24 Ibid., vol. 34, 1-16-1795. To Eleanor Parke Custis. [Dear Nelly:] Your letter, the receipt of which I am now acknowledging, is written correctly and in fair characters, which is an evidence that you command, when you please, a fair hand. Possessed of these advantages, it will be your own fault if you do not avail yourself of them, and attention being paid to the choice of your subjects, you can have nothing to fear from the malignancy of criticism, as your ideas are lively, and your descriptions agreeable. Let me touch a little now on your Georgetown ball, and happy, thrice happy, for the fair who were assembled on the occasion, that there was a man to spare; for had there been 79 ladies and only 78 gentlemen, there might, in the course of the evening, have been some disorder among.the caps; notwithstanding the apathy which one of the company entertains for the “ youth “ of the present day, and her determination “never to give herself a moment’s uneasiness on account of any of them.” A hint here; men and women feel the same inclinations to each other now that they always have done, and which they will continue to do until there is a new order of things, and you, as others have done, may find, perhaps, that the passions of your sex are easier raised than allayed. Do not therefore boast too soon or too strongly of your insensibility to, or resistance of, its powers. In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time, and like an intimate acquaintance of yours, when the torch is put to it, that which is within you may burst into a blaze; for which reason and especially too, as I have entered upon the chapter of advices, I will read you a lecture drawn from this text.
Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore, contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for like all things else, when nourishes and supplied plentifully with ailment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth. For example, a woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and accomplished, will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her marry, and what is the consequence? The madness ceases and all is quiet again. Why? not because there is any diminution in the charms of the lady, but because there is an end of hope. Hence it follows, that love may and therefore ought to be under the guidance of reason, for although we cannot avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place them under guard; and my motives for treating on this subject are to show you, while you remain Eleanor Parke Custis, spinster, and retain the resolution to love with moderation, the propriety of adhering to the latter resolution, at least until you have secured your game, and the way by which it may be accomplished.
“When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm, propound these questions to it. Who is this invader? Have I a competent knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character; a man of sense? For, be assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool? What has been his walk in life? Is he a gambler, a spendthrift, or drunkard? Is his fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner I have been accustomed to live, and my sisters do live, and is he one to whom my friends can have no reasonable objection? If these interrogatories can be satisfactorily answered, there will remain but one more to be asked, that, however, is an important one. Have I sufficient ground to conclude that his affections are engaged by me? Without this the heart of sensibility will struggle against a passion that is not reciprocated; delicacy, custom, or call it by what epithet you will, having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration, without the most indirect invitation of yours, must proceed from the man, to render it permanent and valuable, and nothing short of good sense and an easy unaffected conduct can draw the line between prudery and coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say, that it rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette dies in celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others, by encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected.
“This day, according to our information, gives a husband to your elder sister, and consummates, it is to be presumed, her fondest desires. The dawn with us is bright, and propitious, I hope, of her future happiness, for a full measure of which she and Mr. Law have my earnest wishes. Compliments and congratulations on this occasion, and best regards are presented to your mamma, Dr. Stuart and family; and every blessing, among which a good husband when you want and deserve one, is bestowed on you by yours, affectionately.”
25 WGW, vol. 2, 9-12-1758. To Sally Cary Fairfax.
26 Francis Rufus Bellamy, The Private Life of George Washington, (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1951), p.53.
27 Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man, pp. 17-18.
28 WGW, vol. 11, 5-29-1778.
29 Ibid., vol. 12, 9-1-1778.
30 Ibid., vol. 10, 1-28-1778.
31 Ibid., vol. 11, 4-21-1778.
32 Ibid., vol. 24, 7-10-1782.
33 Ibid., vol. 28, 8-1-1786.
34 Ibid., vol., 36, 12-4-1797.
35 Ibid., vol. 28, 5-18-1786.
36 Francis Rufus Bellamy, The Private Life of George Washington (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1951), pp.53-54.
37 See WGW, vol. 3, 1-29-1774. Cf. John Corbin, The Unknown Washington, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), pp. 43-44.
38 There is ambiguity surrounding the authenticity of this phrase in the Treaty. In Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United Sates of America 1776-1949, ed. Charles I. Bevans (Washington: Dept. Of State), vol. 11:1070, n. 3, one reads, “This translation from the Arabic by Joel Barlow, Consul General at Algiers, has been printed in all official and unofficial treaty collections since it first appeared in 1797 in the Session Laws of the Fifth Congress, first session. In a ‘Note Regarding the Barlow Translation’ Hunter miller stated: ‘. . .Most extraordinary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article 11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase, “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” Does not exist at all. There is no Article 11. The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.’”
39 Cf. Boller: Washington & Religion, p. 87-88; John Eidsmoe’s Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987), p. 413-15; Gary DeMar, America’s Christian History: The Untold Story (Atlanta: American Vision Inc., 1995), p. 131-42. It is a myth because Washington did not sign this treaty, since he was not president when it was ratified. John Adams was the president that signed it into law on June 10, 1797. It was superseded on April 17, 1806. Leo Pfeffer, Church, State and Freedom (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953), p. 211 points out that following the war with Tripoli in 1801, the subsequent Treaty of 1806 during the Jefferson administration does not use this phrase again. This appears ironic given Jefferson’s penchant for deistic thought.
40 See the following all written after Boller’s 1963 study who continue to attribute this remark to Washington: Ernest Campbell Mossner, “Deism,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards, 8 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 2:334; Norman L. Geisler, Is Man the Measure: An Evaluation of Contemporary Humanism (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), p. 124-25; Mike Horton, The Horses’s Mouth (April, 1994), p. 1-2.
41 Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United Sates of America 1776-1949, ed. Charles I. Bevans (Washington: Dept. Of State), vol. 11:1070, n. 3.
42 Joel Barlow’s extended notes on atheism are found in his papers that are preserved in the Harvard University archives. We provide here a few examples of Barlow’s investigation of atheism in his private reflections based on various French encyclopedia articles. Based upon such musings, one can understand why he interpolated the text that denies any connection between Christianity and the United States. The language of the Treaty was discussed in note 28 above. Barlow wrote:
...Critius, a famous atheist, agreed that the stars etc. were the first objects of worship.—but accounts for it in a singular manner. He says men were first disorderly and unjust, and lived by open violence. They soon found it was best to have laws to repress these evils. These served very well for a while. But their authority soon grew feeble, and men found the means to allude them by committing their crimes in secret. To repress these, some wise politician invented the fable of gods. He said every planet was a god, and he placed gods everywhere to watch men’s secret actions and made them believe they would be punished hereafter. Such is his idea of the origin of religion. ...
...The monotheist, such as the Jews, the Christians, and the Mehomitans, whose history is best known to us, are remarkable for religious wars. The Jews founded their empire upon them.—the Mehomitans did the same; and the Christians, if we reckon their sectarians wars, their Mehomitan wars, their South American wars and their pagan wars, have probably destroyed more men than both the other classes of monotheists.
...In this examination of monotheism I do not bring into view the ancient philosophers, who believed in one God only, nor the modern Deists. The hands of those classes of men never formed a national religion and consequently have had very little affect on the moral or political character of any people. These teach in speculation are certainly repectable, but if they were reduced to dogmas, and formed into a system of worship, it is probable that such a system would degenerate into something like the Jewish or Mehometan. They might avoid the absurdities of the Christian system, but who could guarantee them against other absurdities as great?
Questions.
If man in all ages and countries had understood astronomy and physics as well as they do now generally in Europe would the ideas of God and religion have ever come into their minds?
Have not these ideas been greater sources of human calamity than all other moral causes? Is it not necessary in the nature of things that they should be so, as long as they exist in the minds of men in such a strong degree as to form the basis of education?
If we admit that these ideas are wholly chimerical having arisen altogether from ignorance of natural causes is it not the duty of every person who sees this evil tendency to use his influence to banish them as much as possible from society?
Is it not possible wholly to destroy their influence and reduce them to the rank of other ancient fables to be found only in the history of human errors?
If the existence of philosophy would have prevented their existence why shall it not destroy them?
Had it been known that the earth moved round the sun, the latter would not have been considered a god. The knowledge of this movement would have been the key to all the science of astronomy and prevented mankind from being deceived for so many ages by false appearances in the movements of the heavenly bodies. Those false appearances gave the idea of life and intelligence in those bodies. Their influence on the earth was apparent, and if we suppose those influences to be directed by their intelligence the consequence is that they control us and either make or destroy our happiness. They are therefore gods, good or bad according as we are affected by their influence.
Darkness, storms, whirlwinds, thunders, inundations, were deified on the same principles, being unexplained they were supposed to act from their own will or that of their masters, they were therefore feared and adored as beings whom we could not control but might hope to soften by our prayers as we might a passionate master who had us in his power.
Joel Barlow was one of the few atheists among the early American governmental leaders. It seems that he kept his thoughts on this topic mainly to himself in his notes. Could it be that the anomalous and disputed text distancing America from the Christian religion in his version of the Treaty of Tripoli may reflect his own philosophical approach addressed above—“If the existence of philosophy would have prevented their existence [i.e. the errors of religion] why shall it not destroy them?”
CHAPTER 27
1 WGW, vol. 35, Farewell Address, 1796.
2 Cf. W. T. Jones, Kant to Wittgenstein and Sartre (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969), p. 8.
3 Alexander Pope again found the words to describe this new deistic creed of Enlightenment religion: “Father of all! In every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage.” “The Universal Prayer”, 1738.
4 Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
5 Norman Cousins, ‘In God We Trust’ The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of The American Founding Fathers, (Harper & Brothers, New York, p. 6).
