Mar 27 1999, 3:00 am
Newsgroups: alt.history.colonial
From: jali... RemoveThis @pilot.infi.net
Date: 1999/03/27
Subject: Re: New Book: Was America founded upon Christianity or Deism?
B15... RemoveThis @webtv.net (Gene Smith) wrote:
>:|Since colonial America had no regular schools of law, and lawyers
>:|educated in England were few , Blackstone's four volume Commentaries on
>:|the laws of England (l765-l1769) served as the bible of American
lawyers
>:|for generations . Nearly as many copies of Blackstone were sold
>:|in the colonies as in England, dispite the disparity in population. It
>:|was from Blackstone that most Amreicans , including John Marshall,
>:|aquired the knowledge of natual law. Ref: Judicial Supremancy: The
>:|Supreme Court on Trial, p.10
Not everyone in America was impressed with blackstone or his works.
John Q Adams was not, Madison felt Blackstone was out to lunch regarding
freedom of the press, Jefferson wasn't that thrilled with him in many
instances.
>
>:|Evidence of Blackstone's influence in America comes from a ten year
>:|research of 15,000 articles written during the founding era
>{1760-1805} .The research revealed that Blackstone was one of the two
>:|men qouted
>:|most frequently by our Founders. See.
>:|The Origins of the American Consittution ,
>p.57
>
> The number of times that our Founders
>:|quoted Blackstone testifies to the impact that
>:|he had on their thinking and to the respect they paid him.
>
>
> 5) The two most often quoted sources by the founders were,
first, the
>:|Bible, and second, William Blackstone's Common Law Commentaries
(See Hyneman &
>:|Lutz).
You had better go back and read those people's findings again. You are
leaving out a very large part of what they discovered.
On page 17 of Mr. Eidsmoe's advidavit he mentions the work of Dr. Donald S
Lutz and Dr. Charles Hyneman. In Feb past, Tom Peters was preparing for a
debate with some Fundamentalists in Louisville, Ky over one of David
Barton's commercial videos claiming this is a Christian nation, separation
is a myth, etc. On the Video in question which was going to be used as the
focus of the debate, David Barton had made mention of this same material.
Tom Peters asked me via email what I (Jim Allison) knew about this
information, and the following was my answer back to him in regards to
that
matter. Uncensored I might add,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ok here we go, CHRISTIANITY AND THE CONSTITUTION, The Faith of Our
Founding
Fathers, by John Eidsmoe with forward by D. James Kennedy
Page 51
"Two professors (now u know you can't trust professors, LOL) Donald S
Lutz, and Charles S Hyneman have reviewed an estimated 15,000 items, and
closely read 2,200 books (these must be two really old people 2,200 books
closely read? ) pamphlets, newspaper articles, and monographs with
explicitly political content printed between 1760 and 1805. They reduced
this to 916 items, about 1/3 of all public political writings longer than
2000 words.
From these items, Lutz and Hyneman identified 3,154 references to other
sources. The source most often cited by the founding fathers was the
bible,
which accounted for 34 percent of all citations. The Fifth book of the
bible, Deuteronomy, because of its heavy emphasis on biblical law, was
referred to frequently.
At the top of page 52 there is a chart and the first line of the chart
shows the percentage the bible was referred to
1760's 24%
1770's 44%
1780's 34%
1790's 29%
1800 - 05 38% for an over all average of 34%
Next in line was enlightenment and it carries an overall average of 22%
Whig is next with an overall average of 18%
Next is Common Law which is listed at 11% followed by
classical at 9% peers at 4% and others at 2%
Where this was published is suppose to have been Donald S Lutz, THE
RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN WRITERS ON LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
POLITICAL
THOUGHT." AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 189 (1984) 189-197.
Ok that's it, there are some other charts listing individual people like
Blackstone, Locke, Hume, Coke Milton etc in the order he claims they were
cited and Blackstone came in second at 7.9% with Montesquieu leading among
individuals with 8.3%..
I have some problems with the above information. All the numbers seems
like
just that a lot of numbers but I am not sure any real bridges are
established between them definning exactly what all is considered. We also
are covering a 45 year period of time and only the vague term founding
fathers used. Lower case letters at that for founding fathers so how many
people and who exactly are these people. How many were fire and brimstone
New England preachers of the time frame 1760 to 1780 are there using
speeches delivered from Sunday Pulpits prior to and during the war of
Independence.
How many of these people were the people who really were Founders and were
considered for the time frame of the creation of this government.
Now to be fair he lists 216 items were examined for the 1760s, 544 for the
1770's, 1306 for the 1780's 674 for the 1790's, and 414 for the 1800-05
But again no way of knowing just what those items are or who said them or
wrote them etc.
But here is what I have to offer as rebuttal show and tell again.
if you want to go to which ever one of your libraries (regular or law)
that
has them and look at the 12 published volumes of THE DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
OF THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. (Don't be fooled by the
numbering,
the books aren't published in a proper order. The published volumes thus
far are 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
if you look at volume 13 you will find on page 601 of the index the
heading
Biblical References and it contains 24 page numbers listed for it. Volume
13 contains at least 579 pages of material from the people of those times.
For the three Virginia volumes you will find in the index under Biblical
References 46 page numbers which contain Biblical references on them.
These
three books contain at least 1692 pages of historical material from
the men
of those times.
So what we find is 67 pages listed as containing some reference to the
Bible out of a total of at least a total of 2271 pages of actual
historical
documents, letters, newspaper articles, pamphlets, etc.
You can look at the remaining volumes there and you will find some indexes
don't even list Biblical references but the % doesn't change for the other
volumes that do contain such references.
If you take one of these book to your debate and let people see for
themselves I think the point will be made quite clearly.
Ok first level of stuff from Regent.
While there we found and copied the ten pages that make up the Lutz
article as it appeared when it was published in 1984 in the AMERICAN
POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW.
Some additional light is shed on the information. Some of the material
that was used is given after all and some of it was THE COMPLETE
ANTI-FEDERALIST,
I have researched those six volumes that make up THE COMPLETE
ANTI-FEDERALIST in the past, and am aware of the religious references that
are in those books and was not impressed with their quanity.
Some other anti-federalist material unnamed, and some federalist material
which is unnamed.
It does say that "the proceedings of legislatures and conventions were not
included." it doesn't say why.
Another point made was that, "a citation count need not distinguish
between
positive and negative citations."
The bible could have been cited in a positive way or negative way, doesn't
matter it was counted both ways..
Weaknesses of this method is, "that it cannot distinguish among citations
that represent the borrowing of an idea, the adapting of an idea, the
approval of an idea, the opposition of an idea, or an appeal to
authority."
The purpose of this research was to try and determine the influence
European writers etc had on American political thought and in regards to
the Bible no real effort was made to determine just why the results or the
actual meaning of the results. But the highest % in regards to the Bible
was in the 1760's to 1780's period, the period of time when the actual
Constitution and BOR was being written debated ratified etc had the lowest
Biblical citations the 1780's and 1790's were 34% and 29% respectively
which was the lowest citation periods. (we know from the experiment above
had that material been included it would have been even lower)
Much of the Bible citations were a result of sermons that were
published in
pamphlet forms and handed out much of the pre war of Independence period.
In fact this form of publishing represented about 10% of the total
publishing done in this nation at that time. Of course we have 16 years of
this 45 year period of time (1760 to 1776) with 9 of the colonies still
being under various forms of establishments. This study may give some
insights into what influence the Europeans had on American Political
thought but it is a far cry from giving any meaning or insight as to what
if any accurate meaning the figures they came up with concerning the bible
citation indicated or really meant.
The pattern of citations during the years 1787 and 1788 was, "The Bible's
prominence disappears, which is not surprising since the debate centered
upon specific institutions which the bible had little to say. The
anit-federalists do drag it in with respect to basic principles of
government but the federalists inclination to enlightenment is most
evident
here in their failure to consider the bible relevant."
They include a chart here that lists the total for citations for the bible
for 1780's at 34% a repeat of the other chart but it lists only
federalists
and anti-federalits and list federalists at 0% and anti-federalists at 9%
apparently whomever made up the other 25% were neither federalists or
anti-federalists. So it makes one think who were they? They didn't appear
to be very political since the two named groups mad up the bulk of the
political thinking of the times.
There is no further additions to the Bible findings added in the
conclusion
and that isn't surprising since it was just an interesting sidelight found
while conducting a study of something else totally different.
So depending on exactly what Barton tries to make of this information it
really isn't that important. I also don't particularly like the fact that
so much of the entire political debate as indicated in the 12 volume
set of
books appears to have been left out. Those results would have lowered the
overall Bible citation % quiet a bit for that time period. I also cannot
for the life of me recall anything like one third of any possible
citations in the Complete anti federalist being religious in any form
There
just wasn't that much in there and I made note of and checked out every
reference to religion that was given in the index for all six volumes.
Anyways that is that.
I just sent you the results of my work with this claim and have only one
more thing to add.
The selection process predetermines the outcomes.
While in the world of scholarship and academia the research that was done
might have been acceptable, I find that the lack of naming the source
material in any better way then they did and the total opposite results to
be found in the books I consulted is disturbing.
Of course there is also the issue of who cited anything and how often did
people cite anything.
That wasn't addressed and is important to know.
I suppose that cites on 67 pages out of roughly 2100 pages pertaining to
the bible might represent 34% of the total cites to be found in those 2100
pages. But what does it mean if that was the case. It means people didn't
cite anything much and the bible even less. No conclusions such as Barton
might be trying to form or might want to imply to others is gonna be
supported by that information.
(BTW one additional item. In those 67 pages the reference might have only
been ne single sentence on the entire page, it doesn mean all that was
contained on that page was about the Bible.)
********************************************************************************\
*
And
Separation of Church and State Home Page
How often did the founders quote the Bible?
Research by Jim Allison and Tom Peters.
In the first version of his videotape, America 's Godly Heritage, David
Barton makes reference to two University of Houston researchers who
studied
the most frequently cited authors in the writings of the founding fathers.
According to Barton, these researchers concluded that 94% of all the
citations found in these writings were either to the Bible, or to authors
who based their conclusions on the Bible. This, he concludes, demonstrates
the profound influence of the Bible on the Constitution.
While Barton doesn't name the researchers in his videotape, he refers to
them in his recent book, Original Intent. Barton's reference is to The
Origins of American Constitutionalism (hereafter, Origins), a 1988 book by
political scientist Donald Lutz. On pages 136-149 of Origins, Lutz
summarizes the results of a 1984 paper in which he and colleague Charles
Hyneman analyze some 15,000 items of American political commentary
published between 1760 and 1805 ("The Relative Influence of European
Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought," The
American Political Science Review, 78 (1984), pp. 189-197; hereafter,
Relative Influence). The purpose of the paper was to determine the sources
that most influenced the development of American political thought during
our nation's founding period.
Does Lutz's and Hyneman's research support Barton's conclusions about the
Bible and the Constitution? In some ways, the answer is "yes." In
particular, Lutz and Hyneman demonstrate that the Bible was the most
frequently quoted source between 1760 and 1805, and he concludes that
future research on the development of American political thought should
include increased attention to "biblical and common law sources" (Relative
Influence, p. 190). It is perfectly reasonable that Barton would use this
evidence to support his argument, and we have no quarrel with that aspect
of Barton's case.
But this isn't all that Lutz concludes. Lutz also devotes a full
section of
his article to political writings about the Constitution, and these data
largely refute Barton's conclusions. Needless to say, Barton doesn't
report
these data, despite their relevance to his argument. Additionally, Barton
attributes to Lutz and Hyneman conclusions they do not reach about the
importance of the Bible during the founding period. Accordingly, Barton's
treatment of Lutz's data is both selective and dishonest.
Let's begin with Barton's 94% figure. In the videotape, Barton breaks it
down as follows: 34% ofthe founder's quotations were taken directly from
the Bible, and 60% were from authors that base their conclusions on the
Bible. The 34% figure, at least, is accurate; this corresponds exactly to
Lutz's and Hyneman's conclusions with respect to the total percentage of
citations between 1760 and 1805. But where does the 60% figure come from?
Not from the paper; Lutz and Hyneman provide no category of citations that
even remotely corresponds to "authors that base their conclusions on the
Bible." Rather, the 60% figure is manufactured by Barton himself on the
basis of his own reading of other authors that scored highly in Lutz and
Hyneman's survey people like Montesquieu, Blackstone, and Locke. You would
not know this from the videotape, which reports the 60% figure as if it
were the conclusions of Lutz and Hyneman themselves. [Note: there are a
number of problems with this 60% figure. In particular, Barton overstates
the degree to which these authors used the Bible in reaching their own
conclusions. We'll do an article on this issue at a later time.]
Beyond this, what exactly does this 94% figure prove? Barton wants us to
think that because the founders quoted at length from the Bible, or people
that quoted the Bible, the Constitution must somehow embody Biblical law,
be "based" on the Bible. or otherwise have the Bible in mind. But this
doesn't follow; the fact that the Bible was frequently quoted is not the
same thing as saving it was quoted for the purpose of creating a legal
code
or the Constitution, Indeed, Lutz's and Hyneman's data suggest that the
Bible was for the most part irrelevant to the Constitution, and that what
connections there were between the Bible and the Constitution are not of
the type that support Barton's claims.
First, Barton does not report the most relevant evidence from Lutz's
article: in addition to their general citation count from 1760 to 1805,
Lutz and Hyneman compile a count specific to political debate on the
Constitution between the years 1787 and 1788 (the years corresponding to
the drafting and ratification of the Constitution). According to Lutz,
this
sample "comes close to exhausting" the literature written on the
Constitution during this period (Relative Influence, p. 194). If the
founders believed that the Bible was truly relevant to the Constitution,
Biblical citations should appear in abundance in this sample, but, they
don't. On the contrary, Biblical citations are virtually nonexistent in
this sample. According to Lutz, federalist (i.e., pro-Constitution)
writers
never quoted the Bible in their political writings between 1 787 and 1
788.
Conversely. anti-federalist writers quoted the Bible only 9% of the time.
According to Lutz:
The Bible's prominence disappears, which is not surprising since the
debate centered upon specific institutions about which the Bible has
little
to say. The Anti-Federalists do drag it in with respect to basic
principles
of government, but the Federalist's inclination to Enlightenment
rationalism is most evident here in their failure to consider the Bible
relevant....The debate surrounding the adoption of the Constitution was
fought out mainly in the context of Montesquieu, Blackstone, the
English
Whigs, and major writers of the Enlightenment (Relative /nfluence, pp.
194-195, emphasis ours).
Additionally, Barton omits Lutz's breakdown of sources for his 34% figure.
Three fourths of the Biblical citations in Lutz's 1760 to 1805 sample
come,
not from secular sources, but from reprinted sermons (one of the most
popular types of political writing during these years). Conversely the
Bible accounts for only 9% of all citations in secular literature, about
equal to the number of citations from classical authors (Origins, p. 140).
Hence, were it not for the political activity of religious clergy, the
Bible would be tied for fourth place among source citations during
1760 and
1805.
Interestingly, Barton's reference to Lutz's work in Original Intent is not
to Lutz's article, but to Origins, Lutz's later book. Lutz's book reports
his 1984 data in abbreviated form, and does not refer to his citation
count
for the years 1787 to 1788, or the conclusions he draws from that count. A
reader that simply follows Barton's citations, in other words, would be
ignorant of this data. At the same time, no reader of Lutz book would
likely come away with the feeling that the Constitution was written with
the Bible particularly in mind. As Lutz documents, by the time of the
Constitution, American political theory was a rich tapestry of ideas drawn
from many different sources; the Bible and colonial covenant theology were
simply two of many influences that played in the minds of the American
founders.
In the end, Lutz's work is far more supportive of separation than of
accomodationism. Did the founder's quote the Bible in their political
writings? Of course they did, and there is nothing remarkable about that
fact. Lutz's data suggest that, whatever the cultmal influence of the
Bible, it did not play much of a role in the construction of the
Constitution. On the contrary, the Constitution is a secular document
concerned with the nuts and bolts issues of how to create a workable
nation
in a land of economic, cultural, and religious diversity. It simply
did not
touch on matters relevant to the Bible.
TOM PETERS, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
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JAlison & SBatte
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The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
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American Theocrats - Past and Present
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The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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