Were America's Founders Deists?

By Brannon Howse

Joseph Story served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1811 to 1845, and in his commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, he wrote:

Now, there will probably be found few persons in this, or any other Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that it was unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of revealed truth. In fact, every American colony, from its foundation down to the revolution, with the exception of Rhode Island, (If, indeed that state be an exception,) did openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of its fundamental doctrines. And this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period, without the slightest suspicion, that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty.13

The reason Story mentions that some think Rhode Island should be an exception is that, in considering the place of the Ten Commandments in their system of law, “Rhode Island adopted the last six of the Commandments, but not the first four.”14

The strategy of secular humanists is simple: If you say something often enough, people tend to believe it. So, in various forms, they repeat the myth that America’s Founders held to a secular, deistic worldview.

Deists generally do not believe the Bible is a book of supernaturally revealed truth from God to man. They also tend to believe God created the world and then “walked away”; the logical conclusion being that God does not govern in the affairs of men. So, knowing whether or not the Founders were deists is significant.

Dr. M. E. Bradford of the University of Dallas conducted a study of the Founders to look at this very important question. He discovered the Founders were members of denominations as follows: twenty-eight Episcopalians, eight Presbyterians, seven Congregationalists, two Lutherans, two Dutch Reformed, two Methodists, two Roman Catholics, and three deists.15

Notice Dr. Bradford’s study found that only three out of fifty-five Founders were possibly deists. These are Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. Hugh Williamson, though, was licensed to preach by the Presbyterian Church, which makes it questionable just how serious a deist he really was.

Benjamin Franklin clearly was a deist as a young man, but he later became disenchanted with deism. While Franklin probably never became a Christian in the orthodox sense, he came a long way from deism in his eighty-four years.16 At the Great Convention it was Franklin who called for prayer, declaring that “God governs in the affairs of men.”17 (Remember, according to deism, God does not so intervene.)

Consider also this comment from Founder Noah Webster, author of Webster’s Dictionary, who believed the rejection of a Christian worldview was at the root of all evil: “All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”18

Benjamin Rush, who helped found five schools and universities, wrote in 1791 about educational policy in which he discussed the danger of removing the Bible from America’s schools: “In contemplating the political institutions of the United States, [if we remove the Bible from schools,] I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them.”19

Dr. Rush believed the best way to make sure our children become good citizens is to teach them to be good Christians by teaching them the Bible: “We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican form of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism.”20 He even lists specific reasons for using the Bible as a textbook in America’s schools:

Before I state my arguments in favor of teaching children to read by means of the Bible, I shall assume the five following propositions:

I:    That Christianity is the only true and perfect religion, and that in proportion as mankind adopts its principles and obeys its precepts, they will be wise and happy;

II:    That a better knowledge of this religion is to be acquired by reading the Bible than in any other way;

III:   That the Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world;

IV:  That knowledge is most durable and religious instruction most useful when imparted in early life; and

V:   that the Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life.21

Robert Winthrop served as speaker of the House of Representatives and mentored Daniel Webster. Winthrop declared that when Christianity is practiced there is little need for stringent government; but if the Christian worldview were rejected, crime would increase and governmental force become more necessary. As a result, Americans would have less freedom:

All societies must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent state government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. People, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet. It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the state supporting religion. Here, under our free institutions, it is religion which must support the state.22

President George Washington believed that it was impossible for a nation to be moral without religion: “[L]et us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds, . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.”²³

Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of Princeton University (1768–76), so believed in the congruence of God and country that anyone who was not on the side of God was an enemy of America: “[H]e is the best friend to American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not [do not hesitate] to call him an enemy to his country.”²⁴

Founding Father Fisher Ames was responsible for the final wording of the First Amendment as passed by the House. And how did Ames feel about Christianity in America’s schools? He was concerned that—even in his day—the Bible was taking a backseat to new textbooks: “Why then, if these books for children must be retained, as they will be, should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure; its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long, and probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.”²⁵

Even early outside observers could readily see the impact of Christianity on our country. Alexis de Tocqueville traveled from France to America to find out what made America great. Tocqueville shared his observations in his book, The Republic of the United States (sadly, the title of recent editions has been changed to Democracy in America). Tocqueville writes, “Upon 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 did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things to which I was unaccustomed. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursing courses diametrically opposed to each other. But in America, I found that they were intimately united, they reigned in common over the same country.”²⁶ Tocqueville did not perceive a separation between America’s Christian religion and its institutions: “Religion in America . . . must . . . be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country.”²⁷

Even into the middle of the nineteenth century, our leaders understood the inviolable connection between America’s faith and its governing principles. On March 27, 1854, the U.S. Congress released a report stating, “Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect. . . . In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity. . . . That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expect it to remain the religion of their descendants.”²⁸ And two months later the U.S. Congress again declared, “The great, vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people, in the pure doctrines and the divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”<sup>29

Footnotes:</sup>

13 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 3rd ed. (Boston, 1858).

14 See Alvin W. Johnson, Sunday Legislation, 23 KY. L.J. 131 n. (1934–35). Sited by William J. Federer, The Ten Commandments and Their Influence on American Law (St. Louis, MO: Amerisearch, Inc., 2003), 15.

15 M. E. Bradford, A Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution (Marlborough, NH: Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1982), iv–v.

16 John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 44.

17 Ibid.

18 Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), 339.

19 Benjamin Rush, “A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a School Book,” Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 112; addressed to the Rev. Jeremy Belknap of Boston.

20 Ibid., 93–113.

21 Ibid.

22 David Barton, “Either by the Bible or the Bayonet,” Education and the Founding Fathers, quoting Robert Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co. 1852), 172.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., 324–25, quoting John Witherspoon, The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, vol. 3 (Philadelphia: William W. Woodward, 1802), 46.

25 Fisher Ames, Notices of the Life and Character of Fisher Ames (Boston: T.B. Wait & Co., 1809), 134–35.

26 Alexis de Tocqueville, The Republic of the United States of America and Its Political Institutions, Reviewed and Examined, Henry Reeves, trans., vol. 1 (New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1851), 337.

27 Ibid., 334.

28 David Barton, The Spirit of the American Revolution (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilders Press, 2000), 21, quoting Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives Made during the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress (Washington: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1854), 6–9.

29 Ibid., quoting B. F. Morris, The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864), 328.

By Brannon Howse Email: Brannon@worldviewweekend.com Click here for bio and archived articles