Taking Oaths and Giving Thanks: Ritual and Religion in Revolutionary America Tara E
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University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 1-1-2013 Taking Oaths and Giving Thanks: Ritual and Religion In Revolutionary America Tara E. Strauch University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Strauch, T. E.(2013). Taking Oaths and Giving Thanks: Ritual and Religion In Revolutionary America. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/1481 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Taking Oaths and Giving Thanks: Ritual and Religion in Revolutionary America by Tara Thompson Strauch Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2010 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2013 Accepted by: Dr. Daniel Littlefield, Major Professor Dr. Kathryn Edwards, Committee Member Dr. Lacy Ford, Committee Member Dr. David Shields, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Tara Strauch, 2013 All Rights Reserved. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dan Littlefield for his guidance, encouragement, and willingness to let my mind roam and Kay Edwards for bringing me back to reality. Lacy Ford, David Shields, Leon Jackson, Don Doyle, Carol Harrison, and Christine Ames all provided valuable insights and additions to this work. The archivists and staffs at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Library Company of Philadelphia, South Carolina Historical Society, University of South Carolina’s Caroliniana Library and The Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina were immensely helpful. The Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina allowed for the timely completion of this dissertation. Michael Woods provided support, feedback, ideas, and most of all friendship. Laura Foxworth and Sarah Scripps were the perfect library buddies. Thad provided the light and the laughter to finish. And, as always, thanks to AJ for the love and dogged determination to accomplish our goal. iii Abstract This dissertation examines the early modern ritual traditions of oaths, thanksgivings, and fast days in Revolutionary America and argues that American politicians and citizens negotiated the meanings of these rituals for American citizenship throughout the Revolutionary era. Oaths of office and allegiance, thanksgivings and fast days were tools for creating a united nation, but they also posed significant challenges because of the religious and political associations inherent in such rituals. These rituals came out of early modern Europe’s religious and political culture which was useful for establishing America as a legitimate European nation. As colonials on the edge of the European world, grounding the nation in European tradition was an important step in presenting themselves as a nation on equal footing with Britain, France, and Spain. These same rituals, however, presented problems for unifying a society with as much religious and political variety as appeared in the American colonies. Thus, for the thirty years between the first Continental Congress in 1774 and the third peaceful exchange of presidential power in 1801, Americans negotiated what constraints the state and federal governments could place on American citizens’ religious and political beliefs while simultaneously searching for rituals which would draw the nation together in religious worship and public duty. This negotiation was often not the product of debates over political philosophy, but was enacted by groups and individuals petitioning for more religious freedom or who were viewed as loyal citizens with iv religious scruples. Early modern nation states typically established a particular version of Christianity while allowing varying levels of dissent from this norm and while some Americans advocated for this type of established religion in America the reality was that such uniformity of behavior was unlikely to be tolerated in the new nation. Instead, politicians and citizens alike searched for a compromise between an established denomination and total religious freedom which many feared would lead to widespread immorality and poor civic virtue. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………iii Abstract……………………………………………………………………….…………..iv Introduction…………………………………………………………………..……………1 1. The Early Modern Traditions of Oaths, Thanksgivings, and Fast Days………...…….28 2. Establishing Loyalty and Religious Toleration; Oaths of Allegiance and Office before 1789………………………………………………………………………….…………...52 3. “So Help Me God”: The Constitution, Freedom of Conscience and the American Oath Ritual……………………………………………………………………………………..88 4. It is the Duty of All Nations; Establishing the Nation through Thanksgivings and Fast Days………………………………………………………………………….…………128 5. The Spirit of Party and the Author of Divine Providence in Thanksgiving and Fast Days after 1789……………………………………………………………….………...169 Conclusion—Mr. Madison’s Thanksgivings, Christian Witness Testimony, and the Presidential Oath………………………………………………………………….…….217 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………226 vi Introduction In the early months of 1788, as state after state ratified the new Constitution, anti- federalists across the nation argued against the powers of this governing document. They were concerned about the kind of government the Constitution put in place, the amount of power the federal government would have, and how this new form of government would break with European and American culture. In particular, many anti-federalists were concerned about the lack of religion in the federal government. These men railed against the lack of religious tests, an established church, and other required checks on public morality and saw the Constitution not as an example of religious freedom, but as an alarming departure from traditional mores. One such citizen, who styled himself a “David,” wrote to the Massachusetts Gazette because he was concerned that the new federal government lacked respect for religion. Every civil government, he observed, had set certain laws respecting public religious piety and “Every nation, I believe, has committed the care of religion to the government.” Europe had allowed government too much religious power, but some “limited” power was altogether proper. “Our annual fasts and thanksgivings,” he argued, “are not only uniform proofs of the exercise of such a power; but are instances of the propriety of our conduct in making frequent and publick 1 1 acknowledgements of our dependence upon the Deity.”1 No one, he argued, questioned the propriety of the government calling for such holidays; all upstanding citizens thought that thanksgivings and fast days were of importance for God’s continued blessings upon America. And, the governments in most states, who loved the liberty of conscience granted to them, “that very love of liberty has induced them to adopt a religious test, which requires all publick officers to be of some Christian protestant persuasion, and to abjure all foreign authority. Thus, religion secures our independence as a nation, and attaches the citizens to our own government.”2 David argued that every colonial government, and indeed state government, required religious belief for government officials; they legislated it in the form of thanksgivings and fast days, and set religion as a bar to political activism in the form of an oath. The religiosity of these rituals could not be questioned, David asserted, nor their constant presence in the early modern world. Without oaths, thanksgivings, and fast days, David questioned, what would bind men to both government and God. Over two-hundred years later, President Barack Obama reiterated David’s point in his second inaugural address. After swearing his oath of office on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Bible and including the phrase “So help me, God,” which is not a requirement of the oath, Obama told citizens of all religious beliefs and backgrounds “that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.” Echoing the thanksgiving and fast day proclamations of the revolutionary period, the president asserted that God and American citizens worked together to create this nation, positing 1 “Miscellany,” Massachusetts Gazette, March 7, 1788. 2 Ibid. 2 that God’s providence allowed for Americans to free themselves from the tyranny of monarchical rule. Later in the speech, the president noted that “My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country…”3 In a nation ordained by God to be a republic of, by, and for, the people, an oath was and is a promise to God and to fellow citizens. As the eighteenth-century editorialist argued, religion binds the public servant to the nation. When the same president stood to recite his first oath of office in 2009, it was a symbolic and important event, if a routine one.4 Forty-four different men had taken this oath of office; some kneeling, some standing, and some on airplanes. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the oath is that Americans today see nothing extraordinary in the fact