The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
establishments. Perhaps seeking to answer Adams’s capitalizations with his own, the writer concluded that “THE PEOPLE OF THE SEVERAL STATES—ALTHOUGH A VAST MAJORITY OF THEM WERE CHRISTIANS—RESOLVED, IN FRAMING THEIR CONSTITUTIONS, TO DESTROY ALL CONNEXIONS BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” (Dreisbach 1996, 140).
The reference to the year of our Lord in the constitutional attestation clause was “a mere mode of speech” and hardly an attempt to establish Christianity, as is evident by the First Amendment (Dreisbach 1996, 141). The author further 8disputed Adams’s interpretation of the Constitution of South Carolina and noted that many common law doctrines were developed at the time when the Roman Catholic Church, whose doctrines were later pronounced “idolatrous and damnable,” was dominant (Dreisbach 1996, 147). The essay concluded with the observation that “Christianity requires no aid from force or persecution. She asks not to be guarded by fines and forfeitures. She stands secure in the armour of truth and reason. She seeks not to establish her principles by political aid and legal enactments. She seeks mildly and peaceably to establish them in the hearts of the people” (Dreisbach 1996, 150).
See also Common Law; Madison, James; Sunday Mail Delivery
For Reference and Further Reading
Dreisbach, Daniel L., ed. 1996. Religion and Politics in the Early Republic: Jasper Adams and the Church-State Debate. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Kramnick, Isaac, and R. Laurence Moore. 1996. The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness. New York: W.W. Norton.
Adams, John
John Adams (1735–1826) was among the most important of America’s Founding Fathers. Born in Massachusetts to a long line of Puritans, Adams might well have gone into the ministry had he not attended Harvard University and decided instead to pursue law. He married Abigail Smith, the daughter of a preacher, and established a practice but, despite his defense of the British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre, he quickly became one of America’s leading advocates of independence from Great Britain.
One of the most active members of both the First and Second Continental Congresses, Adams served on the committee charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence but left the primary task of writing to Thomas Jefferson, with whom he would remain friends throughout much of his life, until they later joined opposing political parties. Adams would go on to serve as an American diplomat in France during the Revolutionary War, as the nation’s first vice president under George Washington, as a leader of the Federalist Party (where, however, he was often at odds with Alexander Hamilton), and as the nation’s second president, where he successfully avoided a shooting war with France but was defeated for reelection by Democratic-Republicans lead by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Norman Cousins observed that Adams has been variously identified as “a Puritan, Deist, Orthodox Christian, and Humanist” (1958, 75). His Puritanism was perhaps most evident in his moral earnestness, his view that human nature was sinful, and in his desire not to waste time (Fielding 1940, 40). Like both Christians and Deists, Adams believed that God created the world. With Christians, he extolled the Bible and believed in the miracles of Jesus, but with Deists, he did not believe that his death on the cross secured individual salvation. Although Adams believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead, he did not believe that this proved him to be divine (Frazer 2012, 109). Gregg Frazer (2012) believes that he was what he described as a “theistic rationalist,” who honored both reason and revelation but considered reason the superior of the two.
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Adams believed in the importance of virtue to the success of republican government, and he believed that the teachings of the Bible promoted such virtue. In an entry in his diary dated February 22, 1756, Adams thus wrote,
Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law-book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged, in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry; to justice and kindness and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love and reverence towards Almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust; no man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards or any other trifling and mean amusement; no man would steal, or lie, or in any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and good will with all men; no man would blaspheme his Maker or profane his worship; but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a Utopia; what a Paradise would this region be! (Cousins 1958, 81)
Adams’s argument for biblical miracles had a rational basis: “The great and Almighty author of nature, who at first established those rules which regulate the World, can as easily Suspend those Laws whenever his providence sees sufficient reason for such suspension. This can be no objection, then, to the miracles” (Frazer 2012, 109).
Acknowledging in a letter to Samuel Miller dated July 8, 1820, that his immediate ancestors had all been Calvinists and that “I have never known any better people than the Calvinists,” he further said that “I must acknowledge that I cannot class myself under that denomination” (Cousins 1958, 111). He believed the doctrine that God elected some to salvation and others to damnation was pernicious because it undercut “the practice of virtue” and rendered “all prayer futile and absurd” (Frazer 2012, 116–17). He extolled the Puritan framers, however, for eliminating the religious hierarchy that had characterized the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. Citing an anecdote that he attributed to George Whitefield, Adams said that he joined company with all of those, identified in the words of Peter to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, in Acts 10:35: “He who feareth God and worketh righteousness, shall be accepted of him” (Frazer 2012, 120).
With many Deists, Adams admired Jesus as a great moral teacher. He further said that “the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion” (Frazer 2012, 118). Like other Deists, Adams rejected the idea of the Trinity and was a member of a Unitarian church (Frazer 2012, 121). Indeed, Adams was so dismissive of the idea of the Trinity that he said he could not believe it even if Moses had brought the news down from Mount Sinai (Frazer 2012, 121–22)!
One of the great ironies of Adams’s beliefs is that many Federalist partisans in the presidential election of 1800 railed against Jefferson because of his alleged heterodoxy, which seems to have been equally shared with Adams. Their correspondence, which they resumed after both had left the presidency, was largely resumed through the efforts of Dr. Benjamin Rush, who often discussed religious matters with them.
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The Adams family was one of the most distinguished in U.S. history. John’s wife urged him to consider the rights of women. Their son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president and a long-term congressman who distinguished himself by his opposition to slavery.
See also Adams, John Quincy; Deism; Jefferson Bible
For Reference and Further Reading