Primary sources.

In response to my last post describing my plan for American History, commenter Christy linked a website with a number of history teaching resources.  A short article on reading primary sources got my attention, if only because I'd recently grabbed a slim Dover paperback of significant American political speeches and writings, most of which I'd never read before, and read them aloud to Mark during a long drive.  I picked it up to energize myself about teaching American history, my education in which was more than a little short on primary sources and a little long on drum-beating and reading agenda-driven fictional accounts (commenter Christy will know what I mean) and which ended somewhere in the Truman administration when June arrived sooner than the teacher was apparently expecting.

So I started with Andrew Jackson's veto of the Bank Bill, which startled us because neither Mark nor I had remembered anything at all about that; read Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, which makes me want to read more speeches by him; read Jefferson's inaugural address (which appears to end with a veryJeffersonian version of "...and God bless the United States of America"); and went on with one of the Federalist Papers.  All very interesting, and surprisingly timely.  (Briefly:  Grumblings about special interest groups are not a recent development.  Neither are speechwriters.)  These are definitely not accessible to a third-grader.  I wonder if the average third-grade teacher has read them.  I would hope that the high school history teachers have.  Wonder why we were never assigned any of these to read?

(To be sure, when I find some primary sources that are accessible to a third-grader, I'll be bookmarking them.  And I will be thinking ahead:  as I find documents that I absolutely want to be part of my future high-schoolers' education, I'll save them, and try to make sure they get the writer's biography as a middle-schooler.)

So here's a specific question, along the lines of the ones we're supposed to be asking about our primary sources.  So far, the document in the book that held my attention the most is Washington's farewell address (turns out that it's not really an address; it wasn't delivered as a speech, but was rather printed up and distributed generally; and also turns out that it was heavily co-written and redacted by James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton). 

In it, Washington literally warns future Americans not to fall prey to a number of specific political dangers and so lose their liberty.  I won't go into them (that would be ridiculous when the original document is right here) but I want to point out the one that I have the most questions about, context wise.  I can see why Washington is worried about most of them.  But what specific threat did he have in mind when, in this political speech with unity as its main point -- this speech that would lose its force if he directly attacked any significant faction -- when he wrote this dire warning?

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

So what I want to know is, who did Washington think was "labor[ing] to subvert" religion and morality?  Is this a general warning, or is he obliquely referring to a specific issue of the time?  I make the following guesses in near-complete ignorance.  Is he thinking of people who were opposed to a state-established religion?  Is he thinking of members of particular sects?  Was there some group or individual trying to make a point that one can have morality without religion, and who were they?  Does that mean "morality without religion" or does it mean "morality without a religion?" 

I know I blog about religion a lot, so you may be thinking that it's that interest that highlighted the passage.  But really, it just struck me, more than did the other warnings in the document, as a passage that I don't understand sufficiently because of obviously necessary contextual information that I utterly lack.

ADDED:  An accessible version.  Writing a "translation" like this -- there are many good choices of document -- sounds like a pretty good high school assignment to me.

ADDED:  And who could forget H. L. Mencken's classic version of the Declaration of Independence?  (which kind of needs to be retranslated at this point -- he wrote it in 1923, and the only thing I remember about the IWW is the word "Wobblies", and it contains... insensitive language.)

Comments

[Christy P]

There was an article in either Smithsonian or National Geographic (in order of probability) recently about the founding fathers and religion. How they wouldn't have called themselves Christian, but would have accepted a label of deist. So rather than tantalize you, I just quick searched the archives of both magazines and came up empty. It was in some mag that I read in the pumping room though, so the only other options are Mother Jones (low probability), Nat Geog Traveler (lower), The Nation (definitely not, as I have sense-memory of glossy pages), and if it was longer ago than I think, The New Yorker. I'll pass it on if and when found.

[bearing]

Christy, I'm trying to remember if that was true of Washington specifically -- I know Franklin and Jefferson were famously Deist, but I thought Washington was a garden-variety Anglican. Could be bad memory on my part.

That being said, though, Washington's actual religion is sort of beside the point when it comes to that passage. It could have been written by a member of almost any established religion, by a "cult of one" as I seem to remember Jefferson describing himself, or (less plausibly but still possibly) by a practical-minded atheist outlining the characteristics likely to lead to favorable politicians.

What I'm wondering is if Washington has any specific contemporary interest groups or movements in mind when he alludes to people who say morality is possible without religion, or to people who undermine morality and religion together. Is he thinking of a particular political opponent? I'm just wondering if there was anybody openly opposing religion per se, or anyone Washington wanted to accuse of same, in the immediate postrevolutionary period.

[Christy P]

The same article that I irritatingly can't find talked about how Washington resisted speaking of God in speeches and didn't attend church - this could qualify at garden variety Anglican, but I don't know. It's not really something that I thought much about. I'll keep looking though!

[Ray from MN]

Probably the principle threat to "religion" would have been the ideas and personages of the Enlightenment that contributed to the French Revolution.

Storming of the Bastille July 14, 1789.

Declaration of the Rights of Man

Suppression of the Church and religious orders; confiscation of property

Execution of the King; Reign of Terror

Napoleon

At the end of Washington's term of office in 1797, the king was dead, the nobility was on the run, the Church was disestablished and all its property owned by the state, the numbers and names of months were changed and Napoleon was the strongest man in Europe.

England, Prussia, Austria and Spain just cowered.

[bearing]

*slaps forehead*

I didn't even think to look outside the U. S. for a possible candidate. Obviously the leaders of the young United States would have been watching events in France very closely. And there was a huge movement to throw out the established religion in France as part of the French revolution.

Thanks, Ray, that sounds very plausible.