Religious liberty was born in America, and George Washington made a major contribution toward the establishment of religious freedom under our government. Through the influence of the United States, he made a major impact on the existence of religious freedom in the world as well. In May 1789 he answered a letter from the General Assembly of Presbyterian Churches in the United States:
While I reiterate the professions of my dependence upon Heaven as the source of all public and private blessings; I will observe that the general prevalence of piety, philanthropy, honesty, industry, and economy seems, in the ordinary course of human affairs, particularly necessary for advancing and conforming the happiness of our country.
While all men within our territories are protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences; it is rationally to be expected from them in return, that they will be emulous of evincing [striving to prove] the sanctity of their professions by the innocence of their lives and the beneficence of their actions; for no man who is profligate in his morals, or a bad member of the civil community, can possibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his own religious society.2
How one can be a true Christian, asked President Washington, if one acts like a profligate and is a bad citizen? He did not want any professing Christian to abuse his freedom here in this free land and thereby cross the line from liberty into license.
Washington maintained that there was a difference between liberty and license, or immoral behavior. Washington simultaneously held the principles of high moral conduct and freedom of religion from any government coercion.
WASHINGTON AS A DELEGATE TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
Washington was a member of the first two Continental Congresses. Thus, he and a handful of other Virginians journeyed to Philadelphia to meet together with other delegates representing the other colonies. Out of these congresses, the United States of America was born.
As surprising as it sounds in a secular America, the first act of the first Congress was to pray, despite a myriad of Christian denominations represented. John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, explaining what happened on September 6, 1774, and September 7—the first two meetings of the newly formed Congress.3 This prayer not only began America, but it began the continuing congressional tradition of prayer and the work of chaplains among our government officials. A famous painting from the mid-nineteenth century depicts the classic scene of Reverend Duché praying. George Washington was one of those at prayer as well. In this portrait, he is kneeling.
As the work of the Congress proceeded, they decided to appeal to England and to reason with the mother country to show the errors of its misguided efforts to force the colonies to pay taxes that were inconsistent with the British constitution and legacy of liberty. The Congress began with a recitation of history:
WHEREAS the power but not the justice, the vengeance but not the wisdom of Great-Britain, which of old persecuted, scourged, and excited our fugitive parents from their native shores, now pursues us their guiltless children with unrelenting severity...4
These words raise a critical point: many wish to separate the settling of America (by the Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Quakers, etc.), which was Christian from the founding of America (by the founding fathers, who allegedly were mostly Deists). Thus, in this view, the settlers were Christian, but the founders were secular-minded.
But the early Congresses did not adhere to Deism—including the very first Congress, which recognized that “our fugitive parents” came to these shores to flee persecution. Congress went on to resolve that it would be wrong not to stand up to their current persecution at the hands of Great Britain, in light of the sacrifice of the settlers of America:
THAT it is an indispensable duty which we owe to God, our country, ourselves and posterity, by all lawful ways and means in our power to maintain, defend and preserve these civil and religious rights and liberties for which many of our fathers fought, bled and died, and to hand them down entire to future generations. (emphasis ours)5
How, they ask, could they let down their fathers (the settlers of America) or their posterity if they allowed England to run roughshod over their religious liberties? Washington and his congressional patriots believed they owed it to their God and their country to stand boldly for their heritage of liberty.
THE QUEBEC ACT
One act of Parliament in particular worsened the situation. It was the Quebec Act, which especially concerned the Continental Congress, because it seemed to open the door for the Roman Catholic persecution of Protestants. This was an era when severe persecution of Protestants by some leaders in the Roman Catholic Church still occurred.
Some of the men in Congress had ancestors who had been persecuted by Catholics, and had fled such persecution. For example, some of the founders, such as Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Elias Boudinot, had ancestors of Huguenot extraction. The Huguenots were French Calvinists persecuted severely for their belief by the French King and the Catholic Church. France under King Louis XIV killed or banished most Calvinists from his kingdom.
As we’ll see below, Protestant England had had its own run-in with anti-Protestant terrorists and consequently persecuted Catholics in England. (This was partially the reason for Lord Baltimore founding Maryland as a colony for Catholic refugees from persecution by the Church of England.) But true to the military and political adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, England punished Americans for their resistance to the British King by passing the Quebec Act. This law established French-speaking Canada as an official Roman Catholic nation.
In the days before the gift of religious liberty was bequeathed to the world by American Christianity, those in the state were required to follow the official religion of the state. So Roman Catholic Quebec was viewed as a threat to New England. The colonies had been formed, for the most part, by Protestants seeking religious freedom. Their sense of religious freedom was threatened when England allowed Roman Catholic Quebec to exist just north of New England. In this light, one can understand the Congress’ strong fears aroused by the Quebec Act:
THAT the late act of Parliament for establishing the Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that extensive country now called Quebec, is dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America; and therefore as men and protestant Christians, we are indispensably obliged to take all proper measures for our security. (emphasis ours)6
A note in the Writings of George Washington edited by John Fitzpatrick says:
By the Quebec Act of 1774 Great Britain, with a view of holding the Colonies in check, established the Roman Catholic religion in Canada, and enlarged its bounds so as to comprise all the territory northwest of the Ohio to the head of Lake Superior and the Mississippi. This attempt to extend the jurisdiction of Canada to the Ohio was especially offensive to Virginia. Richard Henry Lee, in Congress, denounced it as the worst of all the acts complained of.7
The American colonists viewed the Quebec Act essentially as an act of war. Thus, Washington voted openly as a Protestant to protect the religious liberty that he and his fellow colonists had enjoyed as “Protestant Christians.”
CONGRESS ORDERS THE INVASION OF CANADA
As a response to the Quebec Act, Congress attempted to neutralize the threat of the treaty of Quebec for the colonies. On February 15, 1775, Congress appointed three commissioners—Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll (a Roman Catholic)—to meet with the leaders of Canada.8 They were accompanied by the Reverend John Carroll, a Catholic clergyman, who later became the archbishop of Baltimore. Congress hoped that Carroll’s influence with the people of Quebec, on account of his religious principles and character would be useful.
The commissioners arrived at Montreal on April 29, 1775, without Franklin, who returned en route, because his health was unable to sustain the demands of the long and arduous journey. The negotiations were unsuccessful. The American Congress put military might behind their concerns and sent an army under the command of Generals Philip John Schuyler and Richard Montgomery and Col. Benedict Arnold to the city of Montreal. At that time, General Washington wrote a letter to the northern nation, on September 14, 1775:
TO THE INHABITANTS OF CANADA
Friends and Brethren: The unnatural Contest between the English Colonies, and Great Britain has now risen to such a Height, that Arms alone must decide it.
The Colonies, confiding in the Justice of their Cause and the purity of their intentions, have reluctantly appealed to that Being, in whose hands are all Human Events: He has hitherto smiled upon their virtuous Efforts: The Hand of Tyranny has been arrested in its Ravages, and the British Arms, which have shone with so much Splendor in every part of the Globe, are now tarnished with disgrace and disappointment. Generals of approved experience, who boasted of subduing this great Continent, find themselves circumscribed within the limits of a single City and its Suburbs, suffering all the shame and distress of a Siege. While the Freeborn Sons of America, animated by the genuine principles of Liberty and Love of their Country, with increasing Union, Firmness and discipline, repel every attack and despise every Danger.
Above all we rejoice that our Enemies have been deceived with Regard to you: They have persuaded themselves, they have even dared to say, that the Canadians were not capable of distinguishing between the Blessings of Liberty and the Wretchedness of Slavery; that gratifying the Vanity of a little Circle of Nobility would blind the Eyes of the people of Canada. By such Artifices they hoped to bend you to their Views; but they have been deceived: Instead of finding in you that poverty of Soul, and baseness of Spirit, they see with a Chagrin equal to our Joy, that you are enlightened, generous, and Virtuous; that you will not renounce your own Rights, or serve as Instruments to deprive your Fellow subjects of theirs. Come then, my Brethren, Unite with us in an indissoluble Union. Let us run together to the same Goal. We have taken up Arms in Defence of our Liberty, our Property; our Wives and our Children: We are determined to preserve them or die. We look forward with pleasure to that day not far remote (we hope) when the Inhabitants of America shall have one Sentiment and the full Enjoyment of the blessings of a Free Government.
Incited by these Motives and encouraged by the advice of many Friends of Liberty among you, the Great American Congress have sent an Army into your Province, under the command of General Schuyler; not to plunder but to protect you; to animate and bring forth into Action those sentiments of Freedom you have declared, and which the Tools of dispositism would extinguish through the whole Creation. To co-operate with this design and to frustrate those cruel and perfidious Schemes, which would deluge our Frontier with the Blood of Women and Children, I have detached Colonel Arnold into your Country, with a part of the Army under my Command. I have enjoined upon him, and I am certain that he will consider himself, and act as in the Country of his Patrons and best Friends. Necessaries and Accommodations of every kind which you may furnish, he will thankfully receive, and render the full Value. I invite you therefore as Friends and Brethren, to provide him with such supplies as your Country affords; and I pledge myself not only for your safety and security, but for ample Compensation. Let no Man desert his habitation. Let no Man flee as before an Enemy.8
Washington appealed to liberty and justice, but the Canadians saw it as an invasion. Eventually, the Americans were defeated at the Battle of Montreal. General Montgomery was killed. Nonetheless, for his great bravery, he was viewed as a hero. Later, the capital city of Alabama was named in his honor. Col Benedict Arnold was wounded. The army retreated. Canada remained loyal to England, and Quebec continued its Roman Catholic religion.
But Washington’s orders to Arnold when he began his march to Canada were the true victory of the campaign. They clearly established the principle of religious liberty in his command. America’s concern was not to assault Roman Catholicism, but to prevent a state with the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion that could persecute Protestants or attack the colonies due to religious motivations.
WASHINGTON’S PROMOTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
Before General Washington dispatched Benedict Arnold for this invasion, he wrote a letter to Arnold (before his treachery) essentially saying that while the Canadians may be in error theologically, it is not the army’s place to disparage or belittle in any way their Roman Catholic beliefs. That was both wrong and counter-productive:
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 and Soldier from such Imprudence and Folly and to punish every Instance of it. On the other Hand, as far as lays in your power, you are 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, with your utmost Influence and Authority. Given under my Hand, at Head Quarters, Cambridge, this 14th Day of September one Thousand seven Hundred and seventy-five.
I also give it in Charge to you to avoid all Disrespect to or Contempt of the Religion of the Country and its Ceremonies. Prudence, Policy, and a true Christian Spirit, will lead us to look with Compassion upon their Errors without insulting them. While we are contending for our own Liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the Rights of Conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the Judge of the Hearts of Men, and to him only in this Case, they are answerable. Upon the whole, Sir, I beg you to inculcate upon the Officers and Soldiers, the Necessity of preserving the strictest Order during their March through Canada; to represent to them the Shame, Disgrace and Ruin to themselves and Country, if they should by their Conduct, turn the Hearts of our Brethren in Canada against us. And on the other Hand, the Honours and Rewards which await them, if by their Prudence and good Behaviour, they conciliate the Affections of the Canadians and Indians, to the great Interests of America, and convert those favorable Dispositions they have shewn into a lasting Union and Affection.9 (emphasis ours)
General Washington understood the importance of religious liberty and religious toleration for the success of his army. Mutual respect in the midst of religious diversity was evident in his General Orders from Head Quarters in Cambridge on November 5, 1775. As we will see in a moment, the date November 5th was quite significant:
As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope—He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.10
Washington was aghast at the thought his troops would make fun of Catholic customs. Why was the date of this communique—November 5th—so significant? Because it was Guy Fawkes Day.
GUY FAWKES DAY
To understand the bigger picture, including Washington’s reference to the burning of effigies of the pope, we will back up for a few moments and explain the significance of Guy Fawkes Day to the American colonists, who were for the most part Protestant Britishers transplanted to a new continent.
America’s celebration of her birth on July Fourth has no equivalent celebration in Great Britain. The closest British parallel historically, perhaps, is Guy Fawkes Day. This commemorates the November 5th, 1605 foiling of an attempt to assassinate not only King James the First, but the entire House of Lords along with him. Guy Fawkes was arrested and hung for his plot to ignite several barrels of gunpowder that had been stored under the Parliament Building.
The perpetual dubious honor afforded to Guido Fawkes, the pro-Catholic and anti-Royal leader of the plan, was to be annually burned in effigy. The custom began exactly one year later on November 5, 1606, when his effigy was burned all over the country, since November Fifth already happened to have been a traditional English night for building bonfires. Guy Fawkes had chosen that same day to have a royal bonfire. Guy Fawkes has been part of the British psyche from childhood poems, to a Beatles’ song, to a form of worship in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
A traditional English poem preserves the story of the failed plot and God’s providential intervention.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot;
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes
‘Twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament
Three score barrels of powder below
Poor old England to overthrow
By God’s providence he was catched
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Penny for the Guy, Hit him in the eye,
Stick him up a lamp-post [or chimney] and there let him die.
The connection between George Washington and religious liberty appears in that Washington played a pivotal role in his November 5, 1775, orders in helping to end anti-Catholic bigotry in the new nation.
The Guy Fawkes custom had come to America with the historic English anti-Catholic sentiment. As we saw in an earlier chapter, anti-Catholic oaths were required of an Anglican vestryman (or public surveyor) like Washington in colonial Virginia—whereby one swore allegiance to the Protestant King and against the Roman Catholic heir to the throne, as well as the doctrine of transubstantiation. The effigy burned on Guy Fawkes Day in the colonies was not always Guy, sometimes it was the pope himself.
But this historic custom did not continue once America began her pursuit of liberty and ultimately independence. The reason for this can be traced directly to the leadership of George Washington. In the context of the invasion of Roman Catholic Quebec, General Washington prohibited all mockery of the enemy’s religion. It is not surprising, however, that at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, King George III or his political advisors began to be burned in effigy. But under Washington’s leadership, the pope was no longer symbolically burned at the stake.
FREEDOM FOR CATHOLICS REITERATED BY PRESIDENT WASHINGTON
As president, George Washington affirmed religious freedom for all in America, including Catholics. (Keep in mind that America was a largely Protestant country— 98.4% Protestant Christian and 1.4% Catholic at the beginning of the war.)11
On March 15, 1790, according to the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, a committee of Roman Catholics waited upon the president with a congratulatory address, to which the president replied. Washington said, in part:
I feel, that my conduct in war and in peace has met with more general approbation than could reasonably have been expected: and I find myself disposed to consider that fortunate circumstance, in a great degree, resulting from the able support and extraordinary candor of my fellow-citizens of all denominations....
...As mankind become more liberal [charitable], they will be more apt to allow, that all those, who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I ever [long] to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume, that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part, which you took in the accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of their government; or the important assistance, which they received from a nation in which the roman catholic religion is professed...may the members of your Society in America, animated alone by the pure spirit of christianity, and still conducting themselves as the faithful subjects of our free government, enjoy every temporal and spiritual felicity.12
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM FOR ALL
Washington believed there should be religious freedom for all. This was a point he especially emphasized in his letter to the Hebrew congregation in America. He wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, a now-famous letter (dated August 17, 1790), declaring:
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....13
Washington’s respect for religious liberty and freedom of conscience comes into focus in a letter that he wrote to his surrogate son, Marquis de Lafayette, from Philadelphia on August 15, 1787, while the Constitutional Convention was in session:
...I am not less ardent in my wish that you may succeed in your plan of toleration in religious matters. 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.....We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. 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. (emphasis added)14
After centuries of persecution within Christendom against dissenting Christians of other denominations, the United States, under the leadership of George Washington, chose a path of liberty of conscience for dissident believers. Religious freedom did not grow out of secularism. It grew out of the unique experience of America, where a nation was settled by Christians seeking to worship Christ in the purity of the Gospel according to their consciences—but in different ways than the state churches they left behind, and in different ways from each other.15 George Washington respected these differences and charted a path of Christian forbearing for religious disagreements. This can be seen in his letters to Quakers and the Baptists, both of which had experienced significant religious persecution in England and in the American colonies.
In March, 1790, the Society of Free Quakers meeting in Philadelphia delivered a complimentary address to Washington. Washington responded:
Having always considered the conscientious scruples of religious belief as resting entirely with the sects that profess, or the individuals who entertain them, I cannot, consistent with this uniform sentiment, otherwise notice the circumstances referred to in your address, than by adding the tribute of my acknowledgment to that of our country, for those services which the members of your particular community rendered to the common cause in the course of our revolution. And by assuring you that, as our present government was instituted with an express view to general happiness, it will be my earnest endeavor, in discharging the duties confided to me with faithful impartiality, to raise the hope of common protection which you expect from the measures of that government.” (emphasis ours)16
On May 10, 1789, in addressing the general committee representing the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, President Washington stated:
If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed by the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it...17
Thus, Washington is on record in opposition to all religious persecution, whether it comes from religious sources or secular sources. In his Farewell Address he declared that religion and morality are indispensable to our political prosperity.
A SACRED FIRE CREATES ASYLUM FOR THE OPPRESSED OF ALL RELIGIONS
The “sacred fire”18 of Washington’s “true religion”19 blazed with a passion for divine Providence and religious liberty. The “sacred fire of liberty,” lit at his First Inaugural Address, has burned throughout America’s history and still beacons from New York Harbor. Although “Lady Liberty’s” torch has pointed to the heavens for several generations, her elevation of Washington’s “sacred fire of liberty” continues to ignite hope for all who have come to America’s shores to find “asylum.” Washington was sure America would become the “asylum” of the world for those who had been persecuted for their religious beliefs. In passionate and prescient words of encouragement to his victorious troops in 1783, the general explained to his men:
While the General recollects the almost infinite variety of Scenes thro which we have passed, with a mixture of pleasure, astonishment, and gratitude; While he contemplates the prospects before us with rapture; he can not help wishing that all the brave men (of whatever condition they may be) who have shared in the toils and dangers of effecting this glorious revolution, of rescuing Millions from the hand of oppression, and of laying the foundation of a great Empire, might be impressed with a proper idea of the dignified part they have been called to act (under the Smiles of providence) on the stage of human affairs: for, happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions. The glorious task for which we first flew to Arms being thus accomplished, the liberties of our Country being fully acknowledged, and firmly secured by the smiles of heaven, on the purity of our cause, and the honest exertions of a feeble people (determined to be free) against a powerful Nation (disposed to oppress them) and the Character of those who have persevered, through every extremity of hardship; suffering and danger being immortalized by the illustrious appellation of the patriot Army: Nothing now remains but for the actors of this mighty Scene to preserve a perfect, unvarying, consistency of character through the very last act; to close the Drama with applause; and to retire from the Military Theatre with the same approbation of Angells and men which have crowned all their former virtuous Actions.20
The Fourth of July, for Washington as for all Americans, became synonymous with liberty.21 In fact, “July IV, 1776” are the solitary words on the tablet held by Lady Liberty”22 as she welcomes the world to America, the world’s greatest asylum for religious liberty.23 Proposed and designed by Frederic Auguste Bertholdi, a descendant of a persecuted Huguenot, the Statue of Liberty, appropriately bears the poetry of Emma Lazarus, a descendant of a persecuted Jewish immigrant family. Her poem speaks as if with the flaming tongues of Washington’s “sacred fire of liberty”:
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied Pomp!” cries she
With Silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Set afire by Washington’s character, “Liberty” holds her lamp aloft to shine the eternal flame of America’s sacred fire into the night of the world’s despair. Having received the “approbation of Angells and men,” Washington’s Constitution with its Bill of Rights keeps the lamp ablaze as she awaits the midnight cry. Thankfully, Washington, “Warm’d by Religion’s sacred, genuine ray,”24 has bequeathed his “sacred fire” to the world.25
CONCLUSION
Secularists claim that it was secularism (of which Deism was a nascent eighteenth century form) that gave us religious freedom, but this is not so. It was what Washington called “the pure spirit of christianity.” Author Bill Federer, compiler of America’s God and Country, spoke of Christianity and religious liberty in the American experience, of which Washington was the father:
Tolerance was an American Christian contribution to the world. Just as you drop a pebble in the pond, the ripples go out, there was tolerance first for Puritans and then Protestants, then Catholics, then liberal Christians, and then it went out completely to Jews. Then in the early 1900s, tolerance went out to anybody of any faith, monotheist or polytheist. Finally, within the last generation, tolerance went out to the atheist, the secular humanist and the anti-religious. And the last ones in the boat decided it was too crowded and decided to push the first ones out. So now we have a unique situation in America, where everybody’s tolerated except the ones that came up with the idea.26
George Washington—the champion of religious freedom—insisted that his “asylum for mankind”27 is a “capacious asylum”28 that is an asylum large enough for all of us to be warmed under the “sacred fire of liberty.”