American Theocrats-Past and Present

PART IV

THE NEW YORK " INDEPENDENT," 1861.
Of all the opponents of the Religious Amendment, not one has, so,
diligently hunted up difficulties and objections, so persistently and

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unfairly assailed the movement and its supporters, as the New York
Independent. And yet out of the mouth of this journal itself shall we now
condemn its recent course and justify the men upon whom it would heap
opprobrium. In the time of our national calamity it spoke the very language
which to-day it denounces as unwise and intolerant. In its leading
editorial for September 26, 1861, headed "The Lord's Indictment against the
Nation," called forth by President Lincoln's proclamation for a national
fast, after the Bull Run disaster, it says
"The President calls upon us to-day, in sorrowful remembrance of
our own faults and crimes as a nation, and as individuals, to humble
ourselves before God, and to pray for His mercy. What, then, are the faults
and crimes which stand more immediately connected with our public
calamities-the sins which as a people we are called upon to confess and
forsake ? Some are disposed to dwell almost exclusively upon that
huge organic iniquity which has struck its roots so deeply into our
national history, which spreads over so large a portion of our territory
.. . . But the root of our iniquities and calamities lies deeper even
than this; and fruitful in sins and judgments as slavery has been, it is
itself more a product than the cause of our national iniquity. . . .
Jehovah has a broader indictment against us than is represented by this one
count, even with all its frightful specifications. That indictment reads, '
Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers,
children that are corrupters! they have forsaken the Lord, they have
provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.'
To sum up the iniquity of this nation in one comprehensive charge, it is
GODLESSNESS: not atheism in the philosophical sense of denying the
existence of God, but that practical atheism which ignores the law and
authority of God and the requirements of religion in both public and
private affairs: which leaves out of view the law of God as a rule of civil
and social life, and the favor of God as an element of public prosperity.
"The specifications under this indictment are such as the
following: Dr. Bushnell , in his sermon on the Bull Run disaster, has made
prominent the fact that from the beginning we have shown our godlessness as
a nation, by ignoring the name and authority of God in the frame-work of
our political institutions. Neither the name of God, nor any reference to
His law, His government, or His providence, can be found in the
Constitution of the United States. Even the oath of fidelity administered
to the President has no recognition of God or of the sanctions of religion.
The only allusion of a religious kind in the Constitution is in the phrase,
' Sundays excepted,' in the ten days allowed the President for signing a
bill: but this is because by usage in secular business Sunday is a dies
non. The Constitution provides, as it should, against a religious
establishment, religious tests, or any infringement upon the rights of
conscience. But it does not even recognize the fact that it is an ordinance
of God for the well being of society that civil government shall exist; and
that such government should be administered upon the principles of truth,
justice, order and beneficence set forth in the moral government of God. '
We the people' made the Constitution, and ' We the people' have worshipped
it as the mirror of our own wisdom and power. Not Pharaoh boasting: ' My
river is mine own, and I have made it for myself;' not Nebuchadnezzar,
strutting upon his palace wall and saying, ' Is not this great Babylon that
I have built for the house of the

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kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?' was
more vain-glorious and atheistic than we have been in boasting of the
mechanism of our, political institutions. We have allowed all men to have
their own religion or no religion, under the Constitution ; but the
Constitution itself has nothing to do with religion except as a barrier
between it and the State! Failing to discriminate between legislating for a
particular creed or form of religion, and recognizing the great foundation
truth of all religion-the just authority of a Holy and Almighty God, we
have set up ourselves, our concrete nationality, 'We, the people,' as the
original source of all authority and power, and have worshipped the work of
our own hands. From this atheistic error in otter prime conceptions of
government has arisen the atheistic habit of separating politics from
religion; the voter must not carry his religious scruples to the political
caucus, nor set them against the party nominations at the polls; the
minister must not bring politics into the pulpit, though the legislature
should license dramsbops and brothels,. though Sodom should be rebuilt by
the Salt Lake of Utah, though man made in the image of God should be sold
like a brute under the eaves of the national capitol. Nay, in the very
Senate chamber, when Senators are warned that a measure is unjust and
against the law of God,.it is sneeringly, scornfully answered, that there
is no law higher than the Constitution. ' We, the people,' made that, and '
We, the people,' can make And unmake laws as we please. This godless habit
of thought and action has taken possession of the public mind in all
political institutions and affairs. But he that sitteth in the heavens is
teaching us that we can hold our Constitution, our Union, our government,
our nationality, only by his pleasure:"-N. Y. Independent, September 26,
1862..
Are you wonderingly asking, Is that all extracted from the
"Independent?" Yes, every word of it, and more is found to the same effect,
lard all in the leading editorial. Nor will the convention object to the
length of such art extract. What a grand " Religious Amendment" speech it
is! In those days the Independent was a power in. the land. Men of the
broadest and finest culture, and of purest piety, spoke through its
columns. Bacon, Storrs and Thompson discussed momentous questions on the
principles of a profound political philosophy, and in constant
acknowledgment of the authority of the word of God. And who can tell how
much influence this very editorial of the Independent had in giving birth
to the Religious Amendment movement? But the days of that triumvirate of
scholarship and Christian patriotism and high-cultured ability have
departed. Ichabod is written over the once glorious sheet. Digging through
the rubbish of recent years, we bring to light some of the buried grandeur
of the past. In utterances like this which I have read, when our nation
avows itself a Christian nation and takes Jehovah as its acknowledged Lord,
the memory of 'the Independent will be embalmed to latest generations.*
_______________________
· The effect upon the Independent of being thus cited as a witness to a
defect in which it h'as recently gloried as a chief excellence of the
Constitution, was very remarkable. In its issue

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HENRY A. BOARDMAN, D.D., 1862.
Among the most pointed and explicit of all the testimonies here
accumulated, as to the religious defect of our Constitution, is that of Dr.
Boardman, of Philadelphia, in a sermon preached in that city on September
14, 1862, and entitled to The Lord Reigneth." Having referred to the sins
of the nation and their just punishment, he proceeds::
"Our duty is plain. We must search and try our ways, and turn again
to the Lord. The loss of his favor will explain everything that has
happened; . And the grand aim should be to learn how we have lost his
favor, and by what means we can regain it. This is too large a theme to be
discussed within the compass of a few pages. But there is one feature of
our government too closely connected with this question and too conspicuous
to be passed by in silence. I refer, as you will readily
________________________
of February 26, it thus delivered itself: " A curious incident of the
Christian Amendment Convention was the reading by its Secretary, the Rev;
D. McAllister, with a very emphatic chuckle, of an editorial from the
Independent of September 26th, 1861, on the occasion of the National Fast
after Bull Run. The Convention enjoyed that editorial extremely, and it was
a very able one. Its most emphatic position was, that `from the beginning
we have shown our godlessness as a nation by ignoring the name and
authority of God in the framework of our political institutions.' .
.. . We had warning that this arrow was to be shot at us, stolen from our
own quiver; for we afforded Mr. Mc-Allister our politest assistance in
showing him in our own office the editorial . . . But his stolen arrow,
though not quite true, is not so crooked as Mt. McAllister would pretend.
Even then the Independent would have rejected scornfully the proposition of
these fanatics to engraft the Christian religion into the Constitution. The
utmost the Independent in its youth ever allowed was, that God, whose
existence Jews and Pagans also accept, be recognized as the source of
authority."
From the above it is evident that the editor of the Independent
lost his temper. It is difficult to explain the application of the term "
fanatics" to such men as Dr. Tayler Lewis, Prof. J. H. Seelye, Dr. A. A.
Hodge, Mr. Brunot, Judge Strong, and any number of other men of like
character, in any other way. But worse than this; the editor is not
sufficiently careful concerning the truthfulness of his statements. He
gives his readers distinctly to understand that he courteously obowed the
writer the editorial in question, and thus put into his hands a weapon of
which he had no knowledge before.- The extent of showing the editorial was
simply granting the use of the files of the Independent. Thanks were due
for this courtesy. But the editor, manifestly had no knowledge of the
editorial, was both surprised- and mortified when it was pointed out to
him, and only after a careful reading reluctantly admitted that it was the
writer of the editorial, and not Dr. Bushnell, in the: sermon referred to,
who arraigned the Constitution for its " atheistic error."
The same moral obliquity is noticeable in the attempt to deny that
the Independent, even in the, days of indiscreet "youth," favored anything
more than a bare acknowledgment of God, such as any Pagan might accept. The
burden of the indictment is, that " neither the name of God nor any
reference to his law. . . can be found in the Constitution of the
United States." Will the editor inform his readers what "Law" this is? Is
the Word of God utterly ignored as no part of his Law? Again, the
indictment reads, "The Constitution itself has nothing to do with religion
except as a barrier between it and the State!" Will: the editor vouchsafe a
definition of the religion here referred to? Was it anything but
Christianity? The following sentences from the editorial quoted, settle
this point; ."Christianity, fairly applied, produces the purest democracy.
.. When its doctrine of the divine origin and redemption of the soul, and
its precept of equal unselfish love prevail in any community, there all
factitious pride and all unrighteous authority melt into the mighty
brotherhood of humanity. The other theory of democracy regards man as by
nature independent of all authority. . . . The high priest of the one
theory is John Robinson kneeling at Leyden to commend the parting pilgrims
in, prayer to God. The high priest of the other is Voltaire at Ferney,
writing down Christ as an impostor and his religion as a weak superstition.
The fruit of the one is the Christian democracy of the Plymouth Colony; of
the other, the atheistic democracy of the first French revolution a
deified Humanity usurping the place of God, and demanding that homage to
its own pride which it refuses to God's authority."
It is to be hoped that the Independent will " wait upon the Lord,
and-renew its youth.",

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suppose-for the topic is a familiar one-to the absence of any adequate
recognition
of the sovereignty of God, and the religion of which he is the author and
object, in our Constitution, and in the practical administration of our
political system. It may be conceded that the spirit of Christianity is to
a certain extent incorporated into our Constitutions. The legal
recognition of the Sabbath, the oath on the Holy Evangelists, and the
appointment of chaplains, are, so far, an acknowledgment of the Christian
religion. But our national charter pays no homage to the Deity. His name
does not once occur in the Constitution of the United States. And, as if to
confound the charity which would refer this omission to some accidental
agency, the same atheism is repeated and perpetuated in another form no
less excusable. The coinage of the United States is without a God. . . .
Is it too much to hope that this opprobrium may be wiped away? If we have
never been taught the lesson before, we are admonished of it now, that the
° Lord reigneth.' Has not the time come to make our formal national
confession of this fundamental truth-to impress it upon our coinage; to
insert it (peradventure it may not be too late,) as the keystone of our
riven and tottering Constitution? If the country is not ready for these two
simple but significant steps in the direction of Christianity, we have been
chastened to very little purpose."-(Sermon, pages 20-23.)

DR. GEORGE JUNKIN, 1863.
This witness was long connected with Washington College, Va., and
afterwards with Lafayette College, Pa., where he was Professor of Political
,Science. In his work on " Political Fallacies," speaking of the
Constitution, he says:
"We have never believed it perfect. Doubtless some improvements are
possible;but it makes abundant provision for them, without utter
demolition. The principal defect apparent to our vision meets us at the
vestibule. The portico lacks one gem to perfect its lustre. There is union
and justice, common defence and general welfare, blessing and liberty, but
we cast our eyes about in vain for that which alone can give stability and
beauty to the whole. The Koh-i-noor, whose radiant glories crown the
grandeur of the beautiful temple, the Shekinah, is absent. The grand bond
of our national Union does not distinctly acknowledge the being of a God.
For more than forty years, a Fourth of July has seldom passed, on which I
have not preached and warned my countrymen of this defect, and told them if
it be not supplied, God would pull down their temple and bury a nation in
its ruins. This warning has been sounded forth from thousands of pulpits in
the land, and would have been much more extensively trumpeted but for the
paralyzing influence of the fallacy couched in the demagogue's double
entendre: ` Religion has nothing to do with politics.' "-Political
Fallacies, pp. 305, 306.