This is a continuation of my series 15 Things You Must Read Before Voting.
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
ABOUT:
George Washington was a great leader and a wonderful statesman. After decades of compounding fables, it is important for us to look back and see him for who he was. He is remembered for having a stature demanding respect, a wise voice and a terse personality. A religious man, Washington insisted that private morality was a catalyst for good governance. Moreover, after years of serving his country he wanted to return to his quiet life at Mount Vernon. Instead of satisfying that desire, Washington accepted his nomination for president and willingly served his country for eight more years.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
The first America was a stillborn attempt to create a government conducive to personal and economic freedoms. It was not until eleven years after the Declaration of Independence that our current Constitution was adopted, to the chagrin of many Americans. Perhaps more than anything else, Americans were concerned that an executive power would lead to indefinite usurpation, landing them in a similar situation (perhaps worse) to the colonial era. Nevertheless, the Constitution was ratified and Washington was chosen to rule the land. His first inaugural address highlights some unique characteristics of Washington, particularly his reluctance to accept the Presidency and his dedication to private morality.
MY ANALYSIS:
If nothing else, this transcript will help build the mood for tomorrow’s reading. The speech was short, simple and effective; yet it is important because it illuminates a debate that America has been struggling with since its founding: to what extent should private morality influence government?
For Washington, the answer was obvious, “…the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality….” For President Washington, “…there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, –between duty and advantage,– between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid reward of public prosperity and felicity.” So, In God Washington Trusts, but did the other founders?
Many were deists, men who believed in a mechanical Universe, governed by laws of nature, but a world that God has no time for. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would arguably fit into this category. Franklin was interested in the Presbyterian Church; however, his autobiography states, “I seldom attended any public worship….” Franklin goes on to argue that “[The Minister’s] discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforc’d, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens.” So, it was not Christian morality that Franklin took offense to, but instead Church bored him. That still did not stop him from striving for sanctitude, “I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” If you want more on Franklin, read his Autobiography, it is very funny.
There was, to my knowledge, at least one Founding Father who did oppose a church-state synthesis. The father of the Constitution, James Madison, was a huge advocate of religious freedom. “Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. (click here)” Madison’s view is more progressive than many people even today, absolutely no taxpayer funded religion, even Congressional chaplains.
Clearly the Founding Fathers disagreed. To say that this nation was founded on Christian principles is an argument that one could make, but to say that this nation is a Christian nation is simply not true.
Do you think personal morality should play a part in public affairs?
For tomorrow read Washington’s Farewell Address.
[...] George Washington’s First Inaugural Address [...]