Desire For Religious Freedom Precipitated Revolutionary War

[PoliticalChic]

Desire For Religious Freedom Precipitated Revolutionary War 1. Of course, the reason for the Revolutionary War was unfair taxation, and the impetus was the desire for political liberty….sort of. Overlooked was the religious nature for the war. The Puritans, later known as Congregationalists, fled the King…and the Anglican Church.
...

And those Puritans proceeded to set up a Theocracy which excluded all religion but their own.

And this is exactly what the Founders sought to avoid in the new nation.

 

[paperview]

c. So, the Founders intention was to be sure that the federal government didn’t do the same, and mandate a national religion. And when Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, it was to reassure them the federal government could not interfere in their religious observations, i.e., there is “a wall of separation between church and state.” He wasn’t speaking of religion contaminating the government, but of the government contaminating religious observance.

Again: 'A Wall of Separation' (June 1998) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin

His letter was focused on the government use of proclaiming fastings and thanksgiving.

In his own words, He was looking, he told Lincoln, for an opportunity for "saying why I do not proclaim fastings & thanksgivings, as my predecessors did."

That is THE GOVERNMENT using religious expression, honey - that which Jefferson was against.

 

[paperview]

In his New Year's note to Lincoln, Jefferson revealed that he hoped to accomplish two things by replying to the Danbury Baptists. One was to issue a "condemnation of the alliance between church and state." This he accomplished in the first, printed, part of the draft. Jefferson's strictures on church-state entanglement were little more than rewarmed phrases and ideas from his Statute Establishing Religious Freedom (1786) and from other, similar statements. To needle his political opponents, Jefferson paraphrased a passage, that "the legitimate powers of government extend to ... acts only" and not to opinions, from the Notes on the State of Virginia, which the Federalists had shamelessly distorted in the election of 1800 in an effort to stigmatize him as an atheist. So politicized had church-state issues become by 1802 that Jefferson told Lincoln that he considered the articulation of his views on the subject, in messages like the Danbury Baptist letter, as ways to fix his supporters' "political tenets."

Again: 'A Wall of Separation' (June 1998) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin

 

[goldcatt]

Sure, the Puritans fled religious persecution. So they could immediately set up their own theocracy and go on to burn nonconformists as witches and slaughter members of other religious groups that came to them in peace as ambassadors and evangelists, such as Catholics and Quakers.

Yep, the Puritan spirit seems to live on in quite a few folks today.

 

[uscitizen]

Freedom from mandated religion.

Keep all religion out of government.

Naturally, you have it completely backwards.

Keep government out of religion.

The end result is the same if you let religion into govt.

 

[PoliticalChic]

c. So, the Founders intention was to be sure that the federal government didn’t do the same, and mandate a national religion. And when Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, it was to reassure them the federal government could not interfere in their religious observations, i.e., there is “a wall of separation between church and state.” He wasn’t speaking of religion contaminating the government, but of the government contaminating religious observance.

Again: 'A Wall of Separation' (June 1998) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin

His letter was focused on the government use of proclaiming fastings and thanksgiving.

In his own words, He was looking, he told Lincoln, for an opportunity for "saying why I do not proclaim fastings & thanksgivings, as my predecessors did."

That is THE GOVERNMENT using religious expression, honey - that which Jefferson was against.

First, let's be very clear: I'm not your 'honey.'

Second, it is clear that in your hurry to rebut, you didn't take the time to carefully read the link by Hutson...
Your earlier post claimed that the 'wall' was not hinged as a door, one way, yet your link includes
""the legitimate powers of government extend to..." which is clearly one way.

And the direction is as I indicated earlier, the power of government over religion, not the influence of religion on government.


Further, a large part of the thesis of the link is Jefferson's attempts ot justify and explain his deist philosophy.

But I appreciate the attempt.

 

[PoliticalChic]

In his New Year's note to Lincoln, Jefferson revealed that he hoped to accomplish two things by replying to the Danbury Baptists. One was to issue a "condemnation of the alliance between church and state." This he accomplished in the first, printed, part of the draft. Jefferson's strictures on church-state entanglement were little more than rewarmed phrases and ideas from his Statute Establishing Religious Freedom (1786) and from other, similar statements. To needle his political opponents, Jefferson paraphrased a passage, that "the legitimate powers of government extend to ... acts only" and not to opinions, from the Notes on the State of Virginia, which the Federalists had shamelessly distorted in the election of 1800 in an effort to stigmatize him as an atheist. So politicized had church-state issues become by 1802 that Jefferson told Lincoln that he considered the articulation of his views on the subject, in messages like the Danbury Baptist letter, as ways to fix his supporters' "political tenets."

Again: 'A Wall of Separation' (June 1998) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin

"condemnation of the alliance between church and state."

This means that he and others wished for the disestablishment of a particular church, as in the following:

1. By any estimation, most of the early colonies did not embrace religious freedom! Madison and Jefferson were two of the Enlightenment liberals who rallied to the cause of the persecuted Baptists, and with evangelicals and others, supported disestablishment.

a. In 1771, a writer calling himself ‘Timoleon,’ in Purdie & Dixon’s Virginia Gazette, argued that dissenters should have protection under English law, and he argued that multiple denominations made Virginia society healthier: “Liberty of conscience is the sacred property of every man.” To take it away makes one a tyrant.

2. In early 1776, as the colonies began to organize independent government, they began to think of statements of basic liberties, and Madison helped craft the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which became the impetus for shedding the establishment of a faith, and the tradition of persecution.

a. George Mason has proposed that the Declaration provide full toleration for dissenters, but Madison would settle for nothing less than “free exercise of religion” for all.

b. At this time most of Virginia’s leaders still wanted an Anglican [to be called the Episcopal Church after independence] establishment along with the free exercise of religion. Kidd, Op.Cit., P.53

c. Jefferson explained that “at the time of the revolution, most had become dissenters from the established church but still had to pay contributions to support the pastors of the minority.” “Thomas Jefferson Autobiography,” Ford (ed.), p. 52.

3. The movement for religious liberty would succeed in American because evangelicals, rationalists, and deists fought for it together.

a. Although Madison was a fervent Anglican during the early years of the Revolution, he drifted toward deism or Unitarianism later in life. Jefferson was very skeptical about the Bible and traditional doctrines such as that of the Trinity, and this is covered in the Hutson link.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Sure, the Puritans fled religious persecution. So they could immediately set up their own theocracy and go on to burn nonconformists as witches and slaughter members of other religious groups that came to them in peace as ambassadors and evangelists, such as Catholics and Quakers.

Yep, the Puritan spirit seems to live on in quite a few folks today.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.

Alexander Pope, An essay on Criticism
English poet & satirist (1688 - 1744)

 

[Sunni Man]

It was also religion in the southern pulpits that was used to justify slavery.

Northern pulpits also conveyed the same message to justify slavery during this period.

 

[paperview]

Freedom from mandated religion.

Keep all religion out of government.

Naturally, you have it completely backwards.

Keep government out of religion.

The end result is the same if you let religion into govt.

^Truth.

 

[paperview]

It was also religion in the southern pulpits that was used to justify slavery.

Northern pulpits also conveyed the same message to justify slavery during this period.

Considering slavery had been abolished in most of the northern states by the end of the 18th century - there wasn't a whole lot of northern pulpits decrying slavery in the north, the south, yes -- and those southern pulpits kept on preaching the old and new testament justifications for slavery.

Till a bloody war made them stop.

 

[Sunni Man]

4 Northern slave owning states that fought "with" the Union during the Civil War: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware

 

[paperview]

Those would be called the border states.

 

[Samir]

There is no thing as religious freedom. Invention by west and devils. There is only Allah and peace or war to those who do not submit to Allah.

 

[PoliticalChic]

There is no thing as religious freedom. Invention by west and devils. There is only Allah and peace or war to those who do not submit to Allah.

These posts of yours are so consistently irrational that you must be some sort of religious agent provocateur posing as a Muslim to make Muslims look loony.

Did I hit the nail on your head?

 

[uscitizen]

4 Northern slave owning states that fought "with" the Union during the Civil War: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware

Actually at one point KY had both a confederate and union capitol.
The western end which was republican leaning(well what we would call republican today) was confederate and the eastern part wanted jut to bel left alone. The Union pretty much had central KY.

 

[chesswarsnow]

Sorry bout that,


1. No I think he really believes that crap, *PC*, if you have read anything in the koran, you would understand.
2. Its full of evil, double talk, escape within evil ideals and evil deeds.
3. Submition to some sin filled prophet, with controls being death and punishments, mostly aimed at women then offsprings, then lastly men.
4. His statement rings true, sounds like islam to me.



Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. Of course, the reason for the Revolutionary War was unfair taxation, and the impetus was the desire for political liberty….sort of. Overlooked was the religious nature for the war. The Puritans, later known as Congregationalists, fled the King…and the Anglican Church.

a. John Dickinson’s “Letter form a Farmer in Pennsylvania” appears in the Boston Chronicle of December 21, 1767, in which he argues that Parliament had no right to impose taxes for the purpose of raising revenue. His compelling polemic against said taxation was the most influential American pamphlet before Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.”

b. Calvinist Samuel Adams, liberty-activist, thought it unfortunate that Dickinson gave so much attention to the financial and political issues of taxation without representation, but ignored the threat to religious liberty: “What we have above everything else to fear is POPERY.” Adams was railing against what he saw as the threat of the imposition of the Catholic Church by the royal government in Massachusetts. He believed that the Stamp Act and the Townshend Duties would lead to religious oppression. Kidd, “God of Liberty,” p. 58.

c. These acts were “contrived with a design only to inure the people to the habit of contemplating themselves as the slaves of en; and the transition from thence to a subjection to Satan, is mighty easy.” Samuel Adams, ‘Boston Gazette,’ April 4, 1768, Cushing, “The Writings of Samuel Adams,” vol.1, p. 201.

2. Many colonists transposed their hatred of the Catholic Church to a new enemy, the political actions of the British.

3. Between 1761 and 1775, matters of religion were intimately connected to two issues: he potential appointment of an Anglican bishop for American, and the British policy toward Catholics in Canada, as reflected in the 1774 Quebec Act.

a. American Protestants fiercely resented the thought that Britain would take away their religious liberty, since the Congregationalists’ Puritan forefathers had left the Anglican Church when they migrated to New England in the 1630’s. They saw imposition of an Anglican bishop as the next step in forcing an Anglican establishment on New England.

b. Because of these feelings about Catholicism, the reaction to the Quebec Act of 1774 was understandable. As a result to the Seven Year’s War, Britain needed to accommodate the conquered Quebecois, it reinstated the French legal system, and granted the French Canadian Catholics freedom of religion. And, they moved Quebec’s border down to the Ohio River, which appropriated land claimed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia.

c. A young New York Lawyer, Alexander Hamilton, viewed the Quebec Act as a British plan to encircle the colonists with hostile Catholics. He joined a volunteer militia company to prepare for the defense of New York. Alexander Hamilton, “Remarks on the Quebec Bill,” June 15, 1775, in “The Papers of Alexander Hamilton,” by Harold Syrett, vol. 1, p. 166, 173.

4. After April 19, 1775, Lexington and Concord, anti-Catholicism, pragmatically, toned down. Patriots sought alliance with Canadian Catholics, and sizable Catholic groups in Pennsylvania and Maryland.

a. George Washington forbid anti-Catholicism in the Continental Army, and wondered how anyone could be “so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step as this juncture.” George Washington quoted in “The Founders on Religion,” Hutson (ed.), p. 43.

From Albert Nock Our Enemy The State

[SIZE=+2]II[/SIZE]​

It was said at the time, I believe, that the actual causes of the colonial revolution of 1776 would never be known. The causes assigned by our schoolbooks may be dismissed as trivial; the various partisan and propagandist views of that struggle and its origins may be put down as incompetent. Great evidential value may be attached to the long line of adverse commercial legislation laid down by the British State from 1651 onward, especially to that portion of it which was enacted after the merchant-State established itself firmly in England in consequence of the events of 1688. This legislation included the Navigation Acts, the Trade Acts, acts regulating the colonial currency, the act of 1752 regulating the process of levy and distress, and the procedures leading up to the establishment of the Board of Trade in 1696.[11] These directly affected the industrial and commercial interests in the colonies, though just how seriously is perhaps an open question - enough at any rate, beyond doubt, to provoke deep resentment.
Over and above these, however, if the reader will put himself back into the ruling passion of the time, he will at once appreciate the import of two matters which have for some reason escaped the attention of historians. The first of these is the attempt of the British State to limit the exercise of the political means in respect of rental-values.[12] In 1763 it forbade the colonists to take up lands lying westward of the source of any river flowing through the Atlantic seaboard. The dead-line thus established ran so as to cut off from predmption about half of Pennsylvania and half of Virginia and everything to the west thereof. This was serious. With the mania for speculation running as high as it did, with the consciousness of opportunity, real or fancied, having become so acute and so general, this ruling affected everybody. One can get some idea of its effect by imagining the state of mind of our people at large if stock-gambling had suddenly been outlawed at the beginning of the last great boom in Wall Street a few years ago.
For by this time the colonists had begun to be faintly aware of the illimitable resources of the country lying westward; they had learned just enough about them to fire their imagination and their avarice to a white heat. The seaboard had been pretty well taken up, the free-holding farmer had been pushed back farther and farther, population was coming in steadily, the maritime towns were growing. Under these conditions, "western lands" had become a centre of attraction. Rental-values depended on population, the population was bound to expand, and the one general direction in which it could expand was westward, where lay an immense and incalculably rich domain waiting for predmption. What could be more natural than that the colonists should itch to get their hands on this territory, and exploit it for themselves alone, and on their own terms, without risk of arbitrary interference by the British State? - and this of necessity meant political independence. It takes no great stress of imagination to see that anyone in those circumstances would have felt that way, and that colonial resentment against the arbitrary limitation which the edict of 1763 put upon the exercise of the political means must therefore have been great.
The actual state of land-speculation during the colonial period will give a fair idea of the probabilities in the case. Most of it was done on the company-system; a number of adventurers would unite, secure a grant of land, survey it, and then sell it off as speedily as they could. Their aim was a quick turnover; they did not, as a rule, contemplate holding the land, much less settling it - in short, their ventures were a pure gamble in rental-values.[13] Among these pre-revolutionary enterprises was the Ohio Company, formed in 1748 with a grant of half a million acres; the Loyal Company, which like the Ohio Company, was composed of Virginians; the Transylvania, the Vandalia, Scioto, Indiana, Wabash, Illinois, Susquehannah, and others whose holdings were smaller.[14] It is interesting to observe the names of persons concerned in these undertakings; one can not escape the significance of this connexion in view of their attitude towards the revolution, and their subsequent career as statesmen and patriots. For example, aside from his individual ventures, General Washington was a member of the Ohio Company, and a prime mover in organizing the Mississippi Company. He also conceived the scheme of the Potomac Company, which was designed to raise the rental-value of western holdings by affording an outlet for their produce by canal and portage to the Potomac River, and thence to the seaboard. This enterprise determined the establishment of the national capital in its present most ineligible situation, for the proposed terminus of the canal was at that point. Washington picked up some lots in the city that bears his name, but in common with other early speculators, he did not make much money out of them; they were appraised at about $20,000 when he died.
Patrick Henry was an inveterate and voracious engrosser of land lying beyond the deadline set by the British State; later he was heavily involved in the affairs of one of the notorious Yazoo companies, operating in Georgia. He seems to have been most unscrupulous. His company's holdings in Georgia, amounting to more than ten million acres, were to be paid for in Georgia scrip, which was much depreciated. Henry bought up all these certificates that he could get his hands on, at ten cents on the dollar, and made a great profit on them by their rise in value when Hamilton put through his measure for having the central government assume the debts they represented. Undoubtedly it was this trait of unrestrained avarice which earned him the dislike of Mr. Jefferson, who said, rather contemptuously, that he was "insatiable in money."[15]
Benjamin Franklin's thrifty mind turned cordially to the project of the Vandalia Company, and he acted successfully as promoter for it in England in 1766. Timothy Pickering, who was Secretary of State under Washington and John Adams, went on record in 1796 that "all I am now worth was gained by speculations in land." Silas Deane, emissary of the Continental Congress to France, was interested in the Illinois and Wabash Companies, as was Robert Morris, who managed the revolution's finances; as was also James Wilson, who became a justice of the Supreme Court and a mighty man in post-revolutionary land-grabbing. Wolcott of Connecticut, and Stiles, president of Yale College, held stock in the Susquehannah Company; so did Peletiah Webster, Ethan Allen, and Jonathan Trumbull, the "Brother Jonathan," whose name was long a sobriquet for the typical American, and is still sometimes so used. James Duane, the first mayor of New York City, carried on some quite considerable speculative undertakings; and however indisposed one may feel towards entertaining the fact, so did the "Father of the Revolution" himself - Samuel Adams.
A mere common-sense view of the situation would indicate that the British State's interference with a free exercise of the political means was at least as great an incitement to revolution as its interference, through the Navigation Acts, and the Trade Acts, with a free exercise of the economic means. In the nature of things it would be a greater incitement, both because it affected a more numerous class of persons, and because speculation in land-values represented much easier money. Allied with this is the second matter which seems to me deserving of notice, and which has never been properly reckoned with, as far as I know, in studies of the period.

It can quite easily be said that many reasons were used to stir up the populace, but British polices that restricted the economic schemes of these leaders were the causes of the revolution itself.

I found it to be a very thoughtful essay, and the ideas of economic determinism have been well and often propounded. In several books about the Seven Years War I have found pretty convincing arguments as to the need to raise money by the British, and the need to dampen the western movement of the colonials, as this caused friction with the Indans, and, to the north, the French...

And, in full consideration, it may by my own bias, but I think that it underestimates the ethos of the people.

There are many stories that one can point to where individuals accepted beatings, prison and even death to present their view of religion and God...missionaries who gave up wealth and security for same.

I find it less acceptable to believe that it was personal aggrandizement that drove so many.

And this may weaken my argument, but I believe that America had a purpose beyond and above other nations, and that it's creation was not based on the mundane, the pecuniary.

1. There are four references to ‘Devine’ in D of I… 1)in first paragraph ‘Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,’ 2) next paragraph ‘endowed by their Creator,” 3) Supreme Judge of the world, and 4) ‘divine’ Providence, last paragraph.
This is important because our historic documents memorialize a government based on individuals born with inalienable rights, by, in various references, by the Devine, or Nature’s God, or their Creator, or the Supreme Judge, or divine Providence.



2. In a study that appeared in the American Political Science Review back in 1984, two political science professors, Dr. Donald Lutz and Dr. Charles Heineman researched 15,000 writings, letters, diaries, sermons and other works that were written by various leading Americans from 176O-1805. Their purpose was to identify quotations to find out who the founding fathers were quoting' where they got their ideas, what authorities they were most impressed with. They found that by far the most widely quoted source in the founding fathers' writings was the Bible. Thirty-four percent of all quotations came out of the Bible. And the book of the Bible they quoted most often was the book of Deuteronomy. Now most of us don't go around quoting Deuteronomy a great deal today, but Deuteronomy is the book of the law. And they were writing about law and government.
The Federalist Papers: The Key to Restoring Our Constitutional Republic, By John Eidsmoe

I think Nock would agree based on his statement "...the British State's interference with a free exercise of the political means was at least as great an incitement to revolution as its interference, through the Navigation Acts, and the Trade Acts, with a free exercise of the economic means."