“In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.”
George Washington 1793
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George Washington came of age during the Age of Reason and thus was influenced by the Enlightenment. But it is a critical point, often missed today, that the Enlightenment was not only an expression of Deistic thought, but it had a Christian expression as well. Scholar and author Michael Novak points out that if the founding fathers were influenced by the Enlightenment, it wasn’t the skeptical branch of the same: “The Founders’ Enlightenment was not the Enlightenment of Voltaire; it was the Enlightenment of John Locke, a man ever at pains not to tread heavily on Christian sensibilities.”2
It is disingenuous on the part of some scholars today to present America’s founders, including our first president, as men of the Enlightenment, without pointing out the diversity of that umbrella term, “Enlightenment.” The views of Enlightenment thinker David Hume, for example, were poles apart from the thinking of Enlightenment thinker Sir William Blackstone, the British jurist who had great influence on America’s founders and was a strong advocate of the Holy Bible.
Throughout his long public career, George Washington consciously and consistently spoke and acted as an enlightened leader, advancing reason and eschewing superstition. But that does not mean he did not believe in orthodox Christianity, as some modern writers assert. The purpose of this chapter is to look at George Washington and the Enlightenment.
WASHINGTON AND SUPERSTITION
The confrontation between reason and superstition was part of the Washington family’s heritage. The fear of witchcraft that actually prompted a work on the topic by King James himself, was prevalent in Europe, and that fear crossed the ocean with the colonists.
When John Washington, son of Reverend Lawrence Washington, Vicar of Purleigh, came to Virginia in 1657, along with his wife Amphillis and his brother Lawrence, it was feared that a witch had come along on the perilous journey across the high seas to the New World. Captain Prescott immediately determined that he needed no additional risks, and condemned the alleged witch with the fiat: “Hustle this woman into Eternity and save our souls!” So, they tossed the helpless lady into the stormy Atlantic.
Upon their safe arrival in Virginia minus the jettisoned female, John Washington spoke immediately to the authorities, demanding that Captain Prescott be punished for the heartless murder of a helpless woman on the high seas.3
Religious persecution had also come to the New World with England’s established church, since Anglicanism was enforced by the sword of the crown. James Hutson, chief of the manuscript division for the Library of Congress, describes the painful consequences for those who violated the laws protecting the Church:
Puritan ministers who refused to conform were fired from their pulpits and threatened with “extirpation from the earth” unless they and their followers toed the line. Exemplary punishments were inflicted on the Puritan stalwarts; one zealot, for example, who called Anglican bishops “Knobs, wens and bunchy popish flesh,” was sentenced in 1630, to life imprisonment, had his property confiscated, his nose split, an ear cut off, and his forehead branded S.S. (sower of sedition).4
These were practices that the Washington family neither participated in, nor sanctioned. They had a more humane and just perspective. Lawrence, George’s older half-brother and surrogate father, understood the wisdom of religious liberty.
It has ever been my opinion and I hope it ever will be, that restraints on conscience are cruel in regard to those on whom they are imposed, and injurious to the country imposing them. England, Holland, and Prussia, I may quote as examples, and much more Pennsylvania, which has flourished under that delightful liberty, so as to become the admiration of every man who considers the short time it has been settled. . . .This colony (Virginia) was greatly settled in the latter part of Charles the First’s time, and during the usurpation, by the zealous church-men; and that spirit, which was then brought in, has ever since continued; so that, except a few Quakers, we have no dissenters. But what has been the consequence? We have increased by slow degrees, whilst our neighboring colonies, whose natural advantages are greatly inferior to ours, have become populous.5
Lawrence mentions Pennsylvania in a positive light (in contrast with Anglican Virginia). You will recall that the northern colony was founded by William Penn (1644-1718), a devout Quaker minister, with the express purpose of providing religious liberty. No one there was to be punished for religious views. Penn called this the “holy experiment,” and it succeeded. It attracted many settlers and its capital, Philadelphia, eventually became the capital of the fledgling, new country.6
George Washington reflected his forbearers’ perspective as he expressed his own views. As General Washington was retiring from his military command, he wrote a circular to each of the thirteen governors of the finally independent states. Writing from “Head Quarters” on June 8, 1783, the enlightened commander of the victorious American army described the “auspicious period” in which “the United States came into existence as a nation.”
The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation, have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be intirely their own.7 (emphasis added)
This one passage alone shows that Washington did not view religion in opposition to their enlightened times. The “pure and benign light of Revelation” has a positive impact on society “above all” during their era, an era not marked by “Ignorance and Superstition.” “Revelation” here refers to the Bible as the revealed Word of God. Deists and Enlightenment thinkers placed reason above revelation, and they denied that God had revealed himself in the scriptures.8 Washington, on the other hand, valued revelation as well as reason. Therefore, it is incorrect to call him a Deist. (This is the same letter, by the way, that concludes with the point that America will never be a happy nation unless the citizens imitate Jesus Christ, whom Washington calls “the divine Author of our blessed religion.”9)
CORRESPONDENCE WITH THOMAS PAINE
As the commander of the Continental Army, Washington was a correspondent with none other than Thomas Paine, the author of both the celebrated Common Sense (1776) as well as the controversial Age of Reason (written in stages some twenty years later—Part 1 in 1794, Part 2 in 1795, and Part 3 in 1807). The former book’s potent rhetoric and trenchant reasoning decisively moved colonial public opinion in favor of revolution. With the publication of the latter, Paine’s critical mind delivered a poignant critique of revealed religion, and in particular, Christianity. Thereby Paine assumed both the roles of apologist for the American Revolution and later, foremost opponent of Christian orthodoxy and an acknowledged arch-advocate for Deism, the philosophical expression of Enlightenment theology.
Apparently, it was Paine’s criticism of the Bible that turned President Washington against him. Referring to the Age of Reason, the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia notes: “The book alienated George Washington and most of his [Paine’s] old friends.”10
Note what Benjamin Franklin, not known to have been fully orthodox or deeply devout in his faith, wrote to Paine upon receipt of the manuscript of the Age of Reason. He did not think it wise for Paine to publish it:
I have read your manuscript with some attention...the consequence of printing this piece will be a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others. He that spits into the wind, spits in his own face. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any good would be done by it?...think about how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great point for its security. And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, that is, to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon which you now justly value yourself.11
Long before Paine lost whatever faith he may have had,12 long before he wrote his anti-Christian polemics, he set to writing clever apologies for the American Revolution. General Washington wrote to Thomas Paine on September 18, 1782:
Sir: I have the pleasure to acknowledge your favor of the 7th. Instant, informing of your proposal to present me with fifty Copies of your last publication, for the Amusement of the Army. 13
What Washington was referring to was the May 31, 1782, No. XIII edition of Paine’s publication, The Crisis. One of the earlier editions of The Crisis began famously: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”14 George Washington was not a superstitious man, yet he did have a sense of humor. The general believed that his army would find amusement, as Paine’s wit ridiculed the British. At the end of seven years of war, Paine teased the British mind’s superstitious and religious interpretation of the number “seven.” This augured well, argued Paine, for an end to the war itself. Paine with obvious relish reasoned,
I fully believe we have seen our worst days over....I draw this opinion, not only from the difficulties we know they [the British] are in...but from the peculiar effect, which certain periods of time have more or less upon all Men. The British have accustomed themselves to think of the term of seven years in a manner different to other periods of time. They acquire this partly by habit, by religion, by reason and by superstition. They serve seven years apprenticeship; They elect their parliament for seven years; They punish by seven years transportation, or the duplicate, or triplicate of that term; Their leases run in the same manner; and they read that Jacob served seven years for one wife and seven years for another; and the same term likewise, extinguishes all obligations (in certain cases) of debt or matrimony; and thus, this particular period, by a variety of concurrences has obtained an influence in their minds superior to that of any other number.
They have now had seven years war, and are not an inch farther on the Continent than when they began. The Superstitious and the populous part will conclude that it is not to be; and the reasonable part will think they have tried an unsuccessful scheme long enough, and that it is in vain to try it any longer.”15(emphasis added)
Washington highly compliments Paine for this work: “For this Intention you have my sincere thanks, not only on my own Account, but for the pleasure, I doubt not, the Gentlemen of the Army will receive from the perusal of your Pamphlets. Your Observation on the Period of Seven Years, as it applies itself to and affects British Minds, are ingenious, and I wish it may not fail of its Effects in the present Instance.”16
Washington’s sense of being part of the more enlightened era, where reason was important, connected him with royalty as well. As Washington enjoyed the retirement interim between his military and presidential careers, he took pleasure in his correspondence with international leaders. His sense of being an enlightened leader on the world stage manifested itself as he corresponded with his close friend, former colleague and French ally, Marquis de Chastellux. The letter received from the royal leader brought along accolades from the King and Queen of France themselves.
Although reluctant to speak of himself, in a letter dated August 18, 1786, Washington assured Chastellux that he was pleased to receive the “commendations of the virtuous and enlightened part of our species. . . .” Speaking of himself in the third person of American nobility, he explained to the marquis that “he cannot be indifferent to the applauses of so enlightened a nation, nor to the suffrages of the King and Queen who have been pleased to honor it with their royal approbation.”17
Washington’s description of royal France as an enlightened nation did not imply anti-Christian beliefs. The royal title was “His most Christian King” or “His most Catholic King.” In this sense, “enlightened” meant culturally advanced. But the “enlightened” idea of religious liberty that Washington so often celebrated had not yet arrived in France. The Huguenots were still under the crushing weight of royal persecution.
THE DIVERSITY OF ENLIGHTENMENT THINKERS
An important question to consider is this: Was the Enlightenment, by definition, an explosion of unbelief, or were there key elements of the Enlightenment that were Christian in orientation? The answer is the latter. John Locke was a leading figure of the political side of the Enlightenment and has never been considered a Deist. His book, The Reasonableness of Christianity, while not completely orthodox in its Christianity, certainly puts Locke in the Christian camp far more than in the Deist camp.
Locke’s 2nd Treatise on Government is held to have been important to the founding fathers and is full of biblical citations to help bolster his points. John Locke wrote many commentaries on the books of the Bible and paraphrases of portions of scripture. About God’s Word, he said, “The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author; salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting.”18
Another example of an “Enlightenment thinker” who was solidly in the Christian camp is Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), the exceptionally well-known British jurist. Blackstone wrote four volumes of commentaries on the British law considered to be perhaps the most important reflections on laws in the last few centuries. These commentaries were influential to the founders, including Jefferson, as he penned the Declaration of Independence. When Abraham Lincoln taught himself the law, he was able to do so because he had come across the second volume of this four-volume set. Blackstone’s commentaries made a major impact on the United States Supreme Court for several generations of the court.
Blackstone writes, “Thus when the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, He impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be.”19
