Category: Warren Throckmorton

July 4, 1787 – Happy Independence Day!
(Since May, I have been reading through the notes taken by James Madison at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Every day the Convention was in session, I have posted a summary of the day and an account of the influences on the delegates. I am testing claims that the Bible and Christianity inspired the Constitution as well as satisfying my curiosity about what went into making our Constitution. You can catch up on the series via this link.)

Summary

The delegates were not in formal session today. A subcommittee of delegates was given the task over the July 3-4 break of discussing the Connecticut compromise with a hope that a consensus might develop. Many delegates did take part in various activities around Philadelphia marking the holiday. One such event was an oration by James Campbell titled:

AN ORATION, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH-AMERICA, DELIVERED JULY 4, 1787, At the REFORMED CALVINIST Church in Philadelphia, BY JAMES CAMPBELL, ESQUIRE,
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, AN INTRODUCTORY PRAYER, DELIVERED ON THE SAME OCCASION, BY THE REV. WILLIAM ROGERS, A. M.
PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI.
PHILADELPHIA: Printed and Sold by PRICHARD and HALL, in Market Street, between Front and Second Streets. MDCCLXXXVII,

David Barton’s False Links

David Barton falsely claims that the prayer before the oration by Campbell was in response to Ben Franklin’s unheeded call to prayer on June 28, 1787. Barton said on his Wallbuilders website:

In response to Benjamin Franklin’s call to seek God that was made on June 28, 1787, the Rev. William Rogers prayed before the service that was held at the Reformed Calvinist Church in Philadelphia on July 4th of that year. The below text is taken from The Massachusetts Centinel on August 15, 1787.

In fact, as those who are following my Constitutional Convention series know, Franklin’s call went without a vote because only three or four delegates thought it necessary to pray before the proceedings. Rogers prayed on July 4th as requested by the Society of Cincinnati, the group who sponsored Campbell’s oration.  This event nothing specific to do with any action in Convention. Barton also tries to link the Campbell speech with a motion made in Convention by Edmund Randolph also on June 28, 1787. From the Wallbuilders website:

Those orders were followed a few days later at the Reformed Calvinist Lutheran Church. In response to Franklin’s appeal, Virginia’s Mr. Randolph offered a counter proposal. He recommended that a “sermon be preached at the request of the convention on the 4th of July, the anniversary of Independence, & thence forward prayers be used in ye Convention every morning.” One report has Washington leading most of the Convention delegates to the church, where James Campbell preached a sermon trusting in the wisdom of the delegates to establish a “free and vigorous government.”

Randolph did make that motion after Franklin’s call to prayer. However, Randolph’s motion, like Franklin’s, was not voted on. In his notes, Madison recorded:

Mr. RANDOLPH proposed, in order to give a favorable aspect to the measure, that a sermon be preached at the request of the Convention on the Fourth of July, the anniversary of Independence; and thenceforward prayers, &c. to be read in the Convention every morning. Doctor FRANKLIN seconded this motion. After several unsuccessful attempts for silently postponing this matter by adjourning, the adjournment was at length carried, without any vote on the motion.

Barton calls Campbell’s speech a “sermon.” You can read it here. The only mention of religion that I can find in this “sermon” is as follows:

Another, and a principal advantage of our Independence, results from the material change it has wrought on the opinions, con|duct and government of the European na|tions: It was by contemplating our Indepen|dence that France has become the land of free enquiry and general toleration; Ger|many, from the same cause, has shaken off an immense load of religious prejudice and bigottry; Spain has caught our spirit of en|terprise and innovation; and even Britain herself has been taught, by our successful struggle to relax in her system of general sub|jugation; hence Ireland enjoys what she had long demanded in vain; an exercise of her na|tural rights to commerce, liberty and inde|pendence. Propitious aera! happy event! which has softened the rigours of tyranny, and taught even Kings to revere the great laws of justice and equity. (emphasis added)

Campbell was a lawyer, not a minister. He spoke to the audience about the benefits of American independence for America and the world.
The whole picture includes Rogers animated prayer to God and Campbell’s encomium celebrating the heroes of natural rights from Cicero to Jefferson.

Further reading on Independence Day

As Predicted by Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Both Died on July 4th
 

1787 Constitutional Convention Series

To read my series examining the proceedings of the Constitution Convention, click here.  In this series, I am writing about any obvious influences on the development of the Constitution which were mentioned by the delegates to the Convention. Specifically, I am testing David Barton’s claim that “every clause” of the Constitution is based on biblical principles. Thus far, I have found nothing supporting the claim. However, stay tuned, the series will run until mid-September.
Constitutional Convention Series (click the link)

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July 2, 1787 (click to read Madison’s notes)

Summary

The delegates were deadlocked on Oliver Ellsworth’s motion to give each state one vote in the Senate with proportional representation in the House. Before adjourning for the July 4th holiday, the delegates formed a committee to discuss the motion over the break.

Influences on the Delegates

The day began with a tie vote on Ellsworth’s motion for split representation. With the failure, some alarm expressed by South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney. He worried that the chance to amend the government might be lost. Then the other Charles Pinckney from South Carolina proposed a committee to haggle over details and report a compromise.
I want to include a long passage of the speech by Gouverneur Morris. He is sometimes held up by Christian nationalists as figure who supports the Bible in schools. Rather, I think his input on religion was mixed.

Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS ¹ thought a Committee advisable, as the Convention had been equally divided. He had a stronger reason also. The mode of appointing the second branch tended, he was sure, to defeat the object of it. What is this object? To check the precipitation, changeableness, and excesses, of the first branch. Every man of observation had seen in the democratic branches of the State Legislatures, precipitation — in Congress, changeableness — in every department, excesses against personal liberty, private property, and personal safety. What qualities are necessary to constitute a check in this case? Abilities and virtue are equally necessary in both branches. Something more, then, is now wanted. In the first place, the checking branch must have a personal interest in checking the other branch. One interest must be opposed to another interest. Vices, as they exist, must be turned against each other. In the second place, it must have great personal property; it must have the aristocratic spirit; it must love to lord it through pride. Pride is, indeed, the great principle that actuates both the poor and the rich. It is this principle which in the former resists, in the latter abuses, authority. In the third place, it should be independent. In religion, the creature is apt to forget its Creator. That it is otherwise in political affairs, the late debates here are an unhappy proof. The aristocratic body should be as independent, and as firm, as the democratic. If the members of it are to revert to a dependence on the democratic choice, the democratic scale will preponderate. All the guards contrived by America have not restrained the Senatorial branches of the Legislatures from a servile complaisance to the democratic. If the second branch is to be dependent, we are better without it. To make it independent, it should be for life. It will then do wrong, it will be said. He believed so; he hoped so. The rich will strive to establish their dominion, and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security against them is to form them into a separate interest. The two forces will then control each other. Let the rich mix with the poor, and in a commercial country they will establish an oligarchy. Take away commerce, and the democracy will triumph. Thus it has been all the world over. So it will be among us. Reason tells us we are but men; and we are not to expect any particular interference of Heaven in our favor. By thus combining, and setting apart, the aristocratic interest, the popular interest will be combined against it. There will be a mutual check and mutual security.

Morris observed that human nature is animated by pride which certainly conforms to biblical teaching. Here I think we do have some evidence that this particular founder favored checks and entities with opposing interests in government to offset the negative aspects of human nature.
On the other hand, Morris didn’t look for supernatural intervention to move the delegates toward a compromise. His religion went as far as the bounds set by reason.
Having noted that Morris was apparently influenced by his religious views of human nature, I must add that the policy positions based on those views were not included in the Constitution. To his words above, Morris added:

He was also against paying the Senators. They will pay themselves, if they can. If they cannot, they will be rich, and can do without it. Of such the second branch ought to consist; and none but such can compose it, if they are not to be paid. He contended, that the Executive should appoint the Senate, and fill up vacancies. This gets rid of the difficulty in the present question. You may begin with any ratio you please, it will come to the same thing. The members being independent, and for life, may be taken as well from one place as from another. It should be considered, too, how the scheme could be carried through the States. He hoped there was strength of mind enough in this House to look truth in the face. He did not hesitate, therefore, to say that loaves and fishes must bribe the demagogues. They must be made to expect higher offices under the General than the State Governments. A Senate for life will be a noble bait.

I am not sure that his biblical reference to loaves and fishes fits his point well but in any case, he used a biblical image to illustrate his point about human nature. However, Senators don’t serve for life, are not appointed by the President, and they are paid. He relied on biblical rhetoric but his understanding of biblical principles didn’t carry the day.
At the end of the day, the delegates created a working committee and then adjourned with this note in Madison’s journal:

That time might be given to the Committee, and to such as choose to attend to the celebrations on the anniversary of Independence the Convention adjourned till Thursday.

Afterthought

Even though the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 2, the celebration was moved to July 4 because the Declaration was printed on that day. Even this short time after the events of 1776, the delegates worked on July 2nd and took off what has become the holiday we celebrate.

Perhaps trying to see how outrageous he can get, the man who was elected to be president, Donald Trump, posted the following video on Twitter.

#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017

While many of his die-hard evangelical followers were in church hearing about turning the other cheek and loving one’s enemies, Trump was tweeting a video inciting retaliation against journalists who report the news.
Jim Acosta had a good and appropriate response:

CNN response: “It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters…” pic.twitter.com/YIlYewz3Gc
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 2, 2017

Here is the clip of Sanders saying Trump never encouraged violence.
My guess is she will say he didn’t condone violence and have some rationalization for it all.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkZ1XKKnTow[/youtube]
I wonder how Trump’s court evangelicals will handle this one.
 

1787 Constitutional Convention Series

To read my series examining the proceedings of the Constitution Convention, click here.  In this series, I am writing about any obvious influences on the development of the Constitution which were mentioned by the delegates to the Convention. Specifically, I am testing David Barton’s claim that “every clause” of the Constitution is based on biblical principles. Thus far, I have found nothing supporting the claim. However, stay tuned, the series will run until mid-September.
Constitutional Convention Series (click the link)
To follow on social media, click the following links:
Facebook (blog posts and news)
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At noon (ET) tomorrow, I will be on the Moody Radio Network program “Up for Debate with Julie Roy” to discuss the question, “Should Christians Be Nationalists?”
The guest taking a contrasting position will be Ken Klulowski who is the Legal Editor at Breitbart News and Senior Counsel & Director of Strategic Affairs at the First Liberty Institute.
I originally wanted to debate whether or not America is a Christian nation.
You can listen online here: https://www.moodyradio.org/upfordebate
As background, see these posts on the subject (here, here, and here)
UPDATE: (7/1/17)
The show went well I think in that both sides had the ability to make important points. I do want to correct or least amend a couple of Ken Klukowski’s claims.
On one occasion he said he didn’t recognize James Madison from my quote of Madison and then said Madision’s views could be discerned by his vote for chaplains in Congress. He also said most of the founders had seminary degrees.
One. my Madison quote is sound and two, Klukowski did not tell the rest of the story on Madison. Later, Madison forcefully disagreed with the funding of chaplains and said so here.
On the founders and seminary degrees, this is a distortion made famous by David Barton. See this piece about that misleading claim.
See also my daily series on the Constitutional Convention:

1787 Constitutional Convention Series

To read my series examining the proceedings of the Constitution Convention, click here. In this series, I am writing about any obvious influences on the development of the Constitution which were mentioned by the delegates to the Convention. Specifically, I am testing David Barton’s claim that “every clause” of the Constitution is based on biblical principles. Thus far, I have found nothing supporting the claim. However, stay tuned, the series will run until mid-September.
Constitutional Convention Series (click the link)
To follow on social media, click the following links:
Facebook (blog posts and news)
Facebook (Getting Jefferson Right – history news)
Twitter

June 30, 1787 (Click to read Madison’s notes)

Summary

The Connecticut compromise was debated and Madison proposed that the real division of states was between slave and free, not large and small.

Influences on the Delegates

After dispensing with a motion to make a special request for New Hampshire to send delegates, the Convention got back to the dispute over representation in the legislature. Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson opined that the majority would be overrun by the minority under the Connecticut plan. Connecticut’s Oliver Ellsworth argued that Wilson was wrong, very directly invoking the positive model of Britain.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. The capital objection of Mr. WILSON, “that the minority will rule the majority,” is not true. The power is given to the few to save them from being destroyed by the many. If an equality of votes had been given to them in both branches, the objection might have had weight. Is it a novel thing that the few should have a check on the many? Is it not the case in the British Constitution, the wisdom of which so many gentlemen have united in applauding? Have not the House of Lords, who form so small a proportion of the nation, a negative on the laws, as a necessary defence of their peculiar rights against the encroachments of the Commons? No instance of a confederacy has existed in which an equality of voices has not been exercised by the members of it. We are running from one extreme to another. We are razing the foundations of the building, when we need only repair the roof. No salutary measure has been lost for want of a majority of the States to favor it. If security be all that the great States wish for, the first branch secures them.

The delegates did not search for or appeal to a Bible verse or tenet of theology. Rather over and over again, they either lauded Britain or some former republic or criticized the same on behalf of their viewpoint.
Madison rebutted Ellsworth by appealing to European and ancient governments.

Mr. MADISON did justice to the able and close reasoning of Mr. ELLSWORTH, but must observe that it did not always accord with itself. On another occasion, the large States were described by him as the aristocratic States, ready to oppress the small. Now the small are the House of Lords, requiring a negative to defend them against the more numerous Commons. Mr. ELLSWORTH had also erred in saying that no instance had existed in which confederated states had not retained to themselves a perfect equality of suffrage. Passing over the German system, in which the King of Prussia has nine voices, he reminded Mr. ELLSWORTH of the Lycian confederacy, in which the component members had votes proportioned to their importance, and which Montesquieu recommends as the fittest model for that form of government. Had the fact been as stated by Mr. ELLSWORTH, it would have been of little avail to him, or rather would have strengthened the arguments against him; the history and fate of the several confederacies, modern as well as ancient, demonstrating some radical vice in their structure.

Madison then introduced a prophetic but absurd (in my view) idea.

These two causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in the United States. It did not lie between the large and small States. It lay between the Northern and Southern; and if any defensive power were necessary, it ought to be mutually given to these two interests. He was so strongly impressed with this important truth, that he had been casting about in his mind for some expedient that would answer the purpose. The one which had occurred was, that, instead of proportioning the votes of the States in both branches, to their respective numbers of inhabitants, computing the slaves in the ratio of five to three, they should be represented in one branch according to the number of free inhabitants only; and in the other, according to the whole number, counting the slaves as free. By this arrangement the Southern scale would have the advantage in one House, and the Northern in the other. He had been restrained from proposing this expedient by two considerations; one was his unwillingness to urge any diversity of interests on an occasion where it is but too apt to arise of itself; the other was the inequality of powers that must be vested in the two branches, and which would destroy the equilibrium of interests.

Madison’s thoughts did not catch on. The delegates went back to debating the matter of representation without another mention of slavery.
Britain came up again as a positive model, this time raised by Deleware’s Gunning Bedford.

Can it be expected that the small States will act from pure disinterestedness. Look at Great Britain. Is the representation there less unequal? But we shall be told again, that that is the rotten part of the Constitution. Have not the boroughs, however, held fast their constitutional rights? And are we to act with greater purity than the rest of mankind? An exact proportion in the representation is not preserved in any one of the States.

Bedford also invokes the example of Athenian politician Solon:

We must, like Solon, make such a government as the people will approve. Will the smaller States ever agree to the proposed degradation of them? It is not true that the people will not agree to enlarge the powers of the present Congress. The language of the people has been, that Congress ought to have the power of collecting an impost, and of coercing the States where it may be necessary.

Angus King of Massachusetts used Britain and Scotland as an example of how states might interact in a union.

As the fundamental rights of individuals are secured by express provisions in the State Constitutions, why may not a like security be provided for the rights of States in the National Constitution? The Articles of Union between England and Scotland furnish an example of such a provision, in favor of sundry rights of Scotland. When that union was in agitation, the same language of apprehension which has been heard from the smaller States, was in the mouths of the Scotch patriots. The articles, however, have not been violated, and the Scotch have found an increase of prosperity and happiness.

On the key division of the day — representation in the legislature — the delegates did not look for guidance from Christian theology or the Bible. Even after Ben Franklin appealed to the delegates to get Heaven involved, the delegates continued to rely on their reason and powers of persuasion. They used Britain, Rome, Athens, and Europe as models, both positive and negative. Contrary to the claims of David Barton and other Christian nationalists, the delegates did not seek a Constitution founded on biblical principles. They sought a plan which was reasonable and fair and would address the flaws in former governments without losing the benefits of republican government.
 

1787 Constitutional Convention Series

To read my series examining the proceedings of the Constitution Convention, click here.  In this series, I am writing about any obvious influences on the development of the Constitution which were mentioned by the delegates to the Convention. Specifically, I am testing David Barton’s claim that “every clause” of the Constitution is based on biblical principles. Thus far, I have found nothing supporting the claim. However, stay tuned, the series will run until mid-September.
Constitutional Convention Series (click the link)
To follow on social media, click the following links:
Facebook (blog posts and news)
Facebook (Getting Jefferson Right – history news)
Twitter