Deism of Madison, Washington, Adams, Franklin and Allen
The Library of Congress has an essay on “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.” It is in general an essay that disproportionately emphasizes the positive role of religion. However it includes this in reference to John Adams:
“Another religious movement that was the antithesis of evangelicalism made its appearance in the eighteenth century. Deism, which emphasized morality and rejected the orthodox Christian view of the divinity of Christ, found advocates among upper-class Americans. Conspicuous among them were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.”
It would not be fair to say that Adams’ acceptance and promotion of Deistic and Enlightenment Era values meant that he was not a Christian. He was a member of a Unitarian Church and could have been personally comfortable calling himself a Christian. It is just that his freethinking approach to the meaning of the word and his Deistic thinking in general would be much different than that assumed by militant Christians who attempt to use Adams to support their cause.
Benjamin Franklin
Ben Franklin was along with Jefferson and Adams one of the people charged with writing the Declaration of Independence. Franklin did not go out of his way to emphasize his Deism in public but he chose to be quite open about it in his autobiography.
In chapter 2 he writes, “..and farther, that my indiscrete disputations about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel or atheist.”
In chapter 6, “But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”
Later in the same paragraph he said, “..I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, without any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been expected from my want of religion.”
As with all Deists Franklin said things that could be interpreted as classically religious. In most cases they were not. There are some that appear to be more supportive of Christianity. Franklin worked on his autobiography near the end of his life. Virtually all quotes that can be taken to imply a Christian belief occurred between the age of fifteen when he became a Deist and the writing of his autobiography when he clearly stated his unbelief. Ben Franklin seems to have felt that it was acceptable for the upper class to understand the truth but that the less educated classes needed religion in order to be moral people. This is not very honest but it appears to be what he may have done.
Ethan Allen
Ethan Allan was the organizer and leader of a Vermont militia group called the “Green Mountain Boys.” Along with men from militia groups in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Ethan Allen and his men captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British on May 10, 1775. This was a major inspiration for the Revolutionary War.
Ethan Allan was very open and proud of his Deism. He wrote “Reason, The Only Oracle of Man.” The second paragraph of the Preface of that book starts, “In the circle of my acquaintance, (which has not been small,) I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian,…” His views are quite explicit. He has a Section IV titled, “THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH THE AGENCY OF MAN.” Another quote from that book, “While we are under the tyranny of Priests [...] it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.”
Conclusion
Among the leaders of the Revolutionary War period we find a range of beliefs including a mixture of freethinking distrust of religion combined with Deistic antipathy to superstition to a hard and uncompromising disbelief in religion. This characterized most of the well known and important leaders of the Revolutionary War period.
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History of American Government
Foundational Documents of the United States
