George Washington: America's Original Action Hero

The following article was written by Robert G. Morrison. At the time of it's publishing Morrison was the Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at Family Research Council (I do not know if he still holds that position). It is a five-part overview on the perspective and history of the impact of faith on the Founders.

I.N.A.F.I.A.S,

Lee

Psalm 91

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What the Founders Really Did on Religious Liberty: “Deeds not Words”

BY ROBERT G. MORRISON

Dispatch No. 3–George Washington Kisses the Bible.

AFTER A BLOODY war for independence and years of turmoil under the Articles of Confederation, all was triumph in the spring of 1789. Church bells rang and cannons boomed from ships in the N.Y. harbor as George Washington arrived to be sworn in as President. On April 30th, Washington appeared on a balcony at the newly re-designed Federal Hall.

Washington was keenly aware that everything he did on that solemn occasion–everything–would be setting a precedent for “millions yet unborn.” Washington did not wear his splendid military uniform. He was determined to demonstrate civilian control of the military. He wore, instead, a plain brown suit, tailor-made for him in Hartford, Connecticut. Coming out on the balcony, he saw the multitude gathered below him, stretching out on Wall and Broad Streets in Lower Manhattan. He exchanged bows with Vice President Adams, Speaker of the House Frederick Muhlenberg, and Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York State, who would administer the oath of office as prescribed by the Constitution. On a table, supported by a red velvet cushion, was a Bible. Secretary of the Senate, Samuel Otis, held the Bible as Washington repeated the oath after Chancellor Livingston.

Glancing at the Bible, Washington might have recalled the words of his favorite Psalm, the Ninety-First.

I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Washington could clearly relate its majestic cadences to his own life. He had survived smallpox and dysentery, he had come unscathed through battles with the French and Indians, the British and the Hessians.

Washington might also have thought at that tender moment of the words he would not deliver in his Inaugural Address. James Madison had persuaded him not to include the passage wherein he wrote:

Divine Providence hath not seen fit, that my blood should be transmitted or name perpetuated by the endearing though sometimes seducing channel of immediate offspring. He added that he had no child for whom I could wish to make provision—no family to build in greatness upon my country’s ruin.

George and Martha Washington’s personal tragedy–no children from their marriage—thus became in his eyes a national blessing. There was no risk of monarchy in choosing Washington as our first President. He would become father to all Americans, even to millions yet unborn.

To the words of the oath as prescribed in the Constitution, Washington added four words: So help me God. Then, before Otis could raise the Bible, Washington bowed down and kissed it. In the harbor, the Spanish warship Galveston fired a thunderous salute.

He read his Inaugural Address with some difficulty. Sen. William Maclay, whose often cranky diary gives us some of the best first-hand accounts of this period, wrote: “This great man was agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was by the leveled Cannon or pointed Musket.” Or the arrow that flies by day. That may well have been because George Washington feared God and no man.

Was God present at the creation of the American republic? Washington thought He was. He said so in his Inaugural Address:

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which [we] have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.

He went even further, not only had God guided “every step” Americans had taken to win Independence, but He had also shepherded us through the tortuous process of framing and ratifying the new Constitution. More than this, God had entrusted to us, the American people, “the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government…”

President Obama is ambivalent about American Exceptionalism. He says he believes in it, but the Brits believe in British Exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek Exceptionalism. If we seek the true source of American Exceptionalism, we must look to our beginnings, and to Washington’s Inaugural Address. George Washington’s personal motto was “Deeds not Words.” In bowing before the American people, as represented by those cheering thousands surrounding Federal Hall, he acknowledged their human dignity and their inestimable worth. In kissing the Bible, he reminds them and us of the eternal source of that dignity and our inalienable rights.

Historian Michael Novak reminds us that while Washington’s names for God—Providential Agency, Divine Author of our religion, Invisible Hand, etc.—may have seemed abstract, almost Deist., Washington’s verbs–his words for God’s actions–are clearly drawn from the Bible of the Jews and the Christians.10 This is no remote “Watchmaker” God. Washington’s God hears. He moves. He acts. He intervenes in the affairs of men.

Washington’s God is present among us. And who better to appreciate God’s actions in our history than George Washington, America’s original action hero?

“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle” (GEORGE WASHINGTON-1st President of the United States).

NEST POST: Dispatch No. 4-President Washington’s Vine and Fig Tree.

ROBERT G. MORRISON is Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at Family Research Council. He is a former teacher of American history at the high school and college levels. He served in the U.S. Department of Education and as the Washington repre­sentative of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. He re­searched Bill Bennett’s two-volume history of the U.S., America: The Last Best Hope.