Pulpit and Nation

Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America

Spencer W. McBride

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780813939568
• eBook ISBN: 9780813939575
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

In Pulpit and Nation, Spencer McBride highlights the importance of Protestant clergymen in early American political culture, elucidating the actual role of religion in the founding era. Beginning with colonial precedents for clerical involvement in politics and concluding with false rumors of Thomas Jefferson's conversion to Christianity in 1817, this book reveals the ways in which the clergy's political activism—and early Americans' general use of religious language and symbols in their political discourse—expanded and evolved to become an integral piece in the invention of an American national identity. Offering a fresh examination of some of the key junctures in the development of the American political system—the Revolution, the ratification debates of 1787–88, and the formation of political parties in the 1790s—McBride shows how religious arguments, sentiments, and motivations were subtly interwoven with political ones in the creation of the early American republic. Ultimately, Pulpit and Nation reveals that while religious expression was common in the political culture of the Revolutionary era, it was as much the calculated design of ambitious men seeking power as it was the natural outgrowth of a devoutly religious people.

ONE

Congress and the Courtship of Providence

In June 1775, the American colonies had done little to justify the name “United Colonies.” Despite their common grievance with Parliament, each colony jealously guarded its autonomy, counting on local militia to protect its borders while relying on local officials to make and enforce laws. When Americans formed the Continental Congress to coordinate resistance to the imperial policies of Parliament, unifying the inhabitants of the disparate colonies instantly became the measure of its success. One of the first attempts by Congress to foster colonial unity was its proclamation of a day of fasting and prayer. John Adams envisioned “millions on their knees at once before their Great Creator, imploring . . . his Smiles on American Councils and Arms.” He believed the fast day would prompt the clergy to “engage with a fervor that will produce wonderful effects.”¹

Ostensibly, these fast days were instances in which a secular government promoted religious rituals. As historians examine the significance of such occasions, the easy explanation is that fast days are indicative of the founders’ personal religious beliefs and demonstrate a congressional concern for citizens’ moral conduct, highlighting the belief that Americans’ sins had brought on the imperial crisis and could yet work against the cause of independence. This approach, however, is far too narrow and misleading. America’s Revolutionary fast days were not simply religious acts recommended to the public by a political body. Certainly the religious implications of such occasions are important and should not be dismissed. Yet a more careful examination reveals these fast days’ full context and ultimate significance as instruments of nation building that brought the clergy into the emerging national political arena.²

This chapter explains how and why the Continental Congress appropriated the fast day tradition and deployed the language of American providentialism for its own ends during the Revolution. It also explains how popular fast day observance varied from colony to colony and from urban to rural settings. Congress stood to gain clear political advantages from the widespread observance of fast days. By uniting the colonists in religious worship, these occasions would create for Congress an effective channel of communication with constituents by mobilizing an “army” of clergymen to more effectively lead their congregations to acknowledge resistance to Great Britain as just. Clergymen, who had long been active participants in local politics, would be urged by Congress to preach politics from a “national,” or at least “continental,” perspective. But the most important advantages to be gained were ideological. To encourage participation by as many colonists as possible, the fast days had to be publicized in terms that transcended the doctrinal differences of denominations. Toward this end, Congress utilized the language of American providentialism, effectively framing the war with Great Britain in religious terms that made American success synonymous with the realization of “the great Governor of the World’s” plan for the moral redemption of mankind. America’s Revolutionary fast days were much more than mere religious acts proclaimed by a political body. They were a mechanism for the political mobilization of Americans and a means of authorizing the political legitimacy of Congress.³

“The Clergy, This Way, Are But Now Beginning to Engage in Politicks”

American days of fasting and prayer were rooted in the political and religious culture of England. Puritans immigrating to North America in the early seventeenth century brought with them the practice of community-wide fasting and prayer. Seventeenth-century English theologians taught that fasting enhanced prayer’s efficacy. In addition to numerous biblical examples of fasting generating spiritual power, contemporary English theologians offered physiological explanations of the benefits produced by its practice. Reverend William Perkins preached in 1608 that fasting “causeth watchfulness, & cuts off drowsiness, and so makes a man more lively and fresh in prayer. . . . It makes us feele our wants and miseries, and so brings us to some conscience of our sinnes, whereupon the heart is more humbled and so stirred up more frequently to call for mercie.” Similarly, in 1625 Reverend Henry Mason argued that “fulnes of bread, and the pampering of flesh . . . more immediately and directly breede matter for unchaste and fleshly lusts. . . . On the contrary side, fasting, and the pinching of the body, and putting it to hardnesse, they are means to cool the bloud, and tame the spirits, and pull down the pride of the flesh.” Such teachings were applied to both individual and community-wide fasting by the Puritans at the time of their immigration and thereafter. Community-wide fasts, then, were an example of sacrificing comfort for the higher good, an appeal frequently made by the American Revolutionary leadership to patriots in the 1770s.⁴

Fast days rested upon the idea of providentialism, most simply defined as a belief in God’s intervention in the affairs of mankind. But in seventeenthand eighteenth-century America, providentialism became a complex and malleable trope. As demonstrated below, the American colonists sometimes used providentialism as an ideology or worldview, while at other times they used it as a sociopolitical rhetoric to assign divine approbation to an event, cause, or idea. If it seems that historians are too loose with the term providentialism, it is in large part because early Americans used it loosely and its connotations and implications varied with context. From the early colonial era to the eve of the Revolution, Americans could use providential language as a vague and diluted version of Christian theology, as an invocation of the biblical jeremiad tradition in current affairs, or as a veil for deist views. Or its use could entail all of the above at once. Though providentialism was not inherently political or national, it was easily molded to fit such categories.⁵

The community-wide observance of fast days also fit perfectly with the Puritans’ Calvinist faith, particularly its covenant theology and millennialism. The Puritans’ belief that America would play a crucial role in ushering in the millennium combined with their belief that they were God’s “chosen” people to create a distinctly American form of providentialism. Whereas many in Europe similarly believed that the affairs of mankind were directed by God for his own purposes, these colonists projected the idea that they had been cast in the starring role for the final act in the history of mankind. Though these colonists were on the periphery of the British Empire, they saw themselves at the center of God’s Kingdom.

American providentialism remained a viable worldview and rhetorical tradition among colonists in New England even amid the theological and cultural changes that occurred during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including the rise of other religious sects in the region. The resilience of this idea of a special purpose for America is exhibited by the regular observance of fast days in the years leading up to and during the American Revolution. In most New England colonies, fast days were observed each spring, though some communities made short-lived attempts at monthly or even weekly fast days. Historians have suggested the annual observances became mundane rituals, losing the zeal that initially accompanied the practice. For instance, the fast days routinely observed to mark the change in seasons rarely warranted much more than a brief mention in diaries, letters, and church records. Yet, at times of crisis, during waves of sickness or religious dissension, fast days acquired a sense of urgency and social potency. In these instances, the sense of danger and hope for deliverance fully occupied the community’s attention. Hence, we cannot understand the full meaning of fast days if we ignore context. As illustrated below, colonists had a clear sense of “moment” in the 1770s when they turned to fast days.⁶

Until the middle of the eighteenth century, however, fast days and the adoption of American providentialism were still primarily features of the New England colonies. Yet some Englishmen made unsuccessful and fleeting attempts at assigning providential missions to the establishment of colonies outside New England in the seventeenth century. The Virginia Company provides one such example. In an attempt to differentiate its goals of wealth from those of the Spanish colonies in North America, the company attempted to persuade would-be colonists reading its pamphlets that by moving to Virginia, they would be fulfilling England’s providential mission of spreading Protestantism to the Americas and protecting Native Americans from the “cruelty” and “false” religion of Catholic Spain. However, there is no evidence that this providential rhetoric convinced anyone to leave England for Virginia. It was not until the Great Awakening of the mid-eighteenth century that providentialism experienced greater acceptance in the middle and southern colonies. Through the widespread revivals that characterized this movement, many of the providential ideas long held in New England were adapted to and embraced by other Protestant denominations, particularly the Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. These revivals also fueled the belief that a “concert of prayer” would not only win the support of Providence, but could accelerate God’s plans to bring about the second coming of Christ. To this end, ministers such as Jonathan Edwards communicated with ministers in Scotland, attempting, albeit unsuccessfully, to coordinate transatlantic group prayer to enhance its potency. Because the “concert of prayer” was inherent to fast day observance, such occasions remained significant in American providential thought.⁷

Nonetheless, the practice of fast days did not spread as quickly as the providential ideology supporting it. By the time of the Seven Years’ War, providential explanations were advanced throughout the colonies to underscore the necessity and inevitability of a British victory over the French and their Native American allies. Fast days so dedicated were held in several of the middle and southern colonies, but still occurred most frequently in New England. It was not until the imperial crisis that arose on the heels of this war that fast days made real headway in the middle and southern colonies.⁸

In one notable instance before the Revolution, the Virginia House of Burgesses declared a fast day in May 1774. This act was meant as a show of support for Virginia’s “Sister Colony of Massachusetts Bay” after King George III and Parliament declared its ports closed to trade and virtually annulled the colony’s charter as a consequence of the Boston Tea Party. As Thomas Jefferson explained in his autobiography, “We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events; and thought that fasting and prayer would be most likely to call up and alarm their attention.” The last time the House of Burgesses had declared a fast day was 1755, during the Seven Years’ War. But, as Jefferson explained further, since then “a new generation had grown up.” He and his collaborators on the fast day proclamation were unsure of the protocol surrounding such an occasion, and therefore looked to the histories of the English Civil Wars (1642–51) and “rummaged over . . . the revolutionary precedents and forms of the Puritans of that day . . . [and] cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases.” The motion was unanimously passed by the House of Burgesses, and on June 1, 1774—the date the Boston Port Act took effect—“the people met generally, with anxiety and alarm in their countenances, and the effect of the day, through the whole colony, was like a shock of electricity, arousing every man, and placing him erect and on his centre.”⁹

Jefferson’s description of Virginia’s 1774 day of fasting is significant to the history of fast days in America for several reasons. First, the nineteen years separating the observances of such days in Virginia shows the infrequency of the practice outside of New England. Second, the fact that the burgesses felt compelled to review the Puritans’ fast day proclamations and protocol reveals their awareness of the English (and subsequently New England Puritan) origins of this tradition and acceptance of the practice despite the different denominational tendencies of the two regions. In the 1770s, New England and the colonies to the south had negative views of each other, views that Virginians were attempting to set aside—at least for the moment—to address their common grievances. By proclaiming a fast day, they signaled colonial unity in resisting the Coercive Acts.

Colonists south of New England were especially critical of that region’s manners and politics. For instance, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina expressed his opinions of the “Eastern Provinces” (New England) in a letter to John Jay of New York. “I dread their low Cunning,” Rutledge wrote, “and those leveling Principles which Men without Character and without Fortune in general Possess, which are so captivating to the lower Class of Mankind.” Such prejudices seemed to be confirmed by George Washington when he assumed leadership over an army of New Englanders at Boston in 1775. “I daresay the Men would fight very well (if properly officered) although they are an exceeding dirty & nasty people,” the general wrote to his distant cousin Lund Washington. A week later, Washington further criticized the New Englanders in another letter back to Virginia, insisting that their indifference to military discipline proceeded from “an unaccountable kind of stupidity in the lower class of these people, which believe me prevails but too generally among the Officers of the Massachusetts part of the Army, who are nearly of the same kidney, with the Privates.” In fact, the exploitation of these sections’ differences and perceptions of each other became a key component of British strategy during the Revolutionary War. Although these regional prejudices largely amount to stereotypes, their prevalence in the colonies makes Virginia’s 1774 fast day all the more significant. In this instance, the dissimilar colonies were searching for common methods in their common cause. By the middle of the eighteenth century, fast days were no longer exclusively Puritan or Congregationalist affairs. Nor were they exclusively religious.¹⁰

In stating that the fast day’s primary purpose was to rouse people from their “lethargy,” Jefferson displayed a newfound belief that heightened patriotism could be achieved through religious rhetoric connected to group fasting and prayer. Just as theologians believed that fasting sharpened the senses of the physical body to better discern spiritual matters, Jefferson apparently believed it would have a comparable effect on the body politic in promoting patriotism in anxious circumstances. Upon the outbreak of war one year later, the Continental Congress exhibited this same belief, but on a much larger scale.¹¹

The resolution of the Continental Congress in June 1775 to appoint a day of fasting and prayer throughout the colonies represented one of the earliest acts of Congress to give direction to all of its constituents. Other than the 1774 Articles of Association, most of the letters and proclamations Congress composed in the first months after convening were addressed to parties in England, Canada, the Caribbean, or individual colonies. Proclaiming a day of fasting throughout the colonies was a pivotal moment in which this representative body sought to govern at once all those it represented. Arguably, this was the first step toward practical unification. That Congress was at this moment concerned with establishing its legitimacy as a governing body is supported by the British politics surrounding such observances. As historians David Waldstreicher and Benjamin H. Irvin have each observed, the proclaiming of fast days (with the exception of those observed in individual towns and cities) was a right reserved for colonial governors, assemblies, and the English monarch. By assuming the right to proclaim a continental fast, Congress was sending a deliberate message about its role as a governing body.¹²

It is impossible to know all the factors leading to the motion in Congress to declare its first fast day, but some glimpses into the weeks preceding the decision are recoverable. The private correspondence of delegates reveals additional clues to the discussion and debate over this fast day. The day before the motion was made, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, that he had thoroughly enjoyed the sermons he had heard while in Philadelphia. Adams made particular mention of a sermon he had attended earlier that morning from Reverend George Duffield, “a Preacher in this City whose Principles, Prayers and Sermons more nearly resemble, those of our New England Clergy than any that I have heard. . . . [He] applied the whole Prophesy [of Isaiah chapter 35] to this Country, and gave us, as animating an entertainment, as I ever heard. He fill’d and swell’d the Bosom of every Hearer.” Adams recognized the political merits of providentialism, and in the words of Isaiah, the tactical advantage of persuading the “deaf” to hear. With this letter Adams enclosed a copy of a published sermon in order to demonstrate how “the Clergy, this Way, are but now beginning to engage in Politicks, and they engage with a fervour that will produce wonderfull Effects.”¹³

The political tenor of the Philadelphia clergy in the summer of 1775, then, appears to have been a primary influence on the timing of the first fast day. Adams’s enthusiastic response to Duffield’s sermon occurred the day before Con...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Congress and the Courtship of Providence
• 2 Revolutionizing Chaplains
• 3 Navigating Revolution
• 4 Clergymen and the Constitution
• 5 Preaching Party
• 6 The Myth of the Christian President
• Conclusion: More Than a Question of Church and State
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index