Introduction by Kelly Gneiting
Should you suddenly appear in 1776 Philadelphia on the corner of Front & Oak Street, what would you observe? To be more specific, what would be the social climate of the residents of America’s capital?
Would pornography be readily available? Would leaders shun the Ten Commandments? Would a school teacher use the Rainbow Curriculum to teach innocent children how to have anal intercourse?
Would children be refrained from singing Christmas Carols because of lines like “O Come Let Us Adore Him”? Would public prayer be criticized? Would Americans popularize and glamorize those who flaunt their illicit relationships? Would government instigate school programs to hand out condoms to 13-year-olds? Would 1776 music call for the murder of policemen, or talk about virgins being touched for the very first time? Would the federal government allow an endowment for the Arts to paint a picture of Jesus Christ in a glass of urine? …at taxpayer expense?
Would prostitutes sell their memoirs on national television? Would an American president tell American citizens it’s none of their business whether he violated his marriage vows? Would parents be told they have no say if their teenage daughter wants an abortion?
Alexis De Tocqueville describes an America where honor, fidelity, loyalty, and religion are popular in the streets, as well as in the churches. Says he:
“Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; … I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion — for who can search the human heart? — but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.” 14… There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and debasement; while in America, one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, the people fulfill with fervor all the outward duties of religion.” 15
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).
I sometimes long to be there, in 1776 Philadelphia… on the corner of Front and Oak Street..
From Cleon Skousen’s The Making of America pp: 675-681
Americans of the twentieth century often fail to realize the supreme importance which the Founding Fathers originally attached to the role of religion in the unique experiment which they hoped would emerge as the first civilization of a free people in modern times. Many Americans also fail to realize that the Founders felt the role of religion would be as important in our own day as it was in theirs.
In 1787, the very year the Constitution was written by the Convention and approved by Congress, that same body of Congress passed the famous Northwest Ordinance. In it they outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory. They also enunciated the basic rights of citizens in language similar to that which was later incorporated in the Bill of Rights. And they emphasized the essential need to teach religion and morality in the schools. Here is the way they said it:
“Article 3: Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” 3
Notice that formal education was to include among its teaching responsibilities these three important subjects:
1. Religion, which might be defined as “a fundamental system of beliefs concerning man’s origin and relationship to the Creator, the cosmic universe, and his relationship with his fellowmen.”
2. Morality, which may be described as “a standard of behavior distinguishing right from wrong.”
3. Knowledge, which is “an intellectual awareness and understanding of established facts relating to any field of human experience or inquiry, i.e., history, geography, science, etc.” 4
We also notice that “religion and morality” were not required by the Founders as merely an intellectual exercise, but they positively declared their conviction that these were essential ingredients needed for “good government and the happiness of mankind.”
Washington Describes the Founders’ Position
The position set forth in the Northwest Ordinance was reemphasized by President George Washington in his Farewell Address. He wrote:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports….
“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion…. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle.
“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” 5
The Teaching of Religion in Schools Restricted to Universal Fundamentals
Having established that “religion” is the foundation of morality and that both are essential to “good government and the happiness of mankind,” the Founders then set about to exclude the creeds and biases or dissensions of individual denominations so as to make the teaching of religion a unifying cultural adhesive rather than a divisive apparatus.
Jefferson wrote a bill for the “Establishing of Elementary Schools” in Virginia and made this point clear by stating:
“No religious reading, instruction or exercise shall be prescribed or practiced inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.” 6
Obviously, under such restrictions the only religious tenets to be taught in public schools would have to be those which were universally accepted by all faiths and completely fundamental to their premises.
Franklin Describes the Five Fundamentals of “All Sound Religions”
Several of the Founders have left us with a description of their basic religious beliefs, and Benjamin Franklin summarized those which he felt were the “fundamental points in all sound religion.” This is the way he said it in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University:
“Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion.” 7
The “Fundamental Points” to Be Taught in the Schools
The five points of fundamental religious belief which are to be found in all of the principal religions of the world are those expressed or implied in Franklin’s statement:
1. Recognition and worship of a Creator who made all things
2. That the Creator has revealed a moral code of behavior for happy living which distinguishes right from wrong.
3. That the Creator holds mankind responsible for the way they treat each other
4. That all mankind live beyond this life.
5. That in the next life individuals are judged for their conduct in this one.
All five of these tenets run through practically all of the Founders’ writings. These are the beliefs which the Founders sometimes referred to as the “religion of America,” and they felt these fundamentals were so important in providing “good government and the happiness of mankind” that they wanted them taught in the public schools along with morality and knowledge.
Statements of the Founders Concerning These Principles
Samuel Adams said these basic beliefs which constitute “the religion of America [are] the religion of all mankind.” 8 In other words, these fundamental beliefs belong to all world faiths and could therefore be taught without being offensive to any “sect or denomination,” as indicated in the Virginia bill establishing elementary schools.
John Adams called these tenets the “general principles” on which the American civilization had been founded. 9
Thomas Jefferson called these basic beliefs the principles “in which God has united us all.” 10
From these statements it is obvious how significantly the Founders looked upon the fundamental precepts of religion and morality as the cornerstones of a free government. This gives additional importance to the warning of Washington, previously mentioned, when he said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?” 11
Washington issued this solemn warning because in France, shortly before Washington wrote his Farewell Address (1796), the promoters of atheism and amorality had seized control and turned the French Revolution into a shocking bloodbath of wild excesses and violence. Washington never wanted anything like that to happen in the United States. Therefore he had said: “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness [religion and morality].” 12
Alexis de Tocqueville Discovers the Importance of Religion in America
When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in 1831 he became so impressed with what he saw that he went home and wrote Democracy in America, one of the most definitive studies on the American culture and constitutional system that had been published up to that time. Concerning religion in America, de Tocqueville said:
“On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.” 13
He described the situation as follows:
“Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; … I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion — for who can search the human heart? — but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.” 14
European Philosophers Turned Out to Be Wrong
In Europe it had been popular to teach that religion and liberty were inimical to each other. De Tocqueville saw the opposite happening in America. He wrote:
“The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained in a very simple manner the gradual decay of religious faith. Religious zeal, said they, must necessarily fail the more generally liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately the facts by no means accord with their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and debasement; while in America, one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, the people fulfill with fervor all the outward duties of religion.” 15
De Tocqueville Describes the Role of Religion in the Schools
De Tocqueville found that the schools, especially in New England, incorporated the basic tenets of religion right along with history and political science in order to prepare the student for adult life. He wrote:
“In New England every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of the Constitution. In the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.” 16
De Tocqueville Describes the Role of the American Clergy
Alexis de Tocqueville saw a unique quality of cohesive strength emanating from the clergy of the various churches in America. After noting that all the clergy seemed anxious to maintain “separation of church and state,” he nevertheless observed that collectively they had a great influence on the morals and customs of public life. This indirectly reflected itself in formulating laws and, ultimately, in fixing the moral and political climate of the American commonwealth. As a result, he wrote:
“This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done the station which the American clergy occupy in political society. I learned with surprise that they filled no public appointments; I did not see one of them in the administration, and they are not even represented in the legislative assemblies.” 17
How different this was from Europe, where the clergy belonged to a national church, subsidized by the government. He wrote:
“The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a [political] party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are the allies of government.” 18
In America, he noted, the clergy remain politically separated from the government but nevertheless provide a moral stability among the people which permits the government to prosper. In other words, there is a separation of church and state but not a separation of religion and state.
The Clergy Fuel the Flame of Freedom, Stress Morality, and Alert the Citizenry to Dangerous Trends
The role of the churches to perpetuate the social and political culture of the United States provoked the following comment from de Tocqueville:
“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other….
“I have known of societies formed by Americans to send out ministers of the Gospel into the new Western states, to found schools and church there, lest religion should be allowed to die away in those remote settlements, and the rising states be less fitted to enjoy free institutions than the people from whom they came.” 19
De Tocqueville discovered that while clergymen felt it would be demeaning to their profession to become involved in partisan politics, they nevertheless believed implicitly in their duty to keep religious principles and moral values flowing out to the people as the best safeguard for America’s freedom and political security.
In one of de Tocqueville’s most frequently quoted passages, he wrote:
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” 20
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Footnote references for pp. 675-681 of The Making of America
3. Adler et al., The Annals of America, 3:194-95
4. W. Cleon Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap: Twenty-eight Ideas That changed the World (Salt Lake City: Freemen Institute, 1981), p. 76.
5. Adler et al., The Annals of America, 3:612.
6. John William Randolph, ed., Early History of the University of Virginia, as Contained in the Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell (Richmond: 1856), pp. 96-97.
7. Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 10:84.
8. Wells, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, 3:23.
9. See Bergh, 13:290-94.
10. Ibid., 14:198.
11. Adler et al., The Annals of America, 3:612
12. Ibid.
13 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1:319.
14. Ibid,. p. 316.
15. Ibid., p. 319.
16. Ibid., p. 327.
17. Ibid., p. 320.
18. Ibid., p. 325; emphasis added.
19. Ibid., p. 317.
20. Quoted in Ezra Taft Benson, God, Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1975), p. 360.