freedom of religion
clause has a dual basis, as I recall -- the PA thread, dating from Penn,
of live and let live (along with separation of religion from government;
God's way from man's way); and the VA thread, dating from the Baptist
struggles, of not wanting to have to cough up for an Anglican priest and
wishing to get local government extricated from the parish arrangement.
(Tho there were creative ways to get on the parish council while NOT being
Anglican, that didn't mean that all concerned wanted to get rid of the
connection between Anglicanism and local government.) The point to
emphasize here is that a great variety of arrangements and conceptualizations
existed at the time with regard to the proper relationship between
government and religion -- ranging from the "general unchurched", who were
all over the place, to the New Englanders, who still thought it proper
to attend an election day sermon before going out and voting.
-- Mary Schweitzer (schweitz@ucis.vill.edu)
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Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 15:47:27 -0600
From: H-Pol moderator Peter Knupfer <pknupfer@ksu.ksu.edu>
Subject: REPLY: FF & religion
*************
From: "G. L. Seligmann (AcadCore, x3399)" <GUS@cas.unt.edu>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 15:10:17 CST6CDT
There seems to me to be an internal inconsistency in Professor
Carp's argument which may weaken it somewhat. (Incidentally, I, like
Rob Forbes, have no problem with including more than Constitutional
Convention 55 under the appellation of Founding Fathers.)
I certainly agree with G. Wood, and damn near everybody else from
Charles A. Beard through Forrest McDonald, that the CC was called to
curb "licentiousness" at the state level. Carp's second example,
however, of the Mass. voters rejecting the Adams' constitution
because it DID NOT establish a religious qualification does seem to
me to be an example not of "licentiousness" but rather the exact
opposite. The Mass voters themselves seem to be disapproving of the
potential "licentiousness" which could be loosed on the body politic
by voters and leaders not solidly anchored, if I might pun, to the
Rock of Ages.
Clearly I do not disagree with Professor Carp on the necessity of
not writing individual beliefs into organic, or most any other, law
for that matter.
I also disagree with Forbes in that I think there were/are more
ways to get the sense of connectedness to a greater whatever than
only religion. See for example the new Harvard Press book on the
Founders and the Classics (not the exact title) by a Professor
Richards (I think, as I tell my graduate students always make your
citations accurate) where the author is arguing that the FFs saw
themselves as connected in important ways to the Classic world of
Greece and Rome. That is they did not have an atomistic view of
their place in world history. It seems to me that this aspect of the
18th century Enlightenment, of which the US govt. is a very real part,
was so dominant as to take the place in the minds of the FF of
organized religion. (Yes, I know the late M.E. Bradford would not
subscribe wholeheartedly to this substitution but that's only fair;
I don't buy everything he wrote either.)
That the FFs distrusted unchecked democracy is hardly debatable
at this point in time. What is debatable is the nature of the checks
that they wished to place upon it. Religion would certainly have
been one of them. (If I remember rightly Hamilton and certain of the
High Federalists wished a state religion. Please don't ask for a
citation here this is pure dredged up memory.) The kind of
connections to the Classic tradition that Richards? is discussing is
another. None of them worked quite the way many of the FFs wished
them to work.
I think Rob's lament, and it is one that I share with him, is
that we need something to restore to us some kind of connection to
the whole of our society. I agree with the Blessed Newt on very
little but I think he is close to target when he argues that we
cannot continue as a representative democracy with the sort of social
disintegration we see around us. In fact I would go even further and
into the realm of another current thread, that of radio shows, and
say that the meanspiritedness that I hear coming out of much of what
passes for citizen comment represents social disintegration at the
other end of the social spectrum. Can a republic long endure the
constant denigration of all of its leaders? It seems to me that our
equivalent of Plato's Noble Lie must be that our leaders mean well.
We are still free to disagree with specific actions but the constant
attacking of motives both by the right and the left does not augur
well for the future of representative deomcracy as I understand it.
End of sermon. If anyone is still reading they have clearly
demonstrated how they got through graduate school.
Gus Seligmann
gus@cas.unt.edu
******************
Moderator's Footnote (PBK): I think the book Gus is referring to is:
Richard, Carl J. _The founders and the classics : Greece, Rome, and the
American Enlightenment_ (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1994).
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End of H-POL Digest - 15 Jan 1995 to 16 Jan 1995
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