#14 The Father of Our Country (2)
IDENTITY POLITICS | Mark Boonstra: I consider it an indispensable duty by commending the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God.
In the summer of 1774, following a service at Christ Church in Alexandria, Washington announced his support for colonial independence. He then attended the first Virginia convention in August of that year; it was convened after the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, dissolved the House of Burgesses in response to its call for a day of prayer in support of the patriots then under siege in Boston, Massachusetts. Delegates to the convention elected Washington to the Continental Congress. The second Virginia convention was held in March of 1775 at the Henrico Parish (Anglican) church (later called St. John’s Church) in Richmond; there, Washington supported Patrick Henry’s famous call to “Give me liberty or give me death!”
In June of 1775, the Continental Congress elected Washington as commander of the organizing militia troops that would become the Continental Army. Upon departing for the upcoming battles, General Washington wrote to Martha:
I go fully trusting in that Providence which has been more bountiful to me than I deserve, & in full confidence of a happy meeting with you some time in the Fall.
The new commander’s first order included a directive to his troops that they punctually attend divine services and implore the blessing of heaven. His July 9, 1776 General Order stated:
The Honorable Continental Congress having been pleased to allow a Chaplain to each Regiment . . . . The Colonels or commanding officers of each regiment are directed to procure Chaplains accordingly; persons of good Characters and exemplary lives—To see that all inferior officers and soldiers pay them a suitable respect and attend carefully upon religious exercises: The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger—The General hopes and trusts, that every officer, and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.
During the ensuing years, while commanding patriot forces through the highs and lows of the war for independence, Washington attended religious services—of various denominations—at every opportunity. He continued to expect and require the same of his troops. And he was known to solemnly and privately pray for divine protection and intervention—as Quaker Issac Potts silently observed from afar during the depths of Washington’s wintry travails at Valley Forge in December of 1777.
General Washington’s subsequent orders continued to stress the importance of divine worship and Christian character. In his May 2, 1778 General Order, he instructed:
The Commander in Chief directs that divine Service be performed every sunday at 11 oClock in those Brigades to which there are Chaplains—those which have none to attend the places of worship nearest to them—It is expected that Officers of all Ranks will by their attendence set an Example to their men. While we are zealously performing the duties of good Citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of Religion—To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian—The signal Instances of providential Goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labours with complete Success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of Gratitude & Piety to the Supreme Author of all Good.
The battle of Yorktown ended in a decisive patriot victory, and British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington on October 19, 1781. The war for independence was won at last, and Washington hastened to the bedside of his typhus-stricken stepson John. When John passed away on November 5, 1781, Washington and Martha, now childless, took John’s children— Eleanor Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis—into their Mount Vernon home as their own.
In June of 1783, concerned about the weakness of the new national government under the then-governing Articles of Confederation, Washington drafted a circular letter to the states addressing his concerns. In it, he exulted in the divine blessings that had been bestowed upon the country, and on “the Cup of blessing” and “the glorious events which Heaven has been pleased to produce in our favor,” and he urged his fellow citizens to conduct themselves as God would have them do. He continued:
I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination & obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field—and finally that he would most graciously be pleas’d to dispose us all to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with that Charity, humility & pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion & without an humble immitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.
On June 11, 1789, Washington wrote to Rev. John Rodgers:
Glorious indeed has been our Contest; glorious, if we consider the prize for which we have contended, and glorious in its Issue: But in the midst of our Joys, I hope we shall not forget that, to Divine Providence is to be ascribed the Glory & the Praise.
To Rev. John Witherspoon—the President of Princeton University (then the College of New Jersey) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence—Washington wrote:
I attribute all the glory to that Supreme Being, who hath caused the several parts which have been employed in the production of the wonderful Events we now contemplate, to harmonize in the most perfect manner—and who was able by the humblest instruments as well as by the most powerful means to establish & secure the liberty & happiness of these United States.
I now return you Gentlemen my thanks for your benevolent wishes, and make it my earnest prayer to Heaven, that every temporal & divine blessing may be bestowed on the Inhabitants of Princeton, on the neighbourhood, and on the President & Faculty of the College of New Jersey, and that the usefullness of this Institution in promoting the interests of Religion & Learning may be universally extended.
The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, officially ending the war for independence. Washington then resigned his commission as commander-in-chief in December of that year. By then, his attendance at Christ Church in Alexandria—rather than at Pohick Church in Truro Parish—had become regular. In an address to Congress on December 23, 1783, General Washington attributed the patriot victory to “the patronage of Heaven,” and declared:
I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my Official life, by commending the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping.
Although not serving in the new Virginia legislature, Washington remained in close touch with those who were crafting policy for the new state of Virginia. In 1784, Patrick Henry introduced a Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion; the bill would have provided government funding of religious institutions, while allowing individuals to designate the institution or denomination that would receive their tax dollars. James Madison opposed Henry’s bill and set forth his reasons in his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. When Mason, Washington’s fellow-Truro-Parish-vestryman, sent a copy of the Remonstrance to Washington, Washington replied that although he opposed any restraint on religious principles and thought the timing of the bill unfortunate, he was unconcerned in principle about requiring people to contribute to the support of the denomination of their choice.
In 1787, upon the convening of a convention to consider revisions to the Articles of Confederation, Washington was chosen as a convention delegate and then was elected—upon the nomination of Benjamin Franklin—to preside over its deliberations. In accepting that role, he offered:
Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hands of God.
Washington was a proponent of—and signatory to—the United States Constitution that was crafted at the convention to replace the Articles. In 1788, Washington was made chancellor of the College of William and Mary. The Anglican institution had been founded in 1693 by Rev. James Blair with the intention of educating ministers of the gospel.
The following year, upon the ratification of the Constitution by the states, Washington was unanimously chosen to become the first President of the United States. Upon taking the oath of office at his inauguration, he is said to have added the words “so help me God,” and to have bowed as he kissed the Bible upon which he had placed his hand.
Next Up: Part Three: The Father of Our Country
* Portions of this essay are derived from Judge Boonstra’s 3-volume work: In Their Own Words: Today’s God-less America . . . What Would Our Founding Fathers Think?
-Mark | Mark’s Substack | Visit Mark’s Website