What Washington knew about the link between property rights and religious liberty

One of the treasures of American literature are George Washington's letters to various groups of citizens following his election as the first president of the United States under our current Constitution. The letters are short and contain concise and dense reflections on the nature of ordered liberty in the new American Republic, explaining the nature and scope of freedom under the Constitution. 

Of particular interest is Washington's letter to the Jewish community in Newport, Rhode Island. Washington wrote the letter on August 21, 1790, as a response to a statement of welcome delivered by one of the leaders of the Touro Synagogue in Newport on the occasion of Washington's visit to that town following the ratification of the Constitution by Rhode Island. In the letter, Washington expresses his conviction about the importance of property rights to protecting other rights under the Constitution:  

Gentlemen: 

While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens. 

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. 

If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people. 

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. 

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. 

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity. 

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid. 

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington 

This is a telling statement about the nature of religious liberty, recognized by the Constitution, grounded not in the preference of the elite but in natural rights common to all and the duties of citizenship. Of additional interest is the linking of religious liberty and property rights. To draw that linkage in his letter Washington quotes the Prophet Micah from the Hebrew Bible:

And every man shall sit under his vine, and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken. (Micah 4:4, Douay-Rheims Version.)

Property rights serve as an essential bulwark for other freedoms, in the they provide citizens with the space and the means to exercise their other rights. Without property rights, there can be no liberty of speech, of religion, of the press, or to be secure against unlawful searches and seizures. Washington understood this and propounded a constitutional order where citizens -- not just those favored by the government -- may sit secure in their possessions, "and there shall be done to make them afraid." To be secure in your property is to be free indeed. 

The ecumenical vision of George Washington: respect and liberty

Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to Heaven, which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to exception.  

- George Washington (1732-1799), Letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, Aug. 15, 1787, quoted in The Founders on Religion:  A Book of Quotations, edited by James H. Hutson (Princeton:  2005), pg. 193.

That quote nicely summarizes Washington's vision of religious pluralism, a vision that is evident throughout his career in public life, both as president and then elder-statesman of the young American Republic, and also earlier when he was the commander-in-chief of the fledgling Continental Army during the Revolution.

In 1775, the Continental Army invaded Canada in an effort to guarantee that colony's cooperation in American efforts to sustain relief from the British government short of overt independence. George Washington was the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and he issued formal instructions to one of his field commanders, Colonel Benedict Arnold, regarding the proper deportment of the Continental troops on the subject of religion.

This was an issue in the Canadian campaign due to the strong anti-Catholic opinions that were then common among the vast majority of the American colonial population. The Canadians, at that time overwhelming French in language and culture, and Catholic in religion, therefore were possible targets of colonial bigotry in the field. In his Instructions to Arnold, dated September 14, 1775, Washington was clear and direct about the deference that was to be shown to the inhabitants of Canada in regard to their religious practices:

As the Contempt of the Religion of a Country by ridiculing any of its Ceremonies or affronting its Ministers or Votaries has ever been deeply resented—You are to be particularly careful to restrain every Officer & Soldier from such Imprudence & Folly & to punish every Instance of it—On the other Hand as far as lays in your Power you are to protect & support the free Exercise of the Religion of the Country & the undisturbed Enjoyment of the Rights of Conscience in religious Matters with your utmost Influence & Authority[.]

Two critical points are worth making about Washington's orders. First, in order to prevent resentment towards the Continentals, American soldiers were to be prevented, under punitive discipline if necessary, from attacking the Catholic religion then established in Canada. Without mentioning Catholicism by name, Washington prohibited any action that would result in the "ridiculing" of any Catholic clergy or "Ceremonies." There was to be no overt acts of mockery or contempt shown to Catholicism by the Continentals. The American army would be respectful, even towards religious views, worship and ministers to which the vast majority of American colonials at the time objected.

Second, in addition to demonstrating respect, the Continentals were to "protect and support the free Exercise of the Religion of the Country and the undisturbed Enjoyment of the rights of Conscience in religious matters." Washington's orders left no ambiguity -- the American intervention in Canada was to have no deleterious consequences for the Catholics there. Yet, at the same time, Washington couched his language to apply not simply to the Catholic population, but to all people who sought to enjoy their "rights of Conscience in religious matters." As the army would not mock or attack Catholics for their faith, so too it would not enforce Catholicism.

While Washington issued his orders to Arnold as an act of military strategy to avoid alienating the Catholic population of a fellow colony with which the Continentals desperately wanted to be allied,  his orders show a commitment to deeper religious liberty than what military expedience required. Respect for a despised religion, not simply tolerance. Liberty not only for the majority religion but for all. While the American intervention in Canada proved to be a failure in winning Canadian support for the American cause, Washington's orders regarding the army's conduct in regard to religion set a pattern of prudential and principled judgment. In this regard, as in so many others, Washington proved himself to be the Father of Our Country.

Washington's authorship of his Farewell Address

Over at the The University Bookman online, John Bowling has published an article outlining some of the history behind one of the greatest statements of American domestic and foreign policy ever made:  The Farewell Address Revisited.  As Bowling points out, President Washington's address wasn't solely the work of our first and greatest president, but was also the work of two other Founding Fathers as well, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.  That said, Washington was actively involved in the composition of the text, so much so that it is clear that he is its actual author, as the textual history of the address demonstrates.  As Bowling puts it:

It is fortunate that all the working drafts of the Address have survived, down to interlinings and inkblots, so that Washington’s primary authorship is categorically clear. Hamilton did not write it. Washington did, to a far greater extent than any contemporary American President since Calvin Coolidge.

Washington's advice regarding foreign policy and his heart-felt sentiments regarding the Union and liberty are well worth pondering, and Bowling does an excellent job explaining the structure and content of Washington's ideas as expressed in the address.  Well worth a read.

The bonds of unity in the young American republic

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.  

- President George Washington (1732-1799), Farewell Address (1796).

George Washington, civic religion and a providential God

George Washington's pronouncements regarding civic religion were usually couched in general language.  He rarely referred to God in specific confessional terms, for example, but rather used generalized language that reflects often common 18th century Deistic terminology.  This use of generalized language was often paired with terminology designed to appeal to religious believers of a more orthodox Christian persuasion.

It is this pairing that more often than not leads to a good deal of the confusion regarding Washington's own religious beliefs and his view of faith in public life. A good example of Washington's use of language in this regard can been seen in one of his more significant public pronouncements, the Circular Letter to the Governors of All the States regarding the disbanding of the Continental Army in 1783.  In that letter, Washington seeks to reinforce the stability of the early American Republic as the Continentals returned home after winning independence.  In his letter, Washington makes two particularly important points regarding the role of religion in civil life.  The first is that for a variety of reasons, including divine "Revelation," human society is improving.  As Washington writes:

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 a meliorating influence on mankind, and increased the blessings of society.

Note that Washington, while listing many human accomplishments in this process of improvement, he attaches priority to "the pure and benign light of Revelation." It was divine Revelation, in Washington's statement, that was most to account for the progressive improvement in human society. Not a dry and cramped secularism or a humanism operating in a universe where God is simply an inattentive watchmaker, but Revelation proceeding from an active God who was communicating with human beings, moving them constantly forward toward a better future. Washington argues that because of these many advantages -- both human and revelatory -- the happiness of the citizens of the United States as "a Nation" (and Washington uses both the singular indefinite article and a capital "N") is for the taking. If happiness and freedom do not result, "the fault with be entirely" our own. 

Second, Washington further reinforces the importance of God's action in human events by commending the state governors and their respective states to divine care.  "I now make it my earnest prayer," he writes, "that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection[.]" Washington then states that he hopes that God would move the citizens of the country to "cultivate" a host of proper civic virtues:  obedience to governmental authorities, fellow-feeling for each other -- both fellow citizens and particularly for the returning veterans of the Continental Army -- and, most interestingly, to emulate those virtues "which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion[.]" (Italics in the original.)  After including a brief and common list of those virtues, Washington states that without "an humble imitation" of the example of the Divine Author, "we can never hope to be a happy nation."

What one sees in Washington's Circular Letter is language used that is non-confessionally specific, but which takes for granted certain key religious ideas:  1)  God is active in human affairs, moving human beings towards greater goodness and social solidarity;  2) because of the advantages they benefit from, the citizens of the United States are responsible for their freedom and happiness; and 3) human beings are called to imitate the attributes of God as He has revealed them. While Washington's Circular Letter is not a fully developed treatise in civic theology, it does manifest the key points of Washington's own views about the role of religion in human society.  And Washington's vision in that regard was one that viewed religion as a positive force in human life and civic affairs.  It is not, to say the least, a vision of civic life that is hostile to religious faith.  While couched in language that is not expressly orthodox, it is couched in language that is certainly amenable to orthodox interpretation.

Far from religion ruining everything, to borrow a phrase from the late Christopher Hitchens, in Washington's Circular Letter religious faith stands as the well-spring for civic virtue and human happiness.

[Cross-posted at American Creation.]