History of American Government
The Anglican Church in America had a problem because it explicitly had the monarch of England as the head of the church. The Anglican Churches obviously provided a disproportionate number of the loyalists that supported Britain. Some of the more intrepid priests put their loyalty to the Crown at the service of British forces in America. One of these, Jonathan Odell (1737-1818), rector at Burlington, New Jersey, became a confidant of Benedict Arnold and condemned the American Patriots with his writings. Odell blasted his fellow Anglican ministers, who supported the American cause, for apostasy. (3)
The Declaration of Independence proudly proclaimed that power of government came from the people. The Constitution of the United States was deliberately created as a secular document. Thomas Jefferson was a self-professed deist. James Madison was a nominal Episcopalian who spoke against religion and its effects on numerous occasions. Franklin Steiner, in his book The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents, (1995) categorized Madison among "Presidents Whose Religious Views Are Doubtful." These two had clear reasons to not base either of our nation’s founding documents on Christianity. This was condemned by many preachers at the time. For Example, the Reverend Mr. Mason warned, “We have every reason to tremble, least the Governor of the universe, who will not be treated with indignity by a people more than by individuals, overturn from its foundations the fabric we have been rearing, and crush us to atoms in the wreck.” (4)
Theistic propagandists pretending to be historians are now falsely asserting that our country was founded as a Christian nation. Much of their asserted information is either highly questionable or known to be factually wrong. The deistic beliefs of Revolutionary War period luminaries George Washington, John Adams, Ben Franklin and Ethan Allen pose additional substantial problems for people proclaiming America to be founded as a Christian nation.
Abolition of Slavery
The effort to abolish slavery climaxed in the Civil War. This effort was taken up by President Abraham Lincoln who by choice never joined a church. He is quoted by numerous friends as being extremely skeptical of Christianity. Colonel James H. Matheny, “Lincoln often, if not wholly, was an Atheist; at least bordered on it. Lincoln was enthusiastic in his Infidelity.” His law partner, William H. Herndon said, “Now let it be written in history and on Lincoln’s tomb ‘He died an unbeliever.’” (5)
The decades before the Civil War saw the most visible leadership of the abolition of slavery movement coming from avowed atheists joined with the freethinking fringe of Christianity. The abolition movement was strongly related to the women’s rights movement. People concerned with the liberation of slaves became concerned for women and their secondary status under law as then sanctified by clergy. More is available on Lincoln and Abolition Era Leaders.
Women’s Right’s movement
The anti-slavery effort created leadership that became equally dedicated to women’s suffrage (the right to vote). This movement had its publicly visible start in The First Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., on July 18, 1848. This was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Susan B. Anthony was brought into the movement by her friendship with Stanton. She shared the liberal Quaker roots of Stanton and Mott. Throughout the women’s rights struggle, contempt for their cause from religious leaders was a major force in stifling the effort.
Stanton went on to publish the very irreverent “Women’s Bible.” Mott believed in an inner light that was explicitly anti or non-Biblical. In 1858, Susan B. Anthony attempted to establish a “free Church” (free of religion) in Rochester. She rented the Corinthian Hall for a year in the attempt but failed to continue for lack of funds. Miss Stanton in her autobiography stated flatly that “today Miss Anthony is an Agnostic.” (6)
Civil rights
The Ku Klux Klan was a violent terrorist organization that was powerful through the early years of the twentieth century. It was explicitly fundamentalist Christian in its propaganda. The routine public and private lynchings of young black men and some women and children were a very effective deterrent to any effort to achieve either social justice or the right to vote. Many years had more than one hundred lynchings of blacks Americans. The total were recorded from the 1880s through 1965 exceeded three thousand. The library of Congress has a web-based timeline of African American History that includes the history of lynchings. (7)
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History of American Government
Foundational Documents of the United States
