Books in Brief

The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations edited by James H. Hutson (Princeton, 280 pp., $19.95). Quote books are made to be quoted, but obviously they must be properly made if they are to be any good. Historian James H. Hutson says that recent books collecting quotations from the Founding Fathers on religion share a common flaw, inasmuch as the choice of quotations tends to be driven by a desire to portray Christianity as "the formative force in the founding of the United States." Seeking to let the Founders speak for themselves on religion, Hutson, chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, has succeeded in producing a book of quotations that is not agenda driven and duly satisfies the canons of historical scholarship.

Hutson states his hope that "conservatives and evangelicals who consult the book will be persuaded that sound scholarship is not their sworn enemy." But those more likely to be upset with the fruits of Hutson's scholarship are secularists who aim to expel religion from the public square and invoke the Founders in behalf of their project. The Founders on Religion by no means confirms the notion that George Washington and Co. had little use for religion. In fact, this excellent volume supports the opposite conclusion.

In choosing which Founders to quote, Hutson picked those no one could fairly leave out--Washington, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, and Adams. He also selected a pair of "Founding Mothers," as he describes them, Abigail Adams and Martha Washington, who indeed said quotable things on religion. Others among the chosen 17 include Charles Carroll of Maryland (a Catholic), John Dickinson of Delaware (raised a Quaker), Henry Laurens of South Carolina (an Episcopalian), Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania (gravitated to Universalism), and Elias Boudinot of New Jersey (a Presbyterian).

Hutson acknowledges that Boudinot, president of the Continental Congress, director of the United States Mint, and the first president of the American Bible Society, is someone not well known today. But the choice of Boudinot is well justified. He was "a prolific religious polemicist," an evangelical who (by definition) believed in the necessity of conversion. His religious views, as Hutson points out, "were probably closer to those of the majority of his countrymen than were those of most of his fellow founders" (especially the Unitarians).

Hutson laments that "there were so few articulate and 'quotable' political leaders like Boudinot" among the Baptists, Methodists, and other evangelicals "who after 1800 conquered the American soul, belying Jefferson's prediction that Unitarianism was the wave of the future." Hutson here recognizes what might be called the religion gap of the founding era, and rightly observes that a "truly inclusive" book of quotations, using statements from ordinary people and not only propertied politicians and military leaders, and thus not the Founding Fathers, would contain topics of more concern to evangelicals, such as "new birth," "revivals, and baptism," and the like.

Hutson does not assign a chapter to each of the chosen 17, a common method of presentation that is useful if the point is to capture the views of a given individual. Instead, he has the 17 speaking to specific religious topics, some 79 in all, and the topics serve as the chapter titles. A reader thus is able to find threads running through various topics and also points of general agreement. The topics include Addiction, Age, America, Bible: Exegesis of, Calvinism, Catholicism, Church and State, Creeds, Deism, Hell, Islam, Jesus, Jews, Millennium, New England, Oaths, Paul, the Apostle, Reason, Sabbath, Sin, Universalism, and the Virgin Mary. The chapters on Afterlife, Children, Prayer, and God have the most pages (7.5 each), save for Slavery, which has more than eight.

It may surprise some readers to find the Founders as keenly interested in theological issues (see Adams generally) or as willing to rewrite Scripture (see Franklin's revision of some verses from the first chapter of Job). But perhaps the most notable conclusion to be drawn from The Founders on Religion is the complete agreement of the Founders on two subjects in particular.

One is what Hutson calls "the social utility of religion," as consider Washington: "True religion affords to government its surest support." And Jefferson: "The Christian religion . . . is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty." And Witherspoon: "true and undefiled religion" is "the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness."

The other subject is that of Providence. Like the social utility of religion, it has its own chapter. But it also makes proud appearances, often by synonym, in many-others. And talk about a religion gap: Where the Founders were united on Providence--"the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of man," and "which has in many Instances appear'd for us," saith the redoubtable Washington--we, or at least the two political parties, are divided. For while Republicans are not shy about invoking Providence, and understanding "a finger of that Almighty hand" (Madison) still at work today in the affairs of man, Democrats, at least those at the national level, seldom speak of such things anymore. That's something to ponder, when pondering the relative strength in the electorate of the two parties, and our political future.

  • Terry Eastland