Anyone care to commnt on what all is wrong with the following?
Did George Washington say, "So help me God"?
Message #10488 of 10490 <
http://www.forrestchurch.com/
Appendix
Did George Washington say, "So help me God"?
The long-standing tradition that George Washington capped his oath of
office on April 30, 1789, with the words, "So help me God," has
recently fallen into question. Critics argue that these words,
together with the image of Washington bending down to kiss the Bible
after swearing his oath, belong in the historical dustbin together
with young George cutting down the cherry tree. The inaugural legend,
they say, is nothing more than a pious addition to Washington
mythology with no basis in historical fact.
It is true that the first report of Washington avowing, "So help me
God" dates from 67 years after the event. In George Washington: a
Biography, Washington Irving writes:
The chancellor [Robert R. Livingston] advanced to administer the oath
prescribed by the Constitution, and Mr. [Samuel A.] Otis, the
secretary of the Senate, held up the Bible on its crimson cushion. The
oath was read slowly and distinctly, Washington at the same time
laying his hand on the open Bible. When it was concluded, he replied
solemnly, "I swear—so help me God!" Mr. Otis would have raised the
Bible to his lips but he bowed down reverently and kissed it.
Irving's most recent biographer considers his book on Washington,
which Irving deemed the capstone of his literary career,
"well-researched, highly energetic, and still accessible." The
question remains, was Irving's imagination a bit too energetic in
drawing this reverent portrait? A contemporary account of the
inaugural ceremonies, coupled with other secondary evidence, suggests
that it was not. One vivid portrait of Washington taking the
presidential oath comes from an eyewitness to the ceremony, courtesy
of a letter written three days after the inauguration,
which Philadelphia's Federal Gazette published on May 8.
The scene was solemn and awful, beyond description. It would seem
extraordinary that the administration of an oath, a ceremony so very
common and familiar, should, in so great a degree, excite the public
curiosity. But the circumstances of his election—the impression of his
past services—the concourse of spectators—the devout fervency with
which he repeated the oath—and the reverential manner in which he
bowed down and kissed the sacred volume—all these conspired to render
it one of the most august and interesting spectacles ever exhibited on
the globe. It seemed, from the number of witnesses, to be a somber
appeal to heaven and earth at once. Upon the subject of this great and
good man, I may, perhaps, be an enthusiast, but, I confess, I was
under an awful and religious persuasion that the Gracious Ruler of the
Universe was looking down at that moment with peculiar complacency on
an act, which, to a part of his creatures was so very important. Under
this impression, when the Chancellor pronounced, in a very feeling
manner, "Long live George Washington," my sensibility was wound up to
such a pitch, that I could do no more than wave with the rest, without
the power of joining in the repeated acclamations which rent the air.
Clearly, Irving was not mistaken about Washington bending down to
kiss the Bible. Whether the spectator's account of "the devout
fervency with which he repeated the oath" arose from Washington
avowing God's name in his pledge we cannot know. But it certainly
accords with the spirit of this testimony, which, in turn, confirms
other details in Irving's description of the event.
Less tellingly, but reinforcing the same impression, Washington's
principal aide, David Humphreys, who accompanied the president-elect
to Federal Hall on Inauguration Day, rejoiced at Washington's civil
piety as if it were a matter of public record. On May 9, nine days
after the inauguration, he gave thanks in an article written for the
Pennsylvania Mercury that the new nation had been consecrated on a
Christian footing. Crediting him with more faith than Washington would
presume to claim for himself, Humphreys wrote in the afterglow of the
president's swearing-in and subsequent worship ceremony:
I rejoice in the exaltation of a person to the head of the Union, who
professes himself to be a Christian, who is not ashamed to confess
Christ, glory in his cross, and publicly honor his institutions; and
hope and pray, that all our rulers may follow his illustrious example,
and be politically as well as religiously wise to promote, both by law
and practice, the best interests of their country, by promoting the
Christian religion.
Although only six-years-old at the time, Irving too was present in
person at the inauguration of his famous namesake. In doing research
for his biography or in shared reminiscence over the years, he likely
tested his memories against those of other eyewitnesses. Irving's
biography is free of the pious cant that compromises certain other
early treatments of Washington's life, and he certainly had no
religious ax to grind, being himself a thoroughgoing secularist. Taken
together, these considerations, coupled with the above evidence, add
strength to the verisimilitude of Irving's testimony.
Despite the secular language prescribed by the Constitution, that
Washington should invoke God at the end of his oath of office would by
no means have seemed exceptional at the time. Earlier that month, on
April 6, the House drafted language for its own members' swearing in
ceremonies that included the same sacred codicil:
"I,_________, a Representative of the United States in the Congress
thereof, do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) in the
presence of Almighty GOD, that I will support the Constitution of the
United States. So help me GOD." Two months later they reversed
themselves, voting into law language stripped of all religious
reference requiring members of Congress only "to support the
Constitution of the United States." These competing oaths frame the
vigorous debate being waged at the outset of the first Congress
between those legislators who wished to guide government practice
strictly by the constitution and others who believed that a nod to the
deity was essential to reverent statecraft. (I reprise this debate in
detail in Chapter One.) The leader of the latter faction, Senator
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, chaired the joint committee responsible
for planning the inaugural festivities. It was Lee who proposed adding
inaugural worship to the ceremony, which he appears to have fashioned
on British precedent. That Lee, a pious Anglican, held principal
responsibility for fashioning the inaugural ceremony further suggests
that Washington might logically have capped his oath with the sacred
vow familiar to British coronations.
One final piece of evidence endorses the credibility of Irving's
account. On March 2, 1801, two days before his own inauguration and
referring to the act of Congress from June 1789 removing God language
from the oath for federal officeholders, Thomas Jefferson posed a
curious question to Chief Justice George Marshall, who would be
administering the presidential oath: "I would pray you in the meantime
to consider whether the oath prescribed in the constitution be not the
only necessary to take. It seems to comprehend the substance of that
prescribed by the act of Congress to all officers, and it may be
questionable whether the legislature can require any new oath from the
President." Marshall replied, "That [oath] prescribed in the
constitution seems to me to be the only one which is to be
administered." I can conceive of no other reason for this exchange
apart from Jefferson wishing assurance from Marshall that he would not
be required to add the words, "So help me God," to the oath spelled
out in the Constitution. Given his firm commitment to church-state
separation, Jefferson would have taken this scruple very seriously indeed.
Although every other piece of Irving's account of the swearing-in
ceremony is confirmed by contemporaneous testimony, we may never know
for sure that Washington made the vow, "So help me God," when he was
inaugurated. In either case, the nation's first great state occasion,
from the "reverential manner" in which Washington bent down to kiss
the Bible to the Te Deum that closed inaugural worship, was laden with
religious portent.
APPENDIX NOTES
Several writers argue eg. Matthew Goldstein, "Myths of the Oath of
Office,"
WASHline, May, 2006," www.wash.org.
"The chancellor" Washington Irving, George Washington: A Biography,
651-52.
"well-researched" Andrew Burstein, The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of
Washington Irving (New York, 2007) 323.
"the scene was" Federal Gazette, 8 May 1789; cf. Jedidiah Morse, American
Geography (London, 1794) 2: 271-72.
"I rejoice in" David Humphreys, Pennsylvania Mercury, 9 May 1789;
reprinted in
Philadelphia's Federal Gazette, 9 May 1789.
"I, _________, a representative" J. L. Bell, www.boston1775.blogspot.com
/2006/10/swearing-into-office-so-help-me-god.html.
"I would pray" TJ to John Marshall, 2 March 1801, PTJ 33: 119.
"That prescribed in" John Marshall to TJ, 2 March 1801, PTJ 33: 120.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
.
|
