Jasper Adams (1793-1841), an American clergyman, is best known for his arguments that the Constitution and other documents recognized Christianity as the national religion. This argument appeared to contradict the provision in the First Amendment that prohibited the establishment of such a religion.
Adams delivered a key sermon on his argument in 1833 at St. Michael’s Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and subsequently published it as “The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States” that same year.
He mailed the work to prominent Americans, a number of whom responded. Adams’ publication, and subsequent responses, have been compiled and explained by Professor Daniel L. Dreisbach of American University into an extremely helpful book published in 1996.
Dreisbach points out that Adams’ sermon was delivered the same year that Massachusetts disestablished the Congregational Church, the last state to eliminate such an establishment. President Andrew Jackson had followed the Jeffersonian policy of strict separation of church and state, even opposing the issuance of national days of prayer and Thanksgiving. The country had also been extremely agitated by the movement to stop delivery of Sunday mail.
Although Dreisbach was not completely clear about the details, he also noted how in 1827, the Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely (1786-1861), a Philadelphia Presbyterian minister, had proposed establishing “a Christian party in politics” in a discourse entitled “The Duty of Christian Freemen to Elect Christian Rulers.” He had claimed that “We are a Christian nation: we have a right to demand that all our rulers in their conduct shall conform to Christian morality; and if they do not, it is the duty and privilege of Christian freemen to make a new and better election” (Dreisbach 1996, 8).
At about the same time, South Carolina was roiled by a controversy involving Thomas Cooper (1759-1823), the president of South Carolina College, who had shared Thomas Jefferson’s contempt for Presbyterian clergymen and had argued vigorously for the separation of church and state. At the time, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story was contesting Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that the common law had not incorporated Christian principles.
Adams’ sermon arguing for Christian nation
Adams, in addition to be a member of the clergy, was also a college professor and college president. He was educated at Brown University, the Andover Theological Seminary and Yale.
He devoted much of his famous 1833 sermon to historical analysis dating back to the nation of Israel and to Roman Emperor Constantine’s later declaration that Christianity would be the official religion of Rome.
Adams believed the problem was that this establishment became “a legal preference of one form of Christianity over all others” (Dreisbach 1996, 40). Admitting that this had led “to flagrant abuses and gross corruptions” (p. 41), which the First Amendment had corrected, Adams did not think that Americans had intended to “renounce all connection with the Christian religion” (42). Adams argued that the rise and progress of America, and of western civilization in general, had been tied to Christianity.
In seeking to prove this, Adams detailed religious motivations for settling colonial America, and the continuing references to religion in early state constitutions. Adams described his conclusion in all caps: “THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE RETAINED THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AS THE FOUNDATION OF THEIR CIVIL, LEGAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS; WHILE THEY HAVE REFUSED TO CONTINUE A LEGAL PREFERENCE TO ANY ONE OF ITS FORMS OVER THE OTHER” (46).
Whereas some argued that the establishment clause of the First Amendment said otherwise, Adams declared that “This leaves the entire subject in the same situation in which it found it; and such was precisely the most suitable course” (46). Here, as elsewhere, Adams put most of the evidence for his assertion in a footnote.
Adams argued Article VII of U.S. Constitution formally recognizes Christianity
His primary argument, which he may well have been the first to make, was to refer to Article VII of the U.S. Constitution specifying how it would be ratified, which refers to its proposal “in the year of our Lord, 1787” (63) as constituting formal recognition of Christianity. Adams observed that “the word Lord means the Lord Jesus Christ, and the word our preceding it, refers back to the commencing words of the Constitution; to wit, ‘We the people of the United States’” (63). He argued that this “contains a distinct recognition of the authority of Christ, and of course, of his religion by the people of the United States” (63). Noting that the document also referred back to the Declaration of Independence, Adams argued that “Any argument which should be supposed to prove, that the authority of Christianity is not recognized by the people of the United States in the first mode, would equally prove that the Independence of the United States is not recognized by them in the second mode” (63).
Adams further pointed to the clause in Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution exempting Sundays from the business days during which a president had to veto a bill as another recognition of Christianity, although he reserved his primary evidence (also mostly in a footnote) on acknowledgements of religion in state constitutions.
Adams argued that “to have abolished Christianity, or to have shewn indifference to its sacred nature and claims in framing their political institutions, would have been committing a great national sin” and might have brought about divine judgment (48). He believed that Christian moral principles were essential to the continuing existence of republican government. As he phrase it: “We must be a Christian nation, if we wish to continue [to be] a free nation” (52).
Reflecting continuing concerns about the secular nature of the French Revolution, Adams observed that such infidelity had led to national decline. In nations that supported Christianity, it had tamed baser human instincts and had provided for “the poor, the sick and the forsaken” (55). The institution of marriage had further been a bulwark for family life.
Early Supreme Court justices on Christianity and the U.S.
In responding to his copy of Adams’ sermon, Chief Justice John Marshall agreed that “the American population is entirely Christian, & with us, Christianity & Religion are identified. It would be strange, indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, & did not often refer to it, & exhibit relations with it,” although he added that “Legislation on the subject is admitted to require great delicacy, because freedom of conscience & respect for our religion both claim our most serious regard” (113-114).
Justice Joseph Story, who had sparred with Jefferson on whether U.S. common law was based on Christianity, agreed “that governments can not long exist without an alliance with religion to some extent; & that Christianity is indispensable to the true interests & solid foundations of all free governments” (114).
James Madison, the chief architect of the First Amendment, was far more guarded. He believed that governmental financial support for religion should be avoided and that such finances should “be left to the voluntary provisions of those who profess it” (117). He further cited the continuing flourishing of Christianity in America as a sign that Christianity was not dependent upon governmental support.
In what might be interpreted as something of a retreat from Jefferson’s metaphor of a wall of separation between church and state that he had used in writing to the Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, Madison did acknowledge:
that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation, between the rights of Religion & the Civil authority, with such distinctness, as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side, or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or usurpation on one side, or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference, in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others (p. 120).
South Carolina jurist John Smythe Richardson told Adams that his sermon “is distinctly the best antidote to the threatening spread of infidelity that I have seen” (121).
Critic says Christianity as national religion would undermine freedom of conscience
The most thorough critique of Adams’ sermon was anonymously published in the American Quarterly Review in 1835 under the title “Immunity of Religion” by an individual (or individuals) who was obviously familiar with the law. It arguably gained some of its force by its author’s profession, in the first-person plural, that “we are humble believers in the truth of the Christian Scriptures” including its records of miracles (127).
Although the reviewer shared Adams’ Christian faith, he accused him of having “aimed a blow at the Constitution of the United States,” which he described as “one of the main pillars of our liberty” (127). He explained that “He has invaded, and attempted to destroy freedom of conscience, and on its ruins to erect intolerance and odious discriminations for religion’s sake” (127).
The reviewer observed that recognizing Christianity as the official religion would requiring what that religion was. Would it include Roman Catholics, Unitarians, or others who deviated from traditional orthodoxy?
The reviewer observed that “Civil government is intended for the regulation of social man—for the promotion and security of human happiness here on earth. It is intended for this world—not the next. It should protect us in the enjoyment of our personal rights and property. It should not interfere with our opinions and faith” (131).
The reviewer proceeded to argue that colonial charters and early state constitutions were irrelevant in interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, he believed that much of the colonial record was a record of religious intolerance that should not be emulated. Moreover, most newer state constitutions had eliminated religious preferences.
The reviewer was particularly dismissive of the argument that reference of the year of our Lord was anything more than “a mere mode of speech” (141). He further denied that in replacing its constitution in 1790 that South Carolina had intended to preserve early requirements providing for an established church. He noted that Jews and other non-Christians held offices in the state, and resurrected arguments that the common law did not establish Christianity.
In perhaps his best rhetorical flourish, the reviewer observed that the same South Carolina laws that had provided church attendance on Sundays had also required men going to church to carry either a gun or “a good pair of horse-pistols in good order . . . with at least six charges of gunpowder and ball” (149), which they no longer did.
Contemporary Application
This debate shows that there was more than one view of the relationship between church and state in America long after the adoption of the First Amendment.
None of the participants in the debate argued that the government should oppose religion, or even Christianity, in general, but they did disagree on the degree to which the government was obligated to support Christianity as opposed to other religious beliefs, or lack thereof.
Such debates continue to be reflected in modern discussions as to whether the U.S. is Christian nation and in Supreme Court decisions that attempt to draw ever subtle lines between the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.
John R. Vile is a professor of political science and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.